Does the Wirral Have its Own Identity?
If you look on a map of England, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the Wirral is essentially a part of Liverpool. The two areas are separated by little more than small stretch of water that is short enough for two tunnels to travel underneath, allowing cars to pass from one part of the country to another. The reality, though, is much more complicated than that.
There are parts of the Wirral that associated themselves closely with Liverpool, whilst some other parts of it would prefer not to think of themselves as being all that close to it. The Wirral is a complicated part of Merseyside that both does and doesn’t have its own identity.
Birkenhead & Wallasey
The term ‘Plastic Scouser’ will often be used for people from the Wirral. When that is the case, it is usually directed at people that have a thick Scouse accent in spite of the fact that they aren’t actually from Liverpool. More often than not, such people will come from areas like Birkenhead, Rockferry and Wallasey.
These are parts of the Wirral that are less economically sound than other areas, with some of the inhabitants working at the likes of Cammel Lairds dockyard or taking the Mersey ferry over to Liverpool itself in order to attend the numerous working environments on offer in the city on the other side.
Dear journalists,
People live ‘on’ the Wirral. Arrowe Park hospital is ‘on’ the Wirral, not ‘in Wirral’. The Wirral is a peninsula.
Yours faithfully,
A plastic scouser/woollyback pic.twitter.com/xwfR3nO3hQ
— JAMES (@jjswin) January 31, 2020
Many of the people that live in such areas are far more likely to identify with the Scouse mindset than they are with those that live in the more economically safe parts of the Wirral peninsula. There are numerous parts of the Wirral that would consider themselves to be working class, with the likes of Moreton, Leasowe and Prenton high on that list.
Even areas such as Bebington might well feel a closer link to the working class sections than to some of the richer parts of the peninsula. It is a complicated part of the country, given that it is neither outright Scouse nor does it feel particularly ‘English’, coming down somewhere in the middle.
Heswall, Caldy & the ‘Posher’ Areas
There is little doubt that some of the areas of the Wirral are economically far more prosperous than others. A quick drive around the likes of Caldy and Heswall will present you with numerous areas in which the houses are so far back along driveways that you can barely even see them.
It would be fair to say that at least some of the residents of some sections of the Wirral are millionaires, which obviously puts them in a league of their own when compared to the rest of the area. It is not uncommon, for example, for footballers to live on the Wirral, if Formby, Southport and the likes are considered to be too far away from work.
@linghamscafe Sun is out which means the iced coffees are to! Come & get yours at Linghams Cafe in Heswall☀️☀️☀️ #coffeeshops #icedcoffee #wirraltiktok #heswall #linghamsbookshop
If you want to get a sense of how the other half live, a quick trip around the roads that make up most of Caldy would help you understand exactly that. The same is true of Heswall and the area between there and Neston, with tall gates stopping you from getting to see many of the houses there. It lies in direct contrast to the likes of Moreton, Birkenhead and the majority of Wallasey.
Many of the people that live in those areas couldn’t really imagine what it would be like to live where the others do, which isn’t ideal if you’re trying to find something that many of the residents might have in common or the personality traits they might share.
A Melting Pot of an Area
The vast majority of people on the Wirral don’t fit into either the über-rich camp nor the destitute. It is an area that is generally doing ok, with new build estates popping up on a regular basis and council flats less common than you’d find in Liverpool. That isn’t to say that everyone on the Wirral is absolutely fine, but most people would probably consider themselves to be reasonably well off.
The area is a melting pot of different economic subsets, with a trip along a road sometimes showing you both the very poor and the very rich living relatively close to one another. It is a peninsula that is a reflection of its location.
Liverpool and the Wirral, viewed from across the Dee estuary, near Holywell (30/06/2024). pic.twitter.com/fuBu7Xihjo
— Rob Sawyer (@robsawyer70) July 1, 2024
The Wirral sits right next to Liverpool on one side, Wales on the other and with Chester underneath it. Chester, of course, often feels neither English nor Welsh, sitting somewhere in the middle. That, too, bleeds in to how the Wirral sees itself and is seen by others. The oft-touted sense of ‘Scouse not English’, after which this site is named, takes hold in some parts of the Wirral in much the same way as it might in Wales, Scotland or Ireland, but is also roundly rejected by other sections of the peninsula.
Few people will feel truly ‘Scouse‘, but few will also imagine themselves to be as English as the rest of the country, given the common anti-Scouse sentiment there.
So What is a Wirral Identity?
It is certainly the case that the different mindsets in the various parts of the Wirral make it difficult to put people from the area into a particular box. Those from Moreton are likely to have an entirely different mindset and approach to live when compared to people who grew up in Caldy. Someone who lives in Heswall is almost certainly going to have a different economic situation to someone from Wallasey or Birkenhead.
With all of that being said, however, it isn’t as if everyone from the Wirral is totally opposed to those from a different section of what is essentially the same area. It isn’t night and day in approach.
@tatedaviesofficial The lovely little place called Rock Ferry, atleast duffy was nice enough to write a song about it…
Instead, you are still likely to encounter the same kind of friendliness and welcoming nature that you’d expect to experience on a trip to Liverpool. Wirralpudlians, if you like, are perhaps more likely to be a little bit more chilled out than their Scouse equivalents, thanks to the prevalence of greenery in the local areas. A quick look at a map will show you that about two-thirds of the peninsula is made up of green areas, compared to less than a quarter in the centre of Liverpool and surrounding areas.
Even so, the main identity that many from the Wirral can cling to is that of Scouse first and foremost, even if some would not like to admit it.
