8 listed buildings, 1 of them Grade II*

Hoylake and West Kirby War MemorialGrade II* listedNook Cottage the NookGrade II listedBarclays BankGrade II listedChurch of St AndrewGrade II listedFormer Well HouseGrade II listed+1See all photos

Photos from Wikimedia Commons and Geograph, copied to our own server, each credited to its photographer with its licence; names open the building’s page or its official list entry.

Historic England lists buildings in three grades: Grade I for buildings of exceptional interest (about 2.5% of all listed buildings), Grade II* for particularly important buildings of more than special interest (about 5.8%), and Grade II for buildings of special interest (about 91.7%). Listing protects the whole building, inside and out.

Every entry on the National Heritage List for England whose point lies inside the ONS 2022 built-up-area boundary. One list entry can cover a terrace or a group of buildings. Neighbourhood dots: the population-weighted centre of each Census 2021 output area, coloured by its neighbourhood’s (LSOA’s) share of homes built before 1919 (Valuation Office Agency, March 2025).

Historic England’s conservation areas layer, supplied by councils (incomplete in places, so a page fact, never graded). Hectares are the part of each area inside the built-up area.

Two measures, each ranked against every UK town of 1,000 or more, with protected heritage counting twice as much as the age of homes. Protected heritage counts each listed building by its grade (Grade I three points, II* two, II one), each scheduled monument and battlefield two, and each registered park or garden by its grade; it is ranked both per 10,000 residents and as a total, so a village with one fine church doesn’t outrank a historic city. The second measure is the share of homes built before 1919, from the Valuation Office Agency’s council tax records. History is a character grade: it describes the town and isn’t part of the overall grade.

15% of homes are Victorian or older, against 16% across England and Wales. The busiest period since was the 1930s, which added 14% of today’s homes.

Valuation Office Agency, council tax stock of properties by build period, 31 March 2025, for the neighbourhoods (LSOAs) that make up the town, split by where their residents live. Homes with no recorded build period (10 here) are left out; 1939–44 is not a period in the data.

Frederick Aspinall

Harold Hilton

Frank Ball

Thomas Vernon Griffiths

18501875190019251950

Harold Hilton1869–1942 · Amateur golfer (1869–1942)

Thomas Vernon Griffiths1894–1985 · Music teacher and lecturer, composer (1894–1985)

FA

Frederick Aspinall1859– · English cricketer (1859-?)

FB

Frank Ball1892– · English professional golfer

Everyone born in West Kirby → Birthplaces from Wikidata; portraits from Wikimedia Commons.

More of West Kirby’s homes are old than in most places: 28% were built before 1919, against 15% in the typical UK town. In all there are 8 listed buildings, including Hoylake and West Kirby War Memorial. Its older streets lie in 2 conservation areas.

Of the 4 people born here before 1900, the best known include Harold Hilton (1869), Thomas Vernon Griffiths (1894) and Frederick Aspinall (1859). For its size the list is short: per resident, it has more listed heritage than only 23% of UK towns. Otherwise the figures are ordinary: like most towns its size, it has no Grade I building; and the list grew between 1953 and 2016.