Huyton

Huyton (ˈhaɪtən ) is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Knowsley, Merseyside, England. Part of the Liverpool Urban Area, it borders the Liverpool suburbs of Dovecot, Knotty Ash and Belle Vale, and the neighbouring village of Roby, with which it formed Huyton with Roby Urban District between 1894 and 1974. Historically in Lancashire, Huyton was an ancient parish which in the mid-19th century contained Croxteth Park, Knowsley and Tarbock, in addition to the township of Huyton-with-Roby. It was part of the hundred of West Derby, an ancient subdivision of Lancashire covering the south-west of the county. Huyton was first settled about 600–650 AD by Angles. The settlement was founded on a low hill surrounded by inaccessible marshy land. The first part of the name may suggest a landing-place, probably on the banks of the River Alt. Both Huyton and Roby are mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086, Huyton being spelt Hitune. Huyton-with-Roby is situated near to the south-western extremity of the former Lancashire coalfield. In the 19th century, Welsh workers settled in the area to work in nearby collieries. A Welsh-speaking Non-conformist chapel (Calvinistic Methodists) was founded in Wood Lane, Huyton Quarry. Nearby Cronton Colliery finally ceased production in March 1984, shortly before the UK miners' strike (1984–1985). Both Huyton and Roby have stations on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway (another station, Huyton Quarry, closed in 1958). The railway's construction was supervised by George Stephenson and, when it opened in 1830, it became the world's first regular passenger train service. On the day of the railway's official opening, Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington alighted the train at Roby station. During the Second World War, Huyton suffered bombing from the Luftwaffe but the scale of destruction was far less than that experienced in Liverpool, Bootle, and Birkenhead. Schoolchildren were not evacuated from Huyton, instead schools and homes were provided with air-raid shelters.