Hightown, Merseyside
| Hightown | |
|---|---|
| Village | |
 St Stephen's Church, Hightown |
|
 Hightown
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| Hightown shown within Merseyside | |
| Population | 2,063 (2011) |
| OS grid reference | SD299036 |
| Civil parish |
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| Metropolitan borough | |
| Metropolitan county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | LIVERPOOL |
| Postcode district | L38 |
| Dialling code | 0151 |
| Police | Merseyside |
| Fire | Merseyside |
| Ambulance | North West |
| EU Parliament | North West England |
| UK Parliament | |
Hightown is a village and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton in Merseyside, England, located midway between the City of Liverpool and the coastal resort of Southport. It is 8 miles north of Liverpool city centre and is located on the coast near the boundary of the Mersey Estuary and Liverpool Bay. The River Alt joins the sea at this point and forms an estuary. There is a pumping station on the River Alt at Altmouth, built 1972, as part of a programme to alleviate flooding in the area. This is on the Altcar Rifle Range, a Territorial Army base originally established in 1860 by Lt. Col. Gladstone.
The village is featured in 'Lancashire Life' magazine, May 2004 'Tales of the sea at Hightown, near Southport' pp. 150–154 by Harold Brough, photographs by John Cocks.
A dictionary of English Place-Names, A. D. Mills (OUP, Oxford, 1991) lists only a Hightown as a part of Congleton in Cheshire (there is also part of Banbury in Oxfordshire called Hightown). However specific books on Lancashire place names do list this Hightown in what was formerly Lancashire. Altmouth as a settlement features on many old maps prior to the 18th Century, north of where the village is now, part of Altcar parish. Alt Grange is recorded as 13th Century. David Mills in his book "The place-names of Lancashire" does give High Town dated 1702. However he gives no source or reference. Understandably Mills appears to have not visited the small West Lancashire coastal village or he would not have given the description "the major town .. The name appears to be modern and self-explanatory". The first recorded mention of the place name Hightown is in Nicholas Blundell’s Diaries. Nicholas Blundell’s Diaries, Vol. 3 1720 (published 1972) refers to visiting High-Town Greene on the 18 May 1722 (p. 77). There is still a village green today (oddly triangular) near the pub and railway station but unlike when Nicholas Blundell visited there are no cattle pens on it. However the earliest record of the place is probably in a probate record for Richard Riding of Moorhouses in Little Crosby husbandman from 1715. Moorhouses was a hamlet on the shore where Hightown is today, it is remembered in the name of one of the modern closes. The inventory for Richard Riding’s property records it as being of the property of “Richard Rydeing of the Hytown within Crosbie Parava.”
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