Forums Forums Wirral History : Chasing the Past Wirral History Prefabs/New Ferry baths.

Does anyone remember the prefabs on the Shorefields in New Ferry?
I remember going past these to get to the shore.....the shore was nice then with lovely sand!..........there was a path that ran down the side of the prefabs to get there, when i think back now it reminded me of a shanty town!
When they all became empty we used to play in them and rip the paper off the walls,that was our vandalisim of the day! just harmless!!
i don't remember them being pulled down, well i was quite young at the time!! mum always told me not to go down to the shore because there were bad men down there!! but we still went,and i never saw any bad men!!!!
and new ferry baths....we used to bunk in there through the side gate that went round and round, when we got in we would run like hell to the park area incase someone saw us!!
the smallpox hospital was behind the baths, it was closed then,you could see into the part that backed onto the baths,must of been the kitchens because you could see dish's pilled up in the window's.
anyone else have memeories of this??
Chris.

I remember prefabs in a few places but don't remember them around new ferry, any chance of telling me where they were in relation to what is there now, please.

hi dd the prefabs in new ferry were on shorefields.

shorefields is the grass thats still there now just before the housing estate that is built on the site of new ferry baths, the prefabs were there in the 50s till early 60s

if you go down New Ferry Rd towards the Great Eastern pub...which is now closed....then turn right, there is a big field..shorefields...that's were they were.

Thanks for that, I thought it might have been to left of the pub. The name shorefields and mayfields referred to different parts of that area but I always get mixed up which is which. What do they call the sports field these days?

Hello, I've only just found this forum whilst looking for period images and stories about New Ferry where I live. I am currently building a new website for the community to replace the old one which we had. The new site is at www.newferryonline.org.uk

Since I live at Shorefields, the field is a particular facination of mine. I first came to live here in 1988, so the pre fabs had long gone. Last week, I spoke to a resident in Merseybank Road, Joyce Wharton, who was a child living there during the war years.

She told me that Polish soldiers manned the anti aircraft guns on Shorefields, and she remembers the barracks which housed them. She and her friends used to go to talk to the Poles. She also remembers the barrage balloons which were tethered from the field (and more around the entrance to Bromborough Dock nearby). The last Luftwaffe air raid on Merseyside was in January 1942, so by the end of the year when the threat of attacks had subsided, the guns and the soldiers left. The barrack buildings were then turned into temporary accommodation for people who had been bombed out. By the time the war ended, pre fabs had been erected on the field to make more homes for bombed families. She sent me a photo of the VE day celebrations in Merseybank Road which runs behind Shorefields.

On our new website, you can also see some more memories about the swimming baths, and the full story about them.

Could I please have your permission to use your memories about the prefabs and the pool as quoted on this thread on our website? Many thanks.

Walked the dog there this morning after reading your thread. Met two old boys that live there & they remember playing footie with Polish POW's who were only guarded by a couple of soldiers. Also took some photos of the area including the shore & the remains of the isolation hospital. Thanks for the idea!

Polish POWs????? I think they are mistaken!!! Poland was our ally, not our enemy. The Poles were soldiers who managed to escape Europe to get to Britain. They pitched in and helped our own forces defend this country. As at Shorefields, the Poles manned the guns - probably with some British soldiers supporting them. There was a squadron of Polish pilots stationed at Speke who flew Hurricanes and shot down attacking Luftwaffe bombers. I think your old boys must be a little confused, or else you must have misunderstood what they were saying. Shorefields was never a POW camp, the military records can verify that.

I am sure they were confused as I always the Poles were "goodies" but I did not want to confuse them any more as they were nice old guys.

Polish PoW's !!!

They were on our side, unlike some other nearby countries that were not quite sure.

I think the confusion is probably because some German PoW camps were re-used to accommodate Polish displaced persons after the war, certainly this was the case at Weston, near Crewe ( Weston PoW Camp ) - which is well worth a visit because it's still there, very intact.

During the war we used to holiday in Engelsea Brook which was about a mile from the camp. Some of the local farmers had help from the German POW's; I remember seeing them at work.

Was it? Does anyone know how the pier part has gotten so rocky and muddy since?

Some years ago, I was told that it was the building of the silting ponds at the mouth of the River Dibbin/Bromborough Pool in the 1930s (since used as the Bromborough Landfill) that caused the sand to disappear from the New Ferry shoreline and be replaced with the mud that is there now. The silting ponds/landfill area jutting out into the river had an effect on the water flows along the shoreline, depositing mud brought downriver from higher up the estuary and from the Manchester Ship Canal.

As for all the brick rubble strewn around the mudflats today - I was told there used to be a brick wall along the top of the cliffs at Shorefields. This was demolished in the latter half of the last century, and the bricks thrown down the cliffs. However, I think it is more likely that they were discarded along the shoreline when the New Ferry brickworks were operating for over half a century. They were roughly where the water treatment works are now next to Mayfields, New Ferry. Before the silting ponds were built in the 1930s, there was a brick works on the shoreline and ships used to come up to the side of the river to export the bricks over to Liverpool for building purposes.

The concrete blocks and other rubble have come from unscrupulous individuals and some local companies dumping them over the cliffs for the last 20 years or so.

There is a super site at http://maps.cheshire.gov.uk/tithemaps/Default.aspx. In the postcode box, type in my postcode CH62 1BS and then navigate the map in a south/south east direction and you will see the brickworks showing very clearly on the 1910 map against the former shoreline.

I was told by my grandad that they had to move the three big guns (anti aircraft guns) off shorefields as they where causing the clifs to crumble into the mersey and causing damage to the local homes (windows braking each time they fired) he also said that they replaced them with 'dummy guns' (as he put it) incase anyone flew over, they would still think they where real.