Forums Forums Wirral History : Chasing the Past Wirral History The route of death

Here's a rather macabre extract from a map Jonno & I found in the archives some time ago. It shows the very efficient arrangement of the industries on New Chester Road: from the abattoir, to the glue works & the tannery

It is a very efficent arrangement.

Is there a date to the map?

How would supplies have got there?

I quickly overlapped the map over what it looks like today to see whats still there and whats not.

Excellent

I keep forgetting the cattle trade Birkenhead had.

I have no date for this map, but I remember you could smell the tanneries in the 1950's. I don't know how the cattle got there, but there was a lairage in Pacific Rd., near Woodside.

Apparently they were walked from woodside.
And the rest were either onto trains or carts for around the country.

Its a subject i would like to dig into as its what made
Birkenhead the Place it is today being the central cattle
importer for the Northwest ( I think).

There used to be cattle associated business's all around the woodside area annd also on the Seacombe side of the docks.All the cattle from Ireland used to come into woodside and apart from Lairds the industry was one of the biggest employers of the time.
There is a book available from the libary called Birkenhead and the cattle trade

In the early 1980's, I worked for an edible oils company in Birkenhead and used to occasionally go with the driver to collect animal entrails from Tranmere Lairage in New Chester Road.

At the time they had no dealings with the tannery opposite, as all the hides from there went to a tannery in Chester. I think the glue works had closed by then.

Woodside Lairage had many seperate companies within it including a firm which made sausage skins from intestines. Most of the cattle that came to Woodside came from Ireland and they had a purpose built berth for the ships with bridges leading to the lairage. When Ireland joined the EU, the irish cattled trade ceased and that was the end for Woodside.

There is a mini-slaughter house in New Ferry, behind the butchers opposit the old Kwik Save (now Somerfield). They have auctions there. Couldn't believe it when I heard!!

Yes, that's Edge & Son.

They are the only butchers in the area who are licenced to slaughter on site.

It was still stinking in 1988 when my Missus was working in the nearby office Block just over the wall in Lairds

I remember the cattle bridges, the poor creatures pooped all the way along and the smell was pretty gross.

I had a friend who worked in the tannery and he said that the bull hides were very, very heavy but he could shift one on his own. Whether this was a bit of bragging I don't know but he would have been a big guy in those days.

Apologies if this turns out to be off-topic, but does anyone recall the stink that came from some kind of dump site adjacent to the Wallasey tunnel bridge on Oakdale Road?
I remember it from the late 1970's, and phew was it vile, especially on hot days.
Someone told me the stench came from a pit that was filled with what they believed to be tannery waste, but I don't know if that is true or not.

Hi, It used to belong to The British Leather Company who transfered their waste from their site by Cammel Lairds. As you say, it stunk. Sand bags where used to keep it on two levels. I seem to remember the worker taking off one of the top sand bags and letting it overflow like a weir. Dead dogs where often found, never stopped me playing there though. In the late 60`s it was manned by Sammy Smith from Oakdale Road