Forums Forums Wirral History : Chasing the Past Wirral History Stanlow Abbey

I do think its a bit shady of Shell to not conserve a part of our history, one of the oldest parts of local history in fact. Tis a shame as well.

Your meant to keep fones in the van, and not on you! Most turn a blind eye as long as you dont answer it in the open, hide in the van or behind a building etc! Problem is the same tho mate, caught using a camera fone and your just as bolloxed!!
I do have some good contacts in there on the managerial side so can only ask the question!

Hey all, first post on here after much lurking! managed to gain access to stanlow point over the weekend, unfortunately i did not have a camera at the time as it was a spur of the moment visit!
A return is planned in the near future so hopefully i will have some photos of this rather unique piece of land to share with the forum!

i woild like to try and get to the abbey soon

Better idea,ask English Heritage it's a monument,then ask Shell's permission,the security will ask you to put your camera and or phone in a locker,the whole area is classed as a bonded site.

my mate and i didnt actually get the chance to see the remains of the abbey on this occasion. we landed on the island by boat and as the tide was already on the way out when we arrived we only had an hour or so to explore the place for fear of running aground on the way back down river.
I dont know if shell would object to us being on the point, we were careful to stay well away from active areas used by shell/MSC and im not even sure whether they were aware of us being there. We half expected to be accosted and told to clear off from the minute we turned up, but this didnt happen so we are hoping to go back some time in the near future and hopefully find the remains of the abbey.
Id be very interested to hear from anybody who used to work on the island, we noticed that a lot of the buildings on there are derelict and the whole place seems to be in a bit of a timewarp.

Welcome to the machine Huw.

tell me more mate! also welcome to wiki

thanks transcentral! havent been back yet but planning a return the tides are reasonably big so as to allow us to spend a decent length of time on there. there are quite a number of derelict workshops, messrooms etc on there, from what paperwork we found it seems that most of them have been abandoned since the early nineties. the large building marked as a club on the map above seems to have been offices of some sort, but what was obviously somebodies house adjoins it and still has the bathroom etc intact!
being so difficult to get to means that the place has not been damaged by vandals and thieves in the usual way, so most of the rooms are exactly as they were left when the last occupants would have closed the door.
anyway, il hopefully have some photos after the next visit so il keep you posted.

Thanks for the info mate give us a nod when your going back bud!

Without sounding too inpatient has anyone been back to take pics? i understand this maybe difficult being where it is so don't hold out to much hope!

Hi all, just to let you know that we attempted to return to the island this afternoon on a mates boat, but after running aground on mudbanks several times in the entrance of the river gowy we decided to give it a miss rather than risk being stranded on a falling tide. this would mean a very lengthy walk followed by a surefire bollocking for crossing the locks at eastham to regain civillisation!
has anybody else tried to access the island recently? im starting to think kayaks could be the answer, as they float in only a few inches of water and could be carried over the mud at a pinch.

Did anything happen with this search for history or has access just been too difficult?

Thought you all might be interested to know that English Heritage are planning on surveying this site and undertaking some more research on the area over the next few years. Good news.

I worked for Shell in Gas Safety on Shell Island in the early Seventies.We were checking the safety of workers repairing pipelines in two tunnels that ran under the canal from the berths on the island into the refinery.If I remember rightly, one pipeline (on the Mersey side of the canal) also ran in the other direction from the island right up to Eastham Locks. I wasn't aware at the time of the Abbey being there so didn't see anything of it.As was said on earlier posts, access to the island was by a small Ship Canal ferry boat that ran from the refinery near the Corridor Road. There were customs/police houses on the island and families were living there at the time.