Coleen Rooney celebrated her 21st birthday in 2007 there with a circus themed party.

In 2019 Prime Minister Boris Johnson met Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar there for secretive Brexit talks.

And before, in between and after, many people have enjoyed events, weddings and other social occasions in Thornton Manor's three marquees.

On Monday we reported that, following a protracted process, Thornton Holdings, which operates the Manor and surrounding estate, must take the marquees down.

In a nutshell, the marquees sit on green belt land, and are not really marquees in the strict sense of the word, but large structures that can't be put up and taken down at the drop of a hat.

Amid a planning mess-up, Thornton Holdings was granted permission for the marquees, but for a period no longer than five years. Some sort of unfortunate error within Wirral Council inspired Thornton Holdings to argue they had been given planning permission to erect marquees that could stand forever.

Nevertheless, when those five years were up, the company was ultimately obliged to re-apply for planning permission, which was refused. Thornton Holdings appealed, but last month their appeals were dismissed by the UK's Planning Inspectorate in a 30-odd page ruling.

Hence the enforcement of the removal of the structures, which must be completed in less than six months.

Now a petition has been launched called 'Keep the Thornton Manor Marquees'.

It says: "Wirral council have made the decision to remove Thornton manors 3 marquees. We need to petition to try and save this wonderful business that brings so much business to the area!

"Please take one minute to sign- let's try and save Thornton Manor - these marquees have been there for 11 years and they have caused no problems at all!"

At time of writing the petition has attracted 830 signatures.