Forums Forums Wirral History : Chasing the Past Wirral History Abandonded train station @ Singleton Avenue

If we could get hold of some FBI mosquito bots that carry tiny cameras we could seek out these places with no chance of getting caught. :-)

The stream I know a little about.I lived at 149 Woodchurch Rd(At it's junction with Highgreen Rd) for a little while,before I moved there in 2004,the cellar of the house used to flood,the fire brigade were there quite often pumping it out due to an underground stream,it seems the house has now been "Tanked"and is less likely to flood??If you stand outside this house and look around,you would notice it was in the middle of a Y or T shaped valley Woodchurch Rd being the top bars and Highgreen Rd being the Horizontal bar(best way I can think of describing it at this ungodly[drunken]hour).Which then runs into Borough Rd,which I believe was a big stream/tributary for the Mersey in the bottom of a valley again,stands to reason I suppose.So a Goverment paid for railway would make a little sense as they would follow the lie of the land I suppose????????????

Chris

BTW I now live on the opposite side of that valley of Borough rd which is also quite damp

Here's some info I have been trying to dig up ...

An iron track marker was unearthed in Aspendale Road, Tranmere, in the summer of 2006, by Mike Dennis the Site Manager, FAWLEY CONSTRUCTION, and his team. The embossed letters, N.W. & L. Ry. referred to the North Wales and Liverpool Railway. The letters column of the Birkenhead News at that time, revealed that a line was proposed from Birkenhead Central Station, via a tunnel, to the rears of Aspendale Road, Derby Road and Victoria Road. The line was to have continued to the other side of Borough Road, by the now demolished College, to Woodchurch Road, and on to the existing Wirral line at Woodchurch.

The lay-out of Aspendale Road and Maybank Road was such as to allow room for the railway line, and this was pointed out in a letter to the Birkenhead News, which also reported that a similar track marker to the one in Aspendale Road had been found around Holm Lane (Prenton - Oxton). Possibly, the engineers had been considering the constructing of another tunnel, under Oxton hill, to Borough Road.


The following link also discusses this issue and links the above together.

http://forums.travel.com/uk-railway-forum/463922-birkenhead-central-tunnel.html

Very interesting stuff

This map from 1875 seems to have been used as the basis for some mark-ups, one of which may have been to show the land to be purchased for the construction of the line. The dotted lines seem to coincide with the description of the route in relation to Aspendale & Maybank roads (although they aren't shown on this map). Don't know why there should be a gap between the 2 sections though.
If I'm right, the tunnel from Central station would have ended near the top of Victoria Rd. & then there would have been a cutting from there to Borough Rd., which is 50 Ft. lower than the tunnel exit.

Or maybe it's just coincidence.

(Actually, it's the line now occupied by Victoria Fields).

Something that is really weird on that map is the accuracy of most of the lines, then 488 - tranmere water works looks like a random shape but this is the correct shape for 488 according to the tithe maps. As many other boundaries are marked that would not be affected by the line, it looks unlikely that the purpose of the annotations are related to to the trains.

I am wondering if it is land that was already owned by the council or perhaps one individual????

So what exactly do those funny little squiggles mean top and bottom of the marked areas. It looks from the Tithe Map of 1836-1851 that that piece(s)of land was owned by one John Carter. In fact he owned most of the land from Victoria Rd to Harrowby Rd and Borough Rd to Derby Rd. Not sure about the Water Works shape according to the the 1875 Tithe Map it is similar to a trapezium?? Not good with geometry.

I think they the squiggles are Area Braces. In this case they are half braces. I'm assuming that they indicate that the land on one side (which will have the parcel no. and acreage shown) includes the now (because of the proposed railway etc.) isolated chunk of the parcel.

Just putting 2 + 2 together here. I maybe wrong.

Those squiggles are called 'braces'. They show where 2 parcels of land are included in the same reference number & area. In this case, because they are in 2 parts, not joined, it means that the space between is not included in that parcel; if it was included, the braces would be joined & would look like an elongated letter S.
On that particular map, there's been a lot of combining & re-numbering of parcels, shown by the larger, handwritten numbers. The original parcel numbers are the smaller, printed ones & under the parcel number is the area in acres.

Ha, Pinz beat me to it.

On this 1938 map, is the curved markings above woodchurch rd another part of the planned line, it is not a tithe boundary.

You could well be right dd. Never noticed those lines before. They have the same "feel" to them as the others further into town. Well spotted !

It would have gone slap through the Birkenhead Brickworks Company. Is the southernmost boundary line curving away to allow possible sidings at the brickworks ?? The brickworks would have been at peak operation then, with the housing expansion in most areas. Getting bricks out by rail may have been a good option at that time.

Mmmmm yes, interesting. That map doesn't have the look of an O.S. map; too coarse. Is it O.S., DD?

Yes, I am pretty sure you have a copy of this one as well.

1938 05SJ38NW

Yes, I do have that one (although I've re-named them all, so the numbering has gone). I just thought that it didn't have the usual fineness of line of the OS. Here's another extract from the same map, showing that when they built Maybank & Aspendale roads, they didn't build on what we are assuming was the proposed line.