Eastham is a village and an electoral ward of the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, in Merseyside, England. Historically (until 1974), it was part of Cheshire. It is situated on the Wirral Peninsula, to the south of Bromborough and to the east of Willaston. At the 2001 Census, it had a population of 12,250, although the total ward population for the village stood at 13,637 In 2011, the villages population was not measured separately but a review was carried out for the ward. The total population had risen to 13,882. History Eastham is cited as one of the oldest villages on the Wirral Peninsula and has been inhabited since Anglo Saxon times. The name derives from its location: ham ("home") situated to the east of Willaston, which was then the principal settlement. The original village is clustered around St. Mary's Church, whose churchyard contains an ancient yew tree. Much of the surrounding land was once owned by the powerful Stanley family. Since the Middle Ages, a ferry service operated across the River Mersey between Eastham and Liverpool, the early ferries being run by monks from the Abbey of St. Werburgh. By the late 1700s, up to 40 coaches each day arrived at a newly built pier, carrying passengers and goods for the ferry. Paddle steamers were introduced in 1816 to replace the sailing boats, but the demand for a service declined in the 1840s with the opening of a railway link between Chester and Birkenhead Woodside Ferry. In 1846, the owner of the ferry, Thomas Stanley, built the Eastham Ferry Hotel and shortly after, the Pleasure Gardens were added to attract more visitors. The gardens were landscaped with rhododendrons, azaleas, ornamental trees and fountains. Attractions included a zoo, with bears, lions, monkeys and antelope, an open-air stage, tea rooms, bandstand, ballroom, boating lake, water chute. Entertainers performed in the gardens during summer, and included Blondin, the famous tight-rope walker who once wheeled a local boy across a high wire in a wheelbarrow. In 1894, the Manchester Ship Canal was opened by Queen Victoria, bringing added prosperity to the area and a Jubilee Arch was built at the entrance to the Pleasure Gardens in 1897 to commemorate her Diamond Jubilee. In 1854 the American novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne, whilst in the position of United States consul in Liverpool, visited Eastham and declared it to be: "the finest old English village I have seen,