Radar: West Kirby Museum opens

As we mentioned in our preview of this week’s Festival of Firsts, Wirral’s really holding its own with culture nowadays against the city behemoth over the water.

This weekend (13th/14th July) sees West Kirby Museum opening - a small, but perfectly formed, little enclave in the gorgeous and well ancient St Bridgets’ Church (parts of which date back - unbelievably - to 900AD, which is only marginally older than Ringo). Set a few minutes’ walk from the main hustle and bustle of the seaside town, it’s a well-loved local building, and a team have spent the past year curating, collecting and doing all kinds of boffin-y museum things to get a great little collection of local history together.

So what’s there? Plenty of stone-based artefacts, as you can imagine, given its location. There’s an 11th century grave slab, found in 1864 on Hilbre Island, a bulky 12th century Norman font basin and child’s coffin, and more, alongside displays on West Kirby’s Old Village (of which St Bridget’s, and the school of the same name, is part of).

For those who haven’t been to St Bridget’s before, and who visit during the main church opening hours, you’ll also get to see the incredible hogback stone (above), dating back to 10th Century AD, which would look rubbish in your living room but in the confines of St Bridget’s looks rather spectacular. We’d highly recommend a visit.

Charles Dawson Brown Museum West Kirby
Opening weekend: 13th & 14th July, then every Friday through August, then every Saturday morning through 2013
Free entry
www.westkirbymuseum.co.uk