Short answers, pulled from the story.
Wirral literally means "myrtle corner", from the Old English wir (a myrtle tree) and heal (an angle, corner or slope). The name reflects the bog myrtle that once covered the land, a plant no longer found in the area. The name was given to the Hundred of Wirral around the 8th century.
The earliest evidence of human occupation on the Wirral dates from the Mesolithic period, around 12,000 BC. Excavations at Greasby uncovered flint tools, stake holes, and a hearth used by a hunter-gatherer community. By at least 500 BC, Meols was an active trading port drawing merchants from Gaul and the Mediterranean.
The Battle of Brunanburh, fought in 937, was the first battle in which a united England fought the combined forces of the Norsemen and the Scots. Historians regard it as the birthplace of England as an Anglo-Saxon kingdom. Bromborough on the Wirral is one of the proposed sites, and Egil's Saga may have referred to the Wirral as Wen Heath (Vínheíþr in Icelandic).
Birkenhead Park, opened in 1847, was the first municipal park in Britain and became the direct inspiration for New York's Central Park. The park was developed as part of the planned expansion of Birkenhead, which the Laird family commissioned architect James Gillespie Graham to design modelled on Edinburgh.
The Wirral has hosted numerous productions, including Chariots of Fire at Bebington and Port Sunlight, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1 in the Queensway Tunnel, Fast and Furious 6 in the same tunnel in 2013, and Peaky Blinders at Port Sunlight village. A 2017 biopic about Tolkien was also filmed in Port Sunlight and Thornton Hough.
The first official Mersey ferry service began around 1330, operated by Benedictine monks from Birkenhead Priory using a charter granted by Edward III. The first steam ferry service across the Mersey started in 1817. By the end of the 18th century there were five ferry houses on the Wirral side of the Mersey.