Forums Forums Wirral History : Chasing the Past Wirral History Oldest ? in the Wirral

Oh I only ever remember that called The Harp when it was a pub.

It was renamed by some individual for his own reasons having been known as The Harp for centuries. He knew as much about running a pub as he did about the fallacy of mixing politics with business and it soon closed. Open or not, it still stands and remains the oldest known pub on the Wirral.

How old is this map ?

I'd guess its Saxton's 1578 as it looks slightly earlier than his 1610 map?

Here's a better copy of it, still not sure which one it is though.

Oldest road in Wirral still used today?
Could Street Hey Lane in Willaston be a possibility as it is suspected to be an old Roman road.
I cannot find the first recorded road.

There are plenty of sections of Roman Roads still in use in Wirral, for the title of oldest road you would have to define "road" as undoubtedly some roads overlay saxon roads which would be little more than mud tracks in places.

Roads still in use today. Any maps with a road names on like this one of Castle St, Old Hall St, Dale St, Water St and Castle St in Liverpool still standing today.


Pic from Wikipedia
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/be/Original_7_streets_of_Liverpool.jpg

Grange Road, Birkenhead, was originally the road leading from Birkenhead Priory to the monks' grange, or granary, in Oxton. The priory was founded circa 1150.

That makes a lot of sense yoller. Does anyone know when we started naming the roads?

Generally at the same time as streets of houses were built, prior to that the roads were named after the buildings/farms/people that were on them or the places they led to, even then a lot of the road names weren't formalised and some would change.

The turnpikes had some bearing on road names as well and were sometimes named after the person who owned the turnpike rights.

Until local councils in one form or another came about (for taxation) it was quite haphazard. You'd have two rows of workers cottages on the same stretch of road yet the names of the cottages were used to describe the road and hence two names used for the same road.

The first formalisation of issuing English road names wasn't until about 1850 although acceptance of road names dates long before that. Directories including road names started in the early 1700s

That map above is the earliest (as far as I know) map with the few roads in Liverpool, I just cannot find one of anywhere in Wirral. If I do find a map it is not legible.
Do any directories cover the 1700's or early 1800's? Or are there any maps?

Doing a quick search - 1827 is the first directory where any Wirral (Borough) street names are used so it must have been mapped before that. Neston and Parkgate may have earlier.

There are directories for Liverpool (1766) and Chester (1789) with street names.

The above may not be accurate and It will probably take me too long to go through maps properly however the "Birkenhead Plan" map with road names was 1844, there was an earlier one in 1824 which had a small number road names (Chester Street, Abbey Street, Church Street), I think the Liverpool equivalent was 1799.

And just found another with a lot of Birkenhead Road names, 1835 Bennison map

I have been reading 'Outline Plan For The County Borough Of Birkenhead' (1945) and in that it states Cammell Lairds started in Vittoria St 1824 so I would imagine there was quite a few others at that time like Cleveland and Corporation Rd.

I'm not so sure, the population of Birkenhead in 1821 was only 200, it was Laird who developed Birkenhead 1824 and onwards.

The Great Float didn't come about until 1850 partly because of Liverpool buying up land to ensure it wouldn't compete with Liverpool docks.