Tranmere is a suburb of Birkenhead, on the Wirral Peninsula, England. Administratively, it is within the Birkenhead and Tranmere Ward of the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, in Merseyside. Before local government reorganisation on 1 April 1974, it was part of the County Borough of Birkenhead, within the geographical county of Cheshire. At the 2001 census, the population of Tranmere was 11,668. By the 2011 census the suburb was combined with the centre of Birkenhead. The population was recorded as 15,879. History Its name was given by Norwegian Vikings who settled and colonised Wirral in the 10th century. Tranmere in Old Norse is Trani-melr, meaning "crane (bird) sandbank" or "sandbank with the cranes". Until the early 19th century, Tranmere was the second most populous settlement in Wirral, with a population of 353 in 1801, centred mainly in the area of what is now Church Road and the nearby hamlet of Hinderton. By 1901, the number of residents had grown to 37,709. Tranmere Old Hall and its estate, was situated around what is now Church Road. It was a large, gabled building constructed around 1614. According to the author Philip Sulley's The Hundred of Wirral (1889), in about 1860: ... [Tranmere Old Hall] was pulled down by an ignorant boor who became possessed of it by some mischance, to make way for shops and houses. Historically a township in the parish of Bebington in the Wirral Hundred, it became a civil parish from 1866. In 1877 Tranmere was absorbed into the County Borough of Birkenhead, Cheshire, and the civil parish was abolished in 1898. On creation of the county of Merseyside in 1974, Tranmere became part of the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral. The Ingleborough Road Memorial Playing Fields were part of the now defunct Birkenhead Institute school from 1925 and opened for use the following year. The fields and pavilion were created as a memorial to the former students of the school killed in action in World War I, which included the poet Wilfred Owen. Ornamental gates were added to the site in 1933. The site was purchased by Tranmere Rovers Football Club in 1995. Despite opposition, the land was redeveloped for housing in 2012. Ferry service Queen Elizabeth granted John Poole the lease of ferry rights at Tranmere in 1586. The Etna, the first steam-powered ferry on the River Mersey operated from Tranmere Pool to Liverpool on 17 April 1817. The