Forums Forums Wirral History : Chasing the Past Wirral Pubs Past & Present 342 Old Colonial 167 Bridge Street

Derek has given me a tool which will enable me to reduce the size of the pictures so I can show all the pictures of the interior aswell. Thanks for taking that pic polo.

A murder?? That would be really interesting. Im sure when you see the pictures of the interior then it will bring back some memories!

Been meaning to put these pictures up aswell. When we took the building apart, I found this old theatre programme behind the walls. Its really interesting, all the old advertisements for shops. Its dated as 1914, you will see in one of the pictures the date of the show that they are playing. That is about 6 months before the start of the first world war!

These are the pictures:

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Hi all my mother was licencee here from late 70's to late 80's.

Many customers at that time said it was second oldest pub in birkenhead,the oldest being The Angel.
Can anyone confirm this please.

The only other thing i can add at the moment is that a murder occured there in the 1860's.

my wifes grandad owned The Angel not long before it closed.

Contrary to what the guys at the Archives said, mistakes were quite frequently made on OS maps - I've found dozens of them over the years. When the maps were drawn up the cartographers had to rely on the Surveyors' notebooks, and if these contained mistakes or inadequate information it wasn't really practicable to send them out again to redo the survey. In many cases it seems that the artists simply made the best of the info that they had, so the fact that a pub isn't named as such on a particular map doesn't mean it wasn't a pub. It should be a simple matter to check through the Licence Registers and see if there's been any break in the licencing history. This would actually have been unlikely, as once a licence was lost, it seems to have been very diffucult to get premises relicenced again.

my nan worked in the angel for a few years ,her name was emma hill wonder iff anyone remembers her,we lived on marion street

I beleive the oldest pub in Birkenhead on the time scale as viewed was the "County Arms" which was on the Priory estate, the oldest part of Birkenhead,however when the "County Arms" was pulled down when they Industrialised the Priory, The "Angel" did indeed became the oldest pub in Birkenhead...sadly looking lonely isolated on the wasteland it occupied when the Council decided to ethnicly cleanse all the neighbourhood streets and roads. hope this confirms your information.

I have spoken with some people at the archive centre on canning street and they are of the opinion that the oldest pubs in birkenhead are located on Chester Street. They didn't say exactly which ones but they were the oldest pubs, however I dont think they are still standnig. The oldest standing pub I believe is the Grapes Hotel (Old Colonial)

In Birkenhead I think the Cleveland Arms and the Market Inn (now part of Hornblowers) would be in the running
Chester st
the Hamlet now Gallaghers
Worsley Arms / Queens Arms (Cuckoo) now Riverview
possibly throw the Royal Castle into the mix

The first hotels/inns may be the ones to accomodate travellers off the different ferries. There were several near to Woodside Ferry.
In Rose Brae there was the Adelphi also a Ferry Hotel.
the Woodside Hotel all gon
All the ferries seemed to have a Ferry Hotel

Merging the following 6 posts into this thread.

Thanks wizzo.

hey
i use to work and live in th eold colonial from 2001 to 2007ish. great memories from this pub met some of my closest and bestest friends in this time. Also the love of my life hahaha was a customer and hes still with me. the post in the echo from 2002 me and a guy who worked there got interviewed by him. this was and will be the best pub ever

Hi Hannah,must agree best pub ever,my mum had it late 70's to late 80's.
Were you the owner after the lady that renamed it The old colonial?