Ellesmere Port ( ) is an industrial port town in the Cheshire West and Chester borough in Cheshire, England. Ellesmere Port is on the south-eastern edge of the Wirral Peninsula, north of Chester, although not part of the Wirral administratively or Merseyside. It is on the bank of the Manchester Ship Canal. In the 2021 census, the built up area had a population of 65,430.
The town was originally established on the River Mersey at the entrance to the Ellesmere Canal. As well as a service sector economy, it has retained large industries including Stanlow oil refinery, a chemical works and the Vauxhall Motors car factory. There are also a number of tourist attractions including the National Waterways Museum, the Blue Planet Aquarium and Cheshire Oaks Designer Outlet.
History
The town of Ellesmere Port was founded at the outlet of the never-completed Ellesmere Canal, named after the town of Ellesmere, Shropshire. The canal (now renamed) was designed and engineered by William Jessop and Thomas Telford as part of a project to connect the rivers Severn, Mersey and Dee. The canal was intended to be completed in sections. In 1795 the section between the River Mersey and the River Dee at Chester was opened. However the canal was not finished as first intended; it never reached the River Severn. Upon re-evaluation, it was decided that the costs to complete the project were not projected to be repaid because of a decrease in expected commercial traffic. There had been a loss of competitive advantage caused by steam engine-related economic advances (nationally, regionally and locally) during the first decade of the canal's construction.
The 1793 act authorising the canal's construction referred to its connection to the Mersey being "at or near Netherpool". In the event, the canal's northern end was not built in the township of Netherpool, but in the neighbouring township of Whitby to the east. The settlement which grew up at the canal basin was known both as 'Ellesmere Port' and 'Whitby Locks' at first.
Settlements had existed in the area since the writing of the Domesday Book in the 11th century, which mentions Great Sutton,"Great and Little Sutton" at opendomesday; retrieved 21 September 2025 Little Sutton, Pool (now Overpool) and Hooton."Hooton" at opendomesday; retrieved 21 September 2025
The first houses in Ellesmere Port itself, however, grew up around the docks and the first main street was Dock Street, which now houses the National Waterways Museum. Station Road, which connected the docks with the village of Whitby, also gradually developed and as more shops were needed, some of the houses became retail premises. The main employer at this time was Burnell's Iron Works which had been set up at the end of the nineteenth century. This was followed by the setting up of the Mersey Ironworks factory by the Wolverhampton Corrugated Iron Company In 1905 who settled on Ellesmere Port as a way of exploiting the company's international trade through the nearby ports of Birkenhead and Liverpool. Initially 300 workers and their families came from Wolverhampton and the surrounding areas to work in the factory, settling in a specially built worker's village named "Wolverham". As the expanding industrial areas growing up around the canal and its docks attracted more workers to the area, the town itself continued to expand.
By the mid-20th century, thanks to the opening of the Manchester Ship Canal in 1894 and the Stanlow Oil Refinery in the 1920s, Ellesmere Port had expanded so that it now incorporated the villages of Great and Little Sutton, Hooton, Whitby, Overpool and Rivacre as suburbs. The town centre itself had moved from the Station Road/Dock Street area, to an area that had once been home to a stud farm (indeed, the former Ellesmere Port and Neston Borough Council officially referred to the town centre as Stud Farm for housing allocation purposes) around the crossroads of Sutton Way/Stanney Lane and Whitby Road.
The foundation stone for Ellesmere Port Civic Hall was laid by the Chairman of Ellesmere Port Borough Council, Horace Black, on 2 May 1953. It was designed in the modernist style and completed in 1955. The Ellesmere Port Council Offices were constructed just to the southwest of the civic hall and completed in 1969.
In the 20th century, a number of new housing estates were developed, many of them on the sites of former farms such as Hope Farm and Grange Farm. Many estates consisted of both council housing and privately owned houses and flats.
Ellesmere Port, in more recent times has had an influx of immigrants from Liverpool. Thus demand for housing increased with the opening of the Vauxhall Motors car plant in 1962. Opened as a components supplier to the Luton plant, passenger car production began in 1964 with the Vauxhall Viva. The plant is now Vauxhall's only car factory in Britain, since the end of passenger car production at the Luton plant in 2004 (where commercial vehicles are still made). Ellesmere Port currently produces the Vauxhall Astra model on two shifts, employing 2,500 people.
In the mid-1980s, the Port Arcades, a covered shopping mall was built in the town centre. By the 1990s, it was the retail sector rather than the industrial that was attracting workers and their families to the town. This was boosted with the building of the Cheshire Oaks outlet village and the Coliseum shopping park, which also included a multiplex cinema; prior to this since the closure of the cinema in Station Road, Little Sutton (King's cinema) and the Queen's cinema adjacent to Ellesmere Port railway station in the 1960s the town's only cinema had been a single screen in the EPIC Leisure Centre.
In August 2012, Marks & Spencer opened their largest store (apart from Marble Arch in London) on a site near the Coliseum shopping park.
Governance
There is one main tier of local government covering Ellesmere Port, at unitary authority level, being Cheshire West and Chester Council. Most of the Ellesmere Port built up area is unparished, with the exception of the civil parish of Little Stanney on the south-eastern edge of the urban area. Cheshire West and Chester Council has its main offices in the town, at the Portal on Wellington Road.
Parliamentary representation At national level, Ellesmere Port is part of the Ellesmere Port and Bromborough constituency. , the constituency is represented by Labour Member of Parliament (MP) Justin Madders.
Administrative history The site where Ellesmere Port was developed from the 1790s onwards lay within the township of Whitby. The township was mostly in the ancient parish of Eastham but partly in the parish of Stoke (now called Stoak). Both parishes formed part of the Wirral Hundred of Cheshire. Whitby village lay about inland from the port, close to where the modern town centre later developed. From the 17th century onwards, parishes were gradually given various civil functions under the poor laws, in addition to their original ecclesiastical functions. In some cases, including Whitby, the civil functions were exercised by each township separately rather than the parishes as a whole. In 1866, the legal definition of 'parish' was changed to be the areas used for administering the poor laws, and so Whitby became a civil parish.
The parish of Whitby was converted into an urban district called Ellesmere Port and Whitby in 1902. The urban district was enlarged in 1910 to absorb the parishes of Netherpool, Overpool, Great Stanney, and Stanlow. In 1911, the civil parishes within the urban district were reorganised into two urban parishes: Ellesmere Port (covering the area of the abolished parishes of Netherpool, Overpool and Whitby), and Great Stanney, which absorbed the area of the abolished parish of Stanlow.
The urban district was enlarged again in 1933 to take in the parishes of Childer Thornton, Hooton, Ince, Great Sutton, and Little Sutton, with some adjustments to the boundaries with neighbouring parishes. The enlarged urban district was renamed from Ellesmere Port and Whitby to just Ellesmere Port at the same time. The parish of Ellesmere Port was enlarged to cover the whole urban district in 1950, and in 1955 the urban district was raised to the status of a municipal borough.
The borough of Ellesmere Port was abolished in 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972. The area had been considered for inclusion in the new county of Merseyside, but it was decided instead to leave it in Cheshire as part of the new borough of Ellesmere Port and Neston. Ellesmere Port was the largest town in the new borough, and was where the new borough council established its headquarters, using the former borough council's offices on Civic Way as its headquarters.
Ellesmere Port and Neston Borough Council was abolished in 2009, when local government across Cheshire was reorganised; Cheshire County Council was also abolished, and the three districts of Chester, Ellesmere Port and Neston, and Vale Royal merged to become Cheshire West and Chester. The Cheshire West and Chester councillors representing the wards which cover Ellesmere Port act as charter trustees to preserve the town's civic traditions, including choosing one of their number to serve as the town's mayor.
Demography
+ Population since 1901 Year Population 1901 10,366 1911 10,253 1921 12,891 1931 18,267 1951 32,653 1961 44,681 1971 61,637 1981 63,315 1991 31,378 2001 64,100 2011 61,090
The 2011 census records 27,134 households in Ellesmere Port, with 40.9% of the population aged between 30 and 59. It lists the ethnicity of the town as 95.2% White British, 0.8% White Irish, 1.6% White Other, 0.8% mixed ethnicity, 1.1% Asian, 0.2% Black and 0.1% other. 97.8% speak English as a first language.
Religion According to the 2011 census, the main religion of Ellesmere Port is Christianity with 72.1% of the population. 20% have no religion, 6% are unspecified, 0.4% are Muslim, 0.2% are Buddhist, 0.1% Hindu and 0.2% other.
Landmarks
Blue Planet Aquarium, largest aquarium in the UK 1998–1999 Cheshire Oaks Designer Outlet, largest outlet village in the UK 1995–present, largest outlet village in Europe 1995–1998. It is the location of the UK's largest artificial Christmas tree, tall and wide The Coliseum Retail Park, retail outlet located next to Cheshire Oaks Outlet Ellesmere Port Hospital, located in Whitby NHS, Ellesmere Port Hospital, accessed 25 May 2022 Ellesmere Port Sports Village, a £15 million sports village opened in late 2015 Marks & Spencer, second largest store in the UK National Waterways Museum, largest canal boat collection in the world Stanlow Oil Refinery, second largest industrial space in the UK Whitby Hall, listed Victorian building in Whitby Park and home of Theatre Porto, formerly Action Transport Theatre company
Geography Ellesmere Port is located at the southern end of the Wirral Peninsula, in the county of Cheshire. Its suburbs include Overpool to the north west, Westminster to the north, Rossmore to the north east, with Whitby and Wolverham to the south.
Parks and green spaces Whitby Park Rivacre Valley Local Nature Reserve Stanney Woods Nature Reserve
Media Local news and television programmes are provided by BBC North West and ITV Granada. Television signals are received from the Winter Hill TV transmitter. With its close proximity with North Wales, BBC Wales and ITV Cymru Wales can also be received from the Moel-y-Parc TV transmitter.
Local radio stations are BBC Radio Merseyside on 95.8 FM, Capital North West & Wales on 97.1 FM, Heart North West on 105.4 FM, Smooth Radio North West on 100.4 FM, and Dee Radio on 106.3 FM.
The town is served by the local newspaper, Chester and District Standard (formerly The Ellesmere Port Standard).
Transport Road Ellesmere Port is located near the interchange of the M56 and the M53 motorways. The A41 road between Birkenhead and Chester, also passes through the area. The M56 carries the European Route E22 in this area.
Buses