use by army and air force cadets. During this period, RAF West Kirby was also situated just under west the centre of the village, along Saughall Massie Road, and backed on to Larton. Civic history Upton was a township in the ancient parish of Overchurch in the Wirral Hundred, which became a civil parish in 1866. Between 1894 and 1933 Upton was administered as part of Wirral Rural District. The civil parish was disbanded on 1 April 1933 and absorbed into the county boroughs of Birkenhead and Wallasey. On 1 April 1974, local government reorganisation in England and Wales resulted in most of the Wirral Peninsula, including Upton, transferring from the county of Cheshire to the newly created county of Merseyside. Geography, geology and environment Upton lies at the geographic centre of the northern part of the Wirral Peninsula, from the Irish Sea at Leasowe Lighthouse, north-east of the Dee Estuary and a similar distance south-west of the River Mersey. Upton sits on a low-lying hill, in a wide and shallow glacial U-shaped valley, formed during the Quaternary Ice Age, between Bidston Hill and Thurstaston Hill. The underlying bedrock is Triassic bunter sandstone of the Helsby Sandstone Formation and the Sidmouth Mudstone Formation. This is overlain with boulder clay from the Quaternary Ice Age, similar to the nearby Dee Cliffs, and clay soil. The bedrock is not usually visible, as it is on the nearby Bidston Hill. The highest point in Upton is above sea level, just off the junction with the A551 and the B5139, at Moreton Road, in the centre of the village. A further prominence of above sea level is at Upton Manor, from the centre of the village. Most of the populated area is more than above sea level, and most of the ground is on a gentle hillside. Consequently, Upton has avoided the significant flooding which can happen in the nearby low-lying Fender valley. Due to its inland location and elevation Upton is not prone to coastal flooding, which can happen at West Kirby, Hoylake, Meols and New Brighton. Upton is bounded by Arrowe Brook, at Upton Meadow, and the River Fender which is alongside the M53 motorway. Both are tributaries of the Birket, which discharges into West Float and then into the River Mersey. Upton Meadow Millennium Wood Upton Meadow Millennium Wood is an ancient, semi-natural woodland, a community forest and a county wildlife