Forums Forums Wirral History : Chasing the Past Wirral History Wirral's Castles

A question for those wot are better read than I .... has there never been a proper castle on the Wirral?

The only two castles I know of are Heswall Castle about 1900 and Leasowe Castle about 1600, surely there must have been some others. (no I won't include pubs in this class)

I think there are some forts but I have never seen any pictorial representations/guesses of these even. Any info on these would be appreciated.

Liscard Castle (demolished around 1902)
Liscard Battery (built on around 1912-14, gatehouse & wall still exists ( http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/maritime/exhibitions/magical/placenames/liscard.asp )

Fort Perch Rock (still standing) ( http://www.merseyside.net/newbrighton/Pages/fort.htm )

Hooton Hall (not a castle nor a fort but a magnificent building, demolished 1932)
( http://lh.matthewbeckett.com/houses/lh_cheshire_hootonhall.html )

Tell me more BigBad - I have never heard of Liscard Castle - any idea when it was built, is it Seabank (aka Liscard manor which I haven't seen any pictures of). I have heard of Liscard Battery but never realised that gateway was part of it.

I always forget Fort Perch Rock with it not being on Wirral land.

I have dug up another - Shotwick Castle.

First time I have seen a picture of Hooton Hall, knew of it but never spotted a picture.

What I am really looking for are defensive buildings (saying that after missing out Fort Perch Rock - doh!). There must have been some Roman ones 'cos they were all over the Wirral pinching sandstone.

Cheers for you reponse.

dont no if this will be any good.

liscard castle

Liscard Castle (Gleaned from my Yesterday's Wirral Pictoral History 1890 to 1953 book)

Otherwise known as Marsden's Castle or Marsden's Folly, it stood at the Hoseside Road end of Seaview Rd and was demolished circa. 1902. (itself from a book called Old Mansions of Wallasey, JS Rebecca, 1994)

If I remember correctly though it was never an actual castle, more a mansion-type building and some story of it falling into major disrepair. I recall reading that somewhere but I can't pinpoint where.

With Liscard Battery I've got this:
http://www.spiritus-temporis.com/liscard-battery/

Thanks Jason & BigBad

Liscard castle certainly looks like a folly but you can never tell after people change buildings into homes. Now the name Marsden's Folly is ringing bells.

Cheers

Sea View Rd - Was called Marsden Lane up to 1819.

Interesting, taken from here:
http://www.andysutton.co.uk/old/wallstrnames.htm

Cheers BigBad

John Astley Marsden lived in Liscard Castle, he was born around 1810 and certainly lived after 1842 but this doesn't tie in with the Marsden Road name being earlier. Seaview Hall was on an adjacent site to the castle, at some time Seaview hall was Seaview cottages (don't know if this was before or after the Castle). The castle is on maps 1880 and 1900 but disappears by 1913 (when Castle Road and Turret Road etc arrived) which ties in with your 1902 demolition date.

dd

Yep Liscard Castle was infact an old manor house but had turrets at some point, hence the name.

There was a defence fort / castle on the site of pool hall in Poulton. I have taken this from my upcoing website:

"Poulton Hall is the supposed site of the Medieval castle at Poulton. There are no traces of earthworks or any evidence of a castle having existed here other than some nondescript remains of masonry around the area. This is a site which would have been of strategic value since it overlooked a river crossing and was on high land overlooking the area. We do not know why the castle no longer exists, but we can assume that like many around England, the funds were not there to sustain it and it would have fallen into disrepair. Researchers at Nottingham university and Professor Stephen Harding who is heavily involved with Wirrals heritage believe that Poulton Hall was maybe the site of Brunas old fortress, as the saga claims that the battle of Brunanburh took place on health land beside a river and woodland. Only half a mile from Poulton Hall is Bebbington Heath which is next to the River Dibbin and Storeton Woods, so this fits in with the description in the saga."

Wow - cheers fricky, that is definately new info - I will be looking into this.

OK nice one, if you find any more info let me know and i will add it to my site

Found Poulton Castle remains on a map beside Poulton Hall.

Also found an iron age Burton Fort on Burton Point.

I have been hoping to find a fort around the Meols area but nothing so far.

Nice one ! have you got a bigger version of that map i could have a copy of ?

Just from reading my History of the Hundred of Wirral pdf I've linked to elsewhere, there's this little glimmer of info:

"and the Greens of Poulton, who are descended by the female line, from the ancient family of the Lancelyns of Poulton-Lancelyn, the remains of whose castle may yet be traced near the present hall, by one accustomed to antiquarian searches."

So perhaps digging into the Lancelyns or the Greens will give you info on Poulton Castle.

Sorry Flicky - missed your reply

The maps are screen grabs and I can't do much better, if I zoom out you can't see anything (especially words).

Yes BigBad I spotted that - unfortunately they have a LOT of history. I am suffering from information overload at the moment, as usual you start off looking at one thing and other "interesting" things pop up left, right and centre and before you know it you have forgotten what you started out to do.

Keep on digging !

Hopefully this will help in some way, it's not amazingly clear but you can see where the remains are, the roads are pretty well lined up as are the buildings so you can see exactly where the castle ruins are. Maybe some sort of archaeological dig wouldn't be amiss?

Here's a close-up too:

Hi just found this topic. I live on the poulton lancelyn estate and this intrested me. I have found a map saying that there was a castle in spital but from what i can make but it was a wooden castle and there are no remains. Go to this link and it shows where the castle was.

www.old-maps.co.uk/IndexMapPage2.aspx

This is an extract from The Gatehouse web site:

Supposed site of Medieval castle at Poulton Hall. There are no traces of earthworks or any evidence of a castle having existed here. This is a site which could have been of some slight strategic value since it overlooks a river crossing but does not appear to be a manorial centre and is unlikely in my view. King writes "some nondescript remains of masonry"

Hope this will help

oops sorry that link doesn't seem to work. Will try and do a page grab

Stuey, what makes you beleive that those lines are the remains mate ?

purely the curvature of the roads surrounding and the building layout, it's not a precise fit but it'd be within a few yards. If you try it yourself and compare DiggingDeeper's map as an overlay to the one Google Maps provides you can see how the road formations fit as well as a lot of the buildings, particularly in the top-left of the site. The line at the top is a pure guess but on the basis of there being an existing wall there and the features match up to the overlay I put on I thought it was a fit. The whole thing is a rough estimate but it's based on pretty solid evidence from above. The ruins look like they'd be the big black smudge in the cluster of trees in the top-middle of the lower picture.

Good work - U should be in C.I.D. Maybe then we would have some bad people in prison instead of harassing motorists !

Heh, had a rejection letter from the police when I applied a few weeks back. Also I'm for motorists being harassed if they're driving like tools, I'm a cyclist primarily! Hopefully they'll take on board my new initiative to tackle my pet peeve:

"Don't hesitate. Indicate."

God I hate those people who don't use them, really gets up my nose. Anyway, back to the topic in hand hopefully someone can use them to great effect, it'd be good to see a piece of history unearthed on our beloved little peninsula. Or possible former island if this thing I read about is to be presumed correct (evidence of a stream across the bottom by the Suttons a good long time ago).

That overlay is brillaint bigbad - it confirms the likelyhood that something exists/existed at the remains site.

I have almost given up on Poulton Castle, there is too much confusion.

There are too many Poultons, some off them have Forts/Castles associated with them not to mention Poulton halls. Unfortunately the Lancelyn-Greens have associations with quite a few of them as well.

POULTON-le-Fylde near Blackpool in Lancashire
POULTON-le-Sands, now part of Morecambe in Lancashire
POULTON-with-Fearnhead, on the east of Warrington. Lancashire
POULTON near Liverpool, Cheshire
POULTON cum Seacombe, now part of Wallasey in Cheshire
POULTON cum Spital, now part of Bromborough in Cheshire
POULTON Lancelyn, a hamlet in Poulton cum Spital
POULTON a hamlet in Pulford near Chester in Cheshire
POULTON a hamlet of Asterley in Shropshire
POULTON now part of Awre in Gloucestershire
POULTON near Cirencester in Gloucestershire
POULTON Priory in Gloucestershire
POULTON an ancient village, now part of Mildenhall near Marlborough in Wiltshire
POULTON Wood in Aldington, near Ashford in Kent
POULTON a village near Deal in Kent, which declined after the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the early 16th Century
POLTON near Edinburgh in Midlothian in Scotland
There are also over 3000 villages in the UK, deserted by their medieval occupants due to Black Death or marginal farming- some of these may have been called POULTON

A typical question is Mortimer's History of the Hundred of Wirral where he is talking about Poulton Hall in Poulton-Spital (4 miles from Birkenhead, 13 from Chester) and immediately links to Dodleston Castle where there is another Poulton Hall (of Channel 4 fame), have the two got confused at some time?

Poulton-cum-Spital - I have seen maps of 1882, 1899, 1912, 1936 and 1956 all showing Castle remains next to Poulton Hall, most of these maps have definately been resurveys not just redraws because things like trees in the vicinity have changed - but still a mound of stones once labelled Remains of Castle may stay that way from map to map.

LISCARD CASTLE

I though I would pass on some dribs and drabs I have found about Lisard Castle - most are from hurridly scribbled notes and so there may be spelling errors etc....

Description from 1854 - 4 entertainment rooms, 8 good size bedrooms, Bath, WC, Coachhome and Stables, Conservatories extended gardens and pleasure gardens in 10 Acres.

Castle was rented out as furnished during much of the 1850-1884 (when it wasn't empty)

Rev G F Grundy was there, he was the Headmaster of Risley Grammer School, Shropshire.

1857 Mrs Marshall

1885 John Astley Marsden

1882-1883 Mr P de Lacy Garton (or Ganton)who died, seems he owned the Castle because the his Administrators sold of all the furniture by auction on 9/2/1884

good work, iv got some info i will post on Liscard castle but we must remember it was not a castle at all, infact it was just a large house.

I think a trip to Poulton Hall is in order to see if wecan get around the grounds and note any debris or land anomolies.

Anyone up for that?

If you go to http://www.old-maps.co.uk and put in CH63 9LN (the hall's postcode) then you can look at some old maps there, interestingly on the last one in the 1930's the words "Castle: Remains of" are shifted to the other side of the road...

Poulton Castle

I have some more information on this - it was sitting on my desk without me realising it!!!!

Permission was given to build a grange and cottage in 13th Century

Poulton Hall (or parts of the modern structure) was built mid 1600s probably on top of an older structure.

A former hall stood on a high knoll slightly north of the present hall in the fields known as the Marfords - this is presumed to be Poulton Castle.

So where is this cottage it refers to then ???

Hmmmmmm

Maybe the hall was built on top of it, it does say it was built on an existing structure so it's feasible.

Hi
I went to Central Library yesterday to look at maps and the reference library librarian said you can compare maps online:

http://maps.cheshire.gov.uk/tithemaps/

You can look at the tithe maps for 1836-1851. I found the lighthouse that sits behind the houses in Hoylake (didn't realise it was so old) - you can even look at the plot details. There was another lighthouse on the corner of Alderley Rd just where it bends. Both were owned by the Corporation of Liverpool.

Surprised that at this point the battery is just a patch of waste land owned by Liverpool Corporation. Plot on corner of Mariners Rd and Magazine Brow appears to be the original (looked on Live search map in bird's eye. Says it was owned at that time by James Leay - I am sure I have heard his name linked with ownership of Tam O'Shanter cottage.

Thats a great tool, i will have a playa round with that

I always believed Wirral had a missing castle, well here is something interesting from the 17th century at New Brighton? It can't be Mockbegger Hall as the inlet is still present?

The anomaly with this map is Hawarden (Harden) being marked differently, St Asaph is presumably Rhuddlan

https://www.chartae-antiquae.cz/en/maps/30983

Of course, 'IF' the Battle of Brunenburh' took place on Wirral, there should be one at Bromborough (brunen=spring, burh=fortification). Or there again it could have been taken to be the one at Poulton? Just a thought.

Poulton Castle was built 100 years after the Battle of Brunenburh but that doesn't preclude another earlier fortification being on the site as is quite common.