Barnston Merseyside hotels:

For over 70 years, from the height of the Victorian era onwards, a busy railway linked Hooton, on the main Chester-to-Birkenhead line, to West Kirby, 12 miles away at Wirral's north westerly corner. For 7 of those miles the line ran close to the Dee Estuary, diverted there, away from his estate, by a rich landowner. Steam trains brought townspeople out to Parkgate and the seaside on Cheap Day Excursions; and took back to the cities Wirral's early potatoes, rattling milk churns and coal from Neston Colliery. But by 1962 the line was closed. The seaside resorts had long since silted up, the colliery was shut, the farms were being covered by houses, and the car had replaced the train. For a while the track lay derelict. But in 1973, backed by money from the Countryside Commission, and after a great deal of work, the old railway line was opened as Wirral Country Park. It was the first designated Country Park in Britain.