Hoylake in the context of Merseyside

A level crossing is an intersection where a railway line crosses a road, path, or (in rare situations) airport runway, at the same level, as opposed to the railway line or the road etc. crossing over or under using an overpass or tunnel. The term also applies when a light rail line with separate right-of-way or reserved track crosses a road in the same fashion. Other names include railway level crossing, railway crossing (chiefly international), grade crossing or railroad crossing (chiefly American), road through railroad, criss-cross, train crossing, and RXR (abbreviated).

There are more than 100,000 level crossings in Europe and more than 200,000 in North America.

The Metropolitan Borough of Wirral is a metropolitan borough of Merseyside, in North West England. It has a population of 328,873 (2024), and encompasses 62 square miles (161 km) of the northern part of the Wirral Peninsula. Major settlements include Birkenhead, Wallasey, Bebington, Heswall, Hoylake and West Kirby. It is one of the six boroughs of the Liverpool City Region, a combined authority area with a population of more than 1.5 million.

Wirral is England's westernmost metropolitan borough, faced by the City of Liverpool to the northeast over the River Mersey.

West Kirby (/wɛst ˈkɜːrbi/) is a coastal town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, Merseyside, England. In the north west of the Wirral Peninsula and at the mouth of the River Dee, the town is contiguous with Hoylake. It lies within the historic county boundaries of Cheshire, and became part of Merseyside in 1974. The built up area had a population of 13,380 at the 2021 census.

Julian Medforth Budden OBE FBA (9 April 1924 in Hoylake, Wirral – 28 February 2007 in Florence, Italy) was a British opera scholar, radio producer and broadcaster. He is particularly known for his three volumes on the operas of Giuseppe Verdi (published in 1973, 1978, and 1981), a single-volume biography in 1982 and a single-volume work on Giacomo Puccini and his operas in 2002. He is also the author of numerous entries in the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.