Whilst historically a village in its own right, Birkdale has now been absorbed by Southport. Located in Sefton on the Merseyside coast in the north-west of England, Birkdale is approximately a mile away from the centre of its now parent town.

On the whole, it is a wealthy area - featuring many large Victorian houses, still, typically, housing families rather than having been broken up into individual flats. The area is almost entirely residential, with mainly semi-detached houses as the norm. In the summer of 2003, the average property price was £149,550 (just under £10,000 less than the national average). Some properties are considerable grander than this average and so the area has become a popular area with footballers from local Merseyside or Lancashire clubs.

The village centre (still commonly referred to as Birkdale Village) is on Liverpool Road (A5267) and features a variety of (mostly local) shops and a train station, on the line linking Southport to Liverpool.

Despite its small size, Birkdale receives a great deal of sporting attention once every few years as it plays host to The Open Championship. The next time it will be played at Royal Birkdale golf course will be in July 2008. To lesser fame, the home ground of the Southport and Birkdale Cricket Club on Trafalgar Road is used for county level cricket matches approximately once a year.

A number of other places are named after Birkdale - see Birkdale (disambiguation).

Birkdale probably takes its name from two Norse words, birki meaning "birch-copse" and dalr meaning dale.

A.J.P. Taylor was born in Birkdale.

External links

• Royal Birkdale Golf Club
• History of Royal Birkdale