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The Blood Tub - Birkenhead North End



This is about a Pub in the North End of Birkenhead that
has the Nick Name of "The Blood Tub" which is passed on
and passed with the same reasoning for why its called the
Blood Tub..

The Normal storey goes that it was that Rough all those
years ago that there were that many fights a night they
had a bucket that participants would spit blood into
after a fight. This was supposedly out side the door, which
could actually be true in its own rights. But the meaning
of the Blood Tub goes further back to the 20's 30's

The Meaning of the Blood Tub
All thoses years ago,there used to be a Pig farm down the road
(See Red Arrows) and pigs would be slaughtered there etc for market.
Now at the end of the shift the Men Working there would just
finish there shift and walk down the raod as they were?
No showering or anything then, and into the local pub.
Once in there they would hang there blood covered aprins
over a Tub and lone behold after a period of time the
blood from the killing would run off and into the tub.

Hence the Blood Tub as it would be the main drinking
hole for those workers.

Thanks for the information Mr R.Burgess

Indexed

How it looks now

Further Reading Topics of Interest

Illchester Sqaure - The Dock Cottages
LEES TAPESTRIES
* Inside The Blood Tub UE - ( Last ever Pictures )

Nice one, how uncanny, i was going to ask if anybody had a piccy of these buildings (3)!
I heard it was a pretty rough place and the police were scared to go in there.
Also if you had a car nobody would dare park in there because it would get trashed.
3).Apperently they were flats or summink?
3).Does anyone know what they were called?

They were called the dock cottages aparantly

Used to be called Ilchester Sqaure.

cheers for the info lads, gonna do a bit of research on them

The buildings to the left of number 3 where Dock Cottages by all accounts not a nice place to live they where built to house the dockers and there family's in 1844/47. They consisted of blocks lettered A-J excluding I for some reason.The buildings that house the blood tub where known as stanley buildings .The Blood Tub its self was originally named The Graving Dock Hotel but was always called the The New Dock Hotel.there are several stories of where the name Blood Tub came from and all very plausible but the one i like the best is that because of the roughness of its patrons and the free flowing of drink there were inevitably lots of fist fights(has much changed)so the land lord at the time placed a bucket /tub for the brawlers to spit blood and teeth in to this some times would not be emptied for weeks and would quite often overflow. The cottages were eventually pulled down in 1937/40 to be replaced by ilchester gardens known locally as ilchester square which was ill fated and only lasted a handful of years it was then grassed over to make the area that is still there now :>

I am so pleased i started this, the info is amazing. seeing that picture or the rows behind the pub reminded me of a dream I had when staying there. I dreamt that whilst travelling round there on a bus (bear with me this was a dream) round the roundabout heading down town, I looked over tyhe grassed area and seen those flats being pulled down. when returning to my aunts who is the source of much info (and 147 years old) i mention this and she asked what they look like. so i told her they were tall and had letters on the side, odd thing after reading one of these threads isthe only letter i seen was the letter I. ironically the excluded one!! wierd. Even stranger when this was 16 years ago and she told me the was pulled down at the start of the second world war.
must stop eating cheese before bed lol

more seriously a massive thanx to all with this so far cant wait to see were this goes.

I thought i would post some "Blood Tub Pictures" I found
on my camera.

So you can see how it looks today.
From Townsend Street.


From Townsend Street Looking up Stanley Road


From Iilchester Square Field ( St James's Church Behind Me ish )

The OLD Blood Tub & The New One?

I need you to look at this picture.
Next to Number 1 is where the "Old Blood Tub" Stood.
If you look closely you can see that its set back from Tyrer Street.


Now look at the new Picture which is sitting almost on Tyrer Street and Stanley Road.
The Red Arrows show where this picture was taken from.


-------
Okay hopfully you can also see that the "New Dock Hotel" Is
not in its original location, and after speaking to my uncle
i now have some light to send on it.

First you have to understand what happened in that area.

The "Dock Hotel" was bulit along side the Dock Cottages.
After the Dock Cottages were pulled down for Illchester Square
the "Dock Hotel" was rebuilt where we see it to day even after
the rest of Illchester square was pulled down.

----------------
The Blood Tub was as i explained further up the hill if you like and at the time was probably
owned by the Birkenhead Brewery. Plans were in the making to pull down the "Dock Cottaages" to be
replaced by illchester square. Apparently the Brewery came to some agreement, that they would
allow the old Building to be
demolished on the understanding that the Brewery could buy the corner and flats above.

So that's what happened.
And the "Dock Hotel" was re-built, and now i'm wondering if this could be the reason for it being
called "The New Dock Hotel" New being because its new??

The Flats above were used for the Brewery and were rent free for ex-managers or Brewery Employee's
that were time served.
The First Floor out of the 3 would be for the current Manager
with an internal stair way to that level. (No longer Exists)

We were not sure when Ownership from "Birkenhead Brewery to Higgsons Brewery" happened.

So the "Blood Tub" You see to day is not the original.
When it was part of
illchester square complex there were 3 shops facing Tyrer Street, A Chippy, news agents and somthing else.

well you learn something new everyday, i never ever knew that

The Dock Hotel was never called the Graving Dock.

The Graving Dock was another pub in Beaufort Road on the corner of Tyne Street. It became derelict and was demolished in the 1980's.
It was also known as "Shiela's cottage" after the landlady who ran it.

The Blood Tub pub was certainly a place where many a fight took place. My dad went there and he wasn't afraid of a punch up or two. Also take into account that a lot of the young men in the area did boxing at school or for the local church clubs, (Holy Cross being one my dad fought for as a boy) it is easy to see how punch ups were not feared and occured a lot.

Not sure about where the name came from exactly but it was definitely a tough place.

Wasn't the Blood Tub called the Lifeboat or similar in the 70s and 80s.

aer you thinking about the pilot? that was on beckwith street?