Hi, Does anyone know of any pictures that exist of the old Prenton Brick and Tile Works, off Prenton Dell Road? I have vivid memories of the quarry and the narrow gauge railway that took the clay up to the works, but I can not remember what the buildings looked like. I do recall a tall chimney. As a kid, I used to play freely in that quarry and I can remember standing at the top of "cliff" watching the escavator dig out the clay below us. There were no fences and no-one ever told us to clear off. In the evening, once the workers had gone home, we would ride on the clay trucks. No loco, of course, just pushing.
Hi I too played in the quarry as a youngster - probably between 1963 and 1968. I remember the narrow gauge railway pulling trucks of clay from the quarry to a building from where the trucks were hauled up an incline by steel ropes. The building doors were open at both ends during working hours and the engine was stored inside overnight. The quarry "walls" were about 10 feet tall although it did seem a lot bigger to a 10 year old. There was an old Ruston Bucyrus excavator loading up the trucks. The quarry itself was where the electricity works is now. After the trucks were steel rope hauled up the incline they entered a larger building which was where the "bricks" were made. It was a large modern-ish building open at one end (the end facing the quarry) and in there i presume there was a kiln although i never went in there. This building looked as though it was built post-war. The really interesting thing i remember was what we called "The old kiln" which was about 100 foot long and had about ten arched entrances. The chimney was at one end of this old kiln. When i played there this building was in a bad state of repair. I actually thought that this building had been bombed during the war even though i had no evidence of this whatsoever. This section of it was totally destroyed and looked as though whatever had caused it, the whole building was put out of action permanently. Years later after reading about the first bombs to be dropped on the Wirral was in Prenton / Landican. This is probably where i got this idea. Maybe checking in the local history section in the library this can be verified. Bonbs dropping on buildings near Golf Links Road sticks in my memory for some reason. This old kiln was bulldozed down early70's i would guess. Also an American aircraft crashed in the fields nearby about 1943 and is commemorated at one of the factories over the railway. The entrance to "Prenton Brick and Tile Works was exactly where the entrance to Melford Drive is now. If you walk along the straight stretch just to where the road bends to the left was what looked like an old railway signal box built of wood with large glass windows. I never went too close to this building as i think it was still in use at the time. Again i had no evidence that it was a signal box - it just vaguely looked like one ! The narrow gauge railway never came near this point although what was there previous to my days i don't know. At the top end of Palmwood Close were thousands of broken bricks from the works (just beyond the pylon) and i would bet if you live in this area you would still find quite a bit of evidence of these in your garden if you were to dig down a foot or so. The "bricks" were not quite like ordinary ones - they were about a foot long and square/rectangular cross-section and actually hollow. I've no idea where they were used or what for. I have only ever seen one photo of the old chimney and i saw it only a few weeks ago. I was looking on the internet at web-sites concerning Shotton Steel works and the associated railway and saw a photo from about 1970 of a steam train going in the Shotton direction. If you type in "John Summers old railway photo's" you might find it ! The photo looked as though it had been taken from where the motorway goes over the railway looking towards Woodchurch Rd. It was a typical "John Summers" train load pulled by an engine and tender, with eleven iron-ore trucks and a guards van. These trains were referred to as "200 tonners". Not sure if this was the weight of Iron Ore they were carrying. In the background you can see the old chimney and what looks like the "modern kiln building". It is quite some distance away but still recognisable. Don't expect too much though! If you walk along Melford Drive to the end and then along the track between the electricity station this is roughly where the inclined plane was. At the end of this track was a hill which is where a lot of clay was put. Evidence of it might still be there. Approximately 1975 there were scrambling motor-bike events taking place on and around this area for a few years. Just about level with the pylon in the electricity station was a bridge under the railway connecting the quarry with Landican. What purpose it had i never knew as there was no actual proper roadway, just a track. If you look on Google Earth you will see a small section of railway embankment slightly devoid of trees - this is just about where it was, It was filled in completely at a very rough guess about 1975. Further down on the Landican side of this bridge was a small bridge over the Fender and look as though it was made of old railway lines with some rotting timbers that were probably old railway sleepers. On old maps this position is marked as a "Roman Bridge" although certainly not the same one. This small bridge was approximately just on the Woodchurch Road side of the motorway where the river is now in a concrete channel. Just where the M53 goes over the railway was another bridge which had been filled in before my time but still a little evidence had remained whilst i was a child. Again no idea why this bridge had been put there. All evidence of this bridge was obliterated when the motorway was built.
I also remember the quarry and, like Mister M, played there from around 1963 to 1968. We lived in Prenton Dell Road,close to the entrance to the Dell, and spent a lot of our spare time in the school holidays building dens in the bushes there or looking for newts and tadpoles in the pools around the quarry. I remember one particularly large pool, which was also quite deep, and some of the older lads had made a raft out of oil drums and planks to navigate it. One day, we also punted across the pool, with the water lapping around our ankles, even though none of us could swim at the time.
I also remember the old excavator in the quarry and was fascinated by what lay within the brickworks buildings, although I could never summon up enough courage to get close enough to explore them. I remember that the quarry itself had a very characteristic "tarry" smell and, when I revisited it about 5 years ago, a sort of nature trail had been created. While walking around this trail, I still got an occasional whiff of that same smell, which transported me straight back to when I was a child playing there.
Another favourite "playground" close to the quarry was the landfill site at the rear of Prenton Dell Road, between the fields owned by Parry's riding school and Prenton Golf Course. I vaguely remember this area as a very picturesque valley with a stream running through it before the first trucks arrived in the early 1960s. I think the land was filled with rubble and all sorts of household waste from slum clearance in Birkenhead but each load delivered provided us with more materials to play with or on. We used to hide until a truck passed by when leaving the site and then jump on its rear end and hitch a lift for a hundred yards or so along Prenton Dell Road. The site is now completely filled in and levelled, with no evidence of the valley I mentioned earlier. Does anyone have photos of the area before the landfill?
Last edited by Bazza55; 10th Mar 20212:25pm. Reason: Typo error
