World of Glass, Chalon Way East, St Helens - 01744 755150 sthelenstic@yahoo.co.uk

Rainford lies on a fertile agricultural plain and is effectively an urban island surrounded by large scale farming, mainly arable, but with some livestock herds.

The town is well known for its industrial past when it was a major manufacturer of clay smoking pipes. The nearby coal mines became worked out and closed prior to World War Two. Until the mid 1960s, it was also a location for sand excavation, for use in the glass factories of St Helens.

The village consists of two main sections - the main body of the village, centred around the parish church; and Rainford Junction, a smaller settlement which has grown up around Rainford railway station. The two parts of the village are separated by a band of farmland, although they come close to meeting at the village's north-western end.

There are three smaller villages which are near to Rainford - King's Moss to the east, Crawford to the north-east and Crank to the south-east. One of the noteworthy buildings in Rainford is The Rookery, a large 17th century manor house situated off the 'Pottery Padds'; the house was formerly a school and workhouse and has since become home to a tenant.

Rainford - from an Old English personal name Regna or Old Scandinavian rein 'boundary' + Old English ford. The name of the village is in the Domesday Book, thus making Rainford older than the maritime city of Liverpool.