Guide to West Kirby

There are 8 schools within a five mile radius of West Kirby which received an ‘outstanding’ grade at their last Ofsted inspection. This includes Ganneys Meadow Nursery School and Family Centre for children between two and five, and two primary schools – Thurstaston Dawpool CofE Primary School and Irby Primary school – for children up to eleven. There are also a handful of outstanding local schools for children of all ages with special educational needs.

For secondary education, there are several ‘good’ rated senior schools including a single gender boys school and a couple of mixed gender schools offering education to 18 and 19. You can find out more about the schools available in West Kirby on the Ofsted website here.

West Kirby is home to more than a dozen GPs surgeries and medical centres dealing with day to day ailments and treatment, plenty of pharmacies from which to collect your prescriptions, and around ten dental practices offering both general and cosmetic dentistry. In fact, residents of West Kirby should find their day to day health well taken care of by the many options available.

For anything more serious, or for accident and emergency services, West Kirby has easy access to Arrowe Park Hospital – around five miles away (around a 15 minute drive) from most places in West Kirby. Services in the area fall under the NHS Wirral CCG (Clinical Commissioning Group), and you can read more about them and their mission here.

West Kirby is blessed with an incredible variety of restaurants, cafes and takeaways, with more than 30 establishments in the local area currently rated at 4/5 or more on Tripadvisor. Options include everything from traditional English tea shops, cafes and coffee houses, tapas, pizza, steak, seafood and a choice of Chinese and Indian restaurants and pub food – and LEAFs Wirral location, a favourite at Wirral Homes and locally.

If, however, you’re looking for something different for a special occasion (or just because), you can dine beneath the star-studded ceiling of Leasowe Castle – which was once a part of the Palace of Westminster, or head to the Michelin starred Fraiche in nearby Birkenhead.

West Kirby is just under half an hour away from Liverpool by car, just under 40 minutes from Chester, and a little over an hour to Manchester – making it possible to commute to three of the north west’s best performing cities in a reasonable time.

Things are a little trickier for train passengers, however, with West Kirby the western terminus of the Wirral Line, provided by Merseyrail, commuters to Chester need to double back to Hamilton Square before changing for trains to Chester and Ellesmere Port. This bumps the time to Chester to around 90 minutes, though Liverpool remains reachable in under an hour.

West Kirby is home to part of the Royal Liverpool Golf Club, which was built in 1869, and is the second oldest golf links in England. However, its history goes back much much further – and you can see some of this extensive history in the West Kirby museum. The museum itself was founded in 1892, but had its contents locked away except by special appointment for over a hundred years. 

In 2012, The St Bridget’s Centre was renovated and began regular opening hours for the first time in its history. Containing artefacts that date back to Pre-Norman times, the displays cover the long and storied history of human habitation of the Wirral including the Hog-Back Stone which illustrates the presence of Christian Vikings more than a thousand years ago.

West Kirby is home to the starting point of the Wirral Way, a nature walk which follows the track of the defunct Birkenhead to Hooton branch line, Ashton Park, while Sandlea Park is located, a short walk from the railway station in the centre of the town and Coronation Gardens is between South Parade and Banks Road. Another possible activity is the wonderful low tide walk out to Little Eye, Middle Eye and Hilbre Islands. 

There’s also nearby New Brighton, with its fun-park, theatre and gardens. Also local are the dog friendly Viking Quest Adventure Golf, the Pathan Park outdoor karting track, a cinema and much more – meaning West Kirby is ideally situated for days out for families.

There are plenty of things to do in and around West Kirby – including the West Kirby Museum which contains a collection of artefacts discovered on the site dating back to Pre-Norman Great Britain, and extending through the Norman, Gothic and Post-Gothic periods. There’s also theatre available at the Floral Pavilion in neighbouring New Brighton – which runs an excellent programme of ballet, drama and opera. 

There are precious few nightclubs on the Wirral in general, but there are plenty of restaurants and bars available for an evening out in West Kirby – and for residents craving a night on the tiles, nearby Liverpool is close enough for a late night taxi ride and has nightlife which has become a tourist draw on its own.

Banks Road near West Kirby’s marine lake is a hub of beauty salons and stylists, with no fewer than fifteen options for beauty treatments, therapies, tanning and more. With the majority of salons in the area earning 4.7 or more stars out of five on Google Reviews, there should be no reason that a newcomer to the area should struggle to find their perfect match for their style in everything from nail art to hairstylist.

It may not be the first thing you think about when looking for a new place to call home, but it’s good to know that you’ll have plenty of choice – these are the little things that can turn a nice place to live into a great place.

In addition to the unique independent stores on offer on Banks Road (which includes everything from furniture to fashion), West Kirby also has fantastic road connections to Chester, Liverpool and Manchester – with the Trafford Centre (the furthest of the three big retail complexes) just over an hour’s drive away.

However, West Kirby is also within ten miles of a handful of retail parks, meaning you can enjoy a more sedate dose of retail therapy a little closer to home. Nearby is the JunctionONE Retail and Leisure Park in Wallasey, The Croft Retail and Leisure Park in Bromborough and the Rock Retail Park and Pyramid Centre in Birkenhead. 

So, while West Kirby has plenty to offer, there’s also a whole lot more for the committed shopper nearby.

It will be no surprise that West Kirby has easy access to the usual large chain supermarkets – with a local Sainsburys, Aldi, Morrisons and more. However, West Kirby also has a selection of fantastic independent stores. There’s the popular Hoylake Pantry, a zero waste store selling wholefoods by weight and detergent and toiletry refills – all single-use plastic free. There’s also Honest to Goodness – a health food store with an impressive selection of vegan and vegetarian foods and Colin Lunts Grocers – selling fresh, locally sourced fruit and vegetables.

So, whether you want to pick up your favourite brands, or go for something a little different, you’ll find everything you need in the local area.