Secret Sand Land
Secret Sand Land
An independent local history website for Southport
My name is David Walshe and I am a proud Sandgrounder who has been interested in local history since childhood. I have been researching the history of Southport (and what existed before) for many years with the aim of Secret Sand Land being to present well researched & new material, via blogs, books, walks, talks & podcasts! Plus regular content via both my Twitter/X and Facebook pages- uncovering previously unknown facts along the way. To date, I have self-published two books; ‘Sandy Tracks’, a unique collection of local history based poems, illustrations & historical notes, with a second edition still available, (published in 2024), and my second book, 'Ecclesfield: Southport's Forgotten Suburb', (published 2023 and is now out of print). Both of these books are in The Atkinson Library, Crosby Library & The British Library. To get a feel for my writing & research, please refer to the blog section of this website. I have also had articles published in ‘The Lancastrian’ and ‘Who do you think you are?’ magazines. I am available to give a variety of local history talks and I also lead guided walks in Southport. These are all advertised in advance via my social media pages. If you're interested in the history of your property, I can also carry out Building Histories. Please get in touch on secretsandland@gmail.com if you or your group would like to know more about any of the above services.
My Story
In 2009 I started work on a family tree project with my Grandfather. When I began to look into my Grandmother’s (Rimmer) line, I started to uncover places within Southport that I had never heard of and that sounded fascinating to me, ‘Dean’s Court’ for example. A book was purchased for me, ‘Southport A History’ by Harry Foster which more than whetted my appetite.
I started to collect books on Southport, as well as maps, directories, pictures, paintings, anything I could get my hands on really! In 2019, after many years of being active on Southport based social media groups and local forums, I started to think about fresh ways of presenting the history of Southport and what existed before. This led to the creation my debut book, 'Sandy Tracks'.
In July 2020, I created the Twitter page, ‘Secret Sand Land’ as I was very impressed by other local history accounts and noticed there wasn’t one covering the whole town of Southport.
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Through publishing my work via blogs and also in book form, I have self established myself as a local historian, giving regular public & private group walks & talks, whilst developing Secret Sand Land as a 'go-to' space for the local history of Southport.
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Please follow me at
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https://www.facebook.com/hiddensouthport/
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https://twitter.com/hiddensouthport/
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Listen to me at 'Grains of Sand' podcast.
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©David Walshe 2025
As featured on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio Merseyside.
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