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Hightown is a village and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton in Merseyside, England, located midway between the City of Liverpool and the coastal resort of Southport. It is 8 miles north of Liverpool city centre and is located on the coast near the boundary of the Mersey Estuary and Liverpool Bay. The River Alt joins the sea at this point and forms an estuary. There is a pumping station on the River Alt at Altmouth, built 1972, as part of a programme to alleviate flooding in the area.〔A Guide to Merseyside’s Industrial Past, Paul Rees, 1st ed. Countyvise, Birkenhead, 1984 & NW Society for Industrial Archaeology and History, p. 32.〕 This is on the Altcar Rifle Range, a Territorial Army base originally established in 1860 by Lt. Col. Gladstone.〔Altcar Rifle Range: Its wildlife and history, David Simpson, introduction by Major Doug Farrington (Retd.), TA & Sefton Council, 1997, p. 6–7.〕 The village is featured in 'Lancashire Life' magazine, May 2004 'Tales of the sea at Hightown, near Southport' pp. 150–154 by Harold Brough, photographs by John Cocks. ==History== A dictionary of English Place-Names, A. D. Mills (OUP, Oxford, 1991) lists only a Hightown as a part of Congleton in Cheshire (there is also part of Banbury in Oxfordshire called Hightown). However specific books on Lancashire place names do list this Hightown in what was formerly Lancashire. Altmouth as a settlement features on many old maps prior to the 18th Century, north of where the village is now, part of Altcar parish. Alt Grange is recorded as 13th Century.〔The Place Names of Lancashire. E. Ekwall (Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1922), p. 118.〕 David Mills in his book "The place-names of Lancashire" does give High Town dated 1702.〔"The place-names of Lancashire" (Batsford, London, 1976), p. 95.〕 However he gives no source or reference. Understandably Mills appears to have not visited the small West Lancashire coastal village or he would not have given the description "the major town .. The name appears to be modern and self-explanatory". The first recorded mention of the place name Hightown is in Nicholas Blundell’s Diaries. Nicholas Blundell’s Diaries, Vol. 3 1720 (published 1972) refers to visiting High-Town Greene on the 18 May 1722 (p. 77). There is still a village green today (oddly triangular) near the pub and railway station but unlike when Nicholas Blundell visited there are no cattle pens on it. However the earliest record of the place is probably in a probate record for Richard Riding of Moorhouses in Little Crosby husbandman from 1715. Moorhouses was a hamlet on the shore where Hightown is today, it is remembered in the name of one of the modern closes. The inventory for Richard Riding’s property records it as being of the property of “Richard Rydeing of the Hytown within Crosbie Parava.”〔Probate Records of Crosby and District 1466–1825. Volume 3 N – Z. Page 799. Ed. Thomas Williams, published Thornton, 1970, copy in Crosby Library. Documents in the Lancashire Record Office.〕 Hightown is historically part of the estate of the Blundell family of Little Crosby and many houses still pay a nominal ground rent annually to the Whitlock-Blundell estate. Hightown beach is the site of a former wartime military base known as Fort Crosby. The fort was situated midway between Hightown and Hall Road and housed a number of Italian and German POW's during WWII. Following its decommission at the end of the war a small cinema screen within the complex was reputedly used by local residents for a number of years until the camp was finally demolished in the mid-1960s. Remains of many of the buildings, pathways and fences can still be seen today. During the early part of the 20th century the village formed its own voluntary fire service following a number of deaths and injuries resulting from the excessive time taken for the Crosby Fire Service to reach the village. The most notable of these incidents was the loss of a family during a blaze within the lighthouse which once stood close to the site of Fort Crosby. The lighthouse was built in 1839. The most prominent buildings at the turn of the 20th Century were the Truant School, next to the railway line, and the Hightown Hotel (the village pub). In 1901 “There were 20 officials and 114 boys in the truant school at Hightown, belonging to the Liverpool education authority.” 〔A History of the County of Lancaster: Volume 3, William Farrer & J. Brownbill (editors), 1907 entry on Little Crosby at pp.85-91. This is available online at http://www.british-history.ac.uk/〕 Listed buildings and Second World War remains.〔http://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/gateway/〕 heritagegateway.org.uk (a partnership project of English Heritage) lists Hightown Cross and three listed buildings in Hightown: the Cross itself, Whitedge Farmhouse (Alt Road) and Rose Cottage. In the immediate vicinity Moss Farmhouse, North End Lane, is also listed. Three World War Two invasion defence pillboxes can be seen near Gorsey Lane and are listed in the database, each as: Type 23 World War II concrete pillbox, constructed in the period 1940 to 1941. These are found in the Defence of Britain Archive of the Council for British Archaeology, 2002. Listed as in poor condition (surveyed in 2000) is Coastal Battery S0011771 (Crosby Point Battery), between Coastguard Station and Hightown, north of Crosby. This is near the end of the West Lancs Golf Course, a mile south from Hightown station just off the footpath from Hall Road to Hightown. When Sefton Council upgraded the Sefton Coastal Footpath they blocked up two gun emplacements that remained of the Fort Crosby site. A former resident alleged in 2011 that Sefton Council had deliberately neglected the World War II heritage at Hightown, but there is no evidence of deliberate neglect.〔'Time we recognised World War II sites' Kiron Reid, Daily Post, Liverpool 6 September 2011.〕 An exhibition by artist Tom Fairclough 'Collateral' contained peaceful but evocative pictures of the rubble that make up the sea defences at the mouth of the Alt. Fairclough documented how the rubble was the remains of houses from the destruction in Bootle in the blitz of May 1941.〔‘Collateral’ by Tom Fairclough April 29 – 14 June 2011 in the windows of the former Lewis’s department store, Renshaw St. Part of Look2011 photography festival.〕 The most authoritative local history reference on Hightown, Merseyside is: "My Hightown 1897 - 1969" by Joe Bulman. 1st ed. 1975. The 3rd ed. revised and enlarged by Andrew Lee-Hart and Matthew Tinker published by Sefton Libraries, Southport, 2003. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Hightown, Merseyside」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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