Knotty Ash

Knotty Ash is an area of Liverpool, Merseyside, England, and a Liverpool City Council Ward. Historically in Lancashire, the population at the 2001 Census was 13,200,[1] increasing to 13,312 at the 2011 Census.[2] Knotty Ash is well known as the home of comedian Ken Dodd, who often mentioned it in his act.

Knotty Ash

Knotty Ash district sign
Knotty Ash
Location within Merseyside
Population13,312 (2011 Census)
OS grid referenceSJ408911
Metropolitan borough
Metropolitan county
Region
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post townLIVERPOOL
Postcode districtL14
Dialling code0151
PoliceMerseyside
FireMerseyside
AmbulanceNorth West
UK Parliament

Description

Knotty Ash is a small area on the eastern fringe of Liverpool and neighbours the West Derby, Old Swan, Broadgreen, Dovecot and Huyton districts. Its name is derived from a gnarled ash tree which formerly stood near the present-day Knotty Ash public house. In 2004, comedian and local resident Ken Dodd planted a new ash tree close to the site of the original.

Governance
Main article: Knotty Ash (ward)

Knotty Ash is represented on Liverpool City Council by three councillors and is wholly within the Liverpool West Derby constituency. The current MP is Ian Byrne, Labour, since 2019.

Education

Knotty Ash contains the special needs secondary school Clifford Holroyde and a primary school, Knotty Ash CP.

Transport

The area is served by the number 10 bus service on the Liverpool-Prescot route and the suburban number 61 route between Bootle and Aigburth.

It lies just north of the western terminus of the M62 motorway.

Knotty Ash railway station on the North Liverpool Extension Line formerly served the area, but this closed to passenger traffic in 1960. The former trackway is now part of National Cycle Network Route 62.

Sport

Between 1951 and 1968, the district was home to the city's rugby league team Liverpool City who played at their Knotty Ash Stadium, Mill Yard. Their playing strip consisted of white jerseys with a broad green hoop and white shorts. After the 1967–68 season, they left the district and moved to nearby Huyton, changing the club's name to Huyton RLFC. Having no home venue for the 1968–69 season, their new Huyton home ground of Alt Park was opened for the following 1969–70 season.

  • In the 1960s, Knotty Ash was made famous in the United Kingdom by stand-up comedian and lifelong resident Sir Ken Dodd, as the home of the dwarfish comic characters he called the Diddy Men. In his BBC children's television programme Ken Dodd And The Diddymen (1969), the fictitious Diddyland, boasting the highest sunshine rate in the world, was situated in the centre of Knotty Ash. The Diddy Men worked in the local "Jam Butty Mines".[3]
  • Knotty Ash was reportedly the site of the unsolved "Tiki" Murder in 1961 in which a housewife was killed in what was claimed to be a ritual linked to the worship of the Polynesian idol Tiki.[4]

References
  1. 2001 Census: Knotty Ash, Office for National Statistics, retrieved 14 June 2008
  2. "City of Liverpool ward population 2011". Retrieved 13 January 2016.
  3. Diddy? Doddy! Ken Dodd hits the road again, The Independent, 27 January 2007, retrieved 30 March 2009
  4. The Knotty Ash Ritual Murder, archived from the original on 19 February 2010, retrieved 28 March 2009
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