Our History

Looking back on Eastham over nearly a thousand years

A report in St Mary’s parish magazine for September 1874 quotes the welI—known American author Nathaniel Hawthorne, who was American Consul in Liverpool, as describing Eastham in his English Notes as "the finest old English village I have ever seen, with a rural aspect, utterly unlike anything in America, in its midst a venerable church with a most venerable air"

It is possible that there was a little chapel at ‘Estham’, as it was then known, before the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. The large ) manor of ‘Estham’, which then included Bromborough, was recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086, a survey of England ordered by King William I. ‘Estham’ had become the property (the most valuable in Wirral) of Hugh Lupus, Earl of Chester, who granted the tithes (taxes on land) to St Werburgh’s Abbey in Chester in 1093. (St Werburgh became Abbess of a convent there around 675 but though this was later replaced by a monastery of Benedictine monks, her name wasretained). A successor, Earl Randle Gernons, granted the manors of Eastham and Bromborough together with their churches to St Werburgh’s in about 1152. So Eastham had its own parish church then although it was still referred to as a chapel and was served by the mother church at Bromborough.

" The little chapel was probably built originally of "wattIe and daub", a lattice of tree branches filled in with mud or clay, "Iarge enough to cover the altar and to shelter the sacred elements (of bread and wine used in Holy Communion services) from the rain and storm", as historian W F Irvine wrote in 1896. It has been suggested that Norman elements can be identified in the present church (the north wall of the Stanley Chapel), although the main building period seems to have been the 13th century and early 14th century. A steeple was built around 1320. It appears that one priest served both Bromborough and Eastham at this time. Pope Honorius referred to “eccl’ias (church) de brombro’, cum capella (chapel) de estham".

The church remained the property of the Abbey until 1541. In that year, the Abbey was dissolved and the building became a Cathedral by order of Henry VIII, shortly after the Church of England broke away from the Pope. Eastham church then became the property of the Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral, who still today appoint the vicars.

The church "grew" from then on. At that time, Eastham parish then covered seven townships : Eastham, Hooton, Childer Thornton, Little Sutton, Great Sutton, Overpool, Netherpool and also part of Whitby, all but the first now being part of the borough of Ellesmere Port and Neston. In 1851 the total population of these scattered communitieswas 2,411.

 At one time the vicar had the right to pasture a horse, cow, colt, or heifer at nearby Netherpool or Hooton. Records also say that at one time he "hath all the fish taken in the river Mersey within the extent of his parish on Sundays and Fridays".