Neston

A royal charter was granted to Neston in 1728 in support of its status as a market town.[13]

Historically, the current town was known as Great Neston, in order to be distinct from the smaller nearby hamlet of Little Neston. Before the rise of Birkenhead in the 1820s, it was the largest town in the Wirral Hundred. Created in 1866, the civil parish of Great Neston included the hamlets of Clayhill, Hinderton, Moorside and part of Parkgate. The population of Great Neston was 1,486 in 1801 and 1,524 in 1851. In 1894, both Great Neston and Little Neston were combined to create the Neston-cum-Parkgate civil parish and by 1901, the population had risen to 2,201.[14] Between 1894 and 1974 Neston was governed by its own urban district council.[15][16] On 1 April 1974, local government reorganisation in England and Wales created the borough of Ellesmere Port and Neston.

Neston was a major port before the River Dee silted up. The port was then shifted further downstream to the nearby town of Parkgate, although by early nineteenth century, most traffic had ultimately transferred to Liverpool.

Neston is also a former mining town with a small extension of the Flintshire Coalfield occurring on its southern edge. There were two periods during which coal seams within these coal measures rocks were mined.[17]

Between 1759 and 1855 Ness Colliery worked using shafts largely clustered around the Harp Inn in today's Little Neston.[18] It was opened by John Stanley Massey, a member of the leading Stanley family of Hooton, in partnership with four others.[19] Because of the local geology most working was carried out under the Dee Estuary.[20] The mine was remarkable in using canals deep underground for boats to haul coal.[21] It was also remarkable for blatant acts of sabotage committed by the Stanleys against a rival, neighbouring mine established in about 1820 by the Cottingham family; their mine went out of business in the 1840s.[22] Due to exhaustion of many of the coal seams, and difficulty in transporting coal, Ness Colliery was closed in 1855.[23]

The later period of mining started in 1875 with the establishment of Neston Colliery (later becoming Wirral Colliery).[24] By this time the Chester and Birkenhead Railway had come to nearby Parkgate; a branch line to the colliery enabled coal to be shifted in bulk. The mine worked seams further north than those worked by Ness Colliery.[25] Wirral colliery was taken over by the British government during the First World War. The pit subsequently returned to private ownership after the war, but increasing competition from larger mines brought about its closure in 1927 with a loss of 180 jobs.[26]

From 2006, Neston underwent an assessment to attract more income and tourists, in the form of the Neston Market Town Initiative (NMTI).[33] The project also included the launch of a new town website.[34] the NMTI involved improving the 'look' of the town centre (which included new shop fronts) and controversial plans regarding a new supermarket[35] on the site of Brook Street car park. Work for the new supermarket began in March 2009 with a full archaeological dig being carried out on the car park site before construction work began. Work to excavate the site began in August 2009, a total of 28,000 cubic metres of earth was removed to allow for the construction of a multi storey car park. The new Sainsbury's store was opened on 1 December 2010.

On 31 March 2008 the Market Town Initiative project was officially completed. The community regeneration work will be continued by a new local community association, ch64inc, and by the establishment of a Town Council in 2009.[36]