Located next to the Irish Sea, Southport is a town in north-west England and the 11th most populous city in this region. It is also a very popular seaside resort in the UK, the beautiful shorelines attracting thousands of visitors to the city every year. The city is also famous for the numerous events hosted throughout the year.
If you come here during the right time of the year, you can experience the largest independent flower show in the country, an air show at the beach, and even golf championships. Southport is very charming, having a laid-back atmosphere and gorgeous building facades.
The history of Southport appears to have begun a long time ago. The parts of the city that have names of Viking origins stand as proof that this part of England was indeed inhabited long before the country emerged. The Domesday Book also mentions settlements in the area. In fact, the earliest record that attests the presence of man in the area comes from the Middle Stone Age.
The hunters of those days liked the area for its woodlands, fish, shellfish, and large populations of elk and deer. Also, Roman coins were found in the area of the city as well, more precisely at Crossens and Halsall Moss. The Romans did not settle in the area, but the coins indicated that they traveled here or had settlements in the proximity of the city.
The Domesday Book mentions the existence of “Otergimele” as the name of the first settlement where Southport was going to develop much later on. In the book, there’s a mention that Otergimele had 200 inhabitants in a number of 50 huts. A primitive church was also built, the parish receiving the name North Meols. Due to the abundant fish in the surrounding waters, the fishing industry thrived here and led to the appearance of the first hamlets around the parish.
Toward the end of the 18th century, spa towns emerged across the inland and people visited the seashores to bathe in the salty waters of the sea, for improving their health and well-being. Bathing houses appeared, partially due to the recommendations of doctors to use saltwater for bathing, as a remedy for better health. During the 19th century, Southport developed even more and exceeded Blackpool’s popularity with its finer resort reputation.
This was also due to the fact that the resort enjoyed a canal system as a convenient access way. Other resorts of the kind were accessed with difficulty until a proper railways system was put in place. It is worth mentioning that Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte lived in exile on the Lord Street in Southport before he returned to France to be elected president and end up the Emperor of France.
In 1912, Ainsdale and Birkdale, two adjoining villages, contributed to the expansion of Southport, by becoming part of the county borough. In 1925, the town was left without a lifeboat and, after a set of tragedies that struck its inhabitants in the 1980s, the families in Southport began raising money to get their much-needed lifeboat. The lifeboat operates entirely on the donations made by the public. Up to this date, the city developed beautifully and it truly deserves its name of a fine seaside resort.
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