Forums Forums Wirral History : Chasing the Past History Information Request River Fender

Thanks for the great "read" and the detailed history of the Wallasey Ferries .
Just a couple of points to add - 1. McIntyres book was given out ,free, to all
Secondary School pupils . His Map of 1800 is a representation and not meant
to be 100% accurate. 2. Some writers named the brook/stream leading down to
Tranmere Pool as The Rubicon. Just folklore-not officially named.
3. Gonnels Pool is thought to have been the inlet or bay at the site of present
day Shell Oil Terminal -bottom of St Pauls Road, Lower Tranmere.
There was an interesting article in Vol 156 of 2007 , Transactions of Hist. Soc.
Lancs & Ches. That is an essay by Tony Dyson on the History of the Tranmere
Ferry and the Rock Ferry. Can anyone give me his contact details please ?

United Utilities Spring Hill Borehole and treatment plant on Balls Road. I wonder how much water is being pumped out.I have walked past it for years.(Google Earth)

Just wondering if the Haymarket tracks eventually followed the course of the Bridge End Brook and under the bridge in Bridge st by the Old Colonial

My knowledge of Birkenhead geography isn't great, but it certainly seems possible that the mysterious Ritz river could be the missing Bridge End Brook. Well spotted kimpri1.

Hmm good call joe

Mr G65 19th Nov 2010
The Great Culvert
para 42

The public footpath sign next to the old oak tree which points to Noctorum from the shops side of Townfield Lane,carries on at the other side of the road down the back of the houses on Holmlands Drive. There should be a sign on the other side pointing to Woodchurch.The school still use the first couple of yards then it is overgrown and full of rubbish some gardens have taken the footpath into their own keep, some turf their rubbish over the back fence.It would lead to the raiway underpass at the bottom of the Holmlands estate.I helped a friend clean out the back of a house he baught last year. The rubbish included a drum kit, R.I.P public footpath.

Derek I lost sleep last night on this one.I think Nightwalker could be right, but it would I think make the map wrong.The Great Culvert contribution from Mr G65 puts a run off at Vittoria then Bridge End amongst others.Vittoria being the dock and the list being in order it would move Bridge End towards the Ritz.The map is a bit distorted and off scale but that could surely, not be the line of Grange Road.Cheers lads and lasses my head is starting to hurt, but very interesting.

1643 Cavalier troops, ‘Kept a guard about Berket wood’
1644 Cavalier troops, ‘possessed themselves of Berkett in Worrall’






THE CITY OF THE DEAD
WHEN BIRKENHEAD’S PROGRESS WAS STAYED
THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE TOWN
MR. FERGUSSON IRVINE’S INTERESTING LECTURE.
By a coincidence there appears on this page a narrative of what Birkenhead was in the past, and a vision of what it might be in the future.

The history of Birkenhead from the early days of the twelfth century, when the Priory was founded, up to the present time, was mapped out by Mr. W. Fergusson Irvine in his lecture at Beechcroft Hall on Tuesday, on “The Early History of Birkenhead.” Mr Irvine, who is the president of the Birkenhead and Wirral Local History Society, showed the rapid progress of the town in the 19th century until the great railway crash in 1847, which shook the financial stability of the country, and gave Birkenhead the name of the “City of the Dead.”

Mr Irvine said that in order to understand the early history of any place it was always useful to study its topography and the physical features of the land. Most villages owed their origin to some special characteristic, such as a hill, a stream, or an inlet of the sea. From maps of the district made before the birth of the town of Birkenhead it would be seen that the original site on which the Priory stood, and which became the centre of the little town when it began to grow, was a small peninsula of rocky land running out into the River Mersey. To the north of that ran the deep inlet of the Wallasey Pool, now the Great Float, while on the south side there was a corresponding inlet, though not so deep which formed the Birkenhead Pool (or Tranmere Pool as it was sometimes called) which cut into the land as far as the site of the present Central Station, and at high tides nearly as far as the Fire Station at Charing Cross.
From that rocky headland the fields sloped back for half a mile or more into a marshy tract of land, which ran practically from Wallasey Pool to the head of Birkenhead Pool. That rocky promontory fully protected on three sides, and partially on the fourth, was an ideal site on which to found a village, and no doubt from the earliest times there was a settlement on that point. The headland was covered at an early date by birch trees, and from that fact the name Birkenhead, or the Headland of the Birches, arose; the name Woodside helped to confirm that.

Mr Irvine went on to describe in detail the foundation of the Priory in 1150, and the very interesting events in its history up to modern times.

At the end of the 18th century, beyond three groups of cottages round the Priory, [color:#33CC00]at Bridge End, and at Woodside Ferry, and a house or two at Flaybrick, there were practically no inhabited houses in Birkenhead[/color]. In Claughton there was the Grange Farm, between what was now Alfred-road and Euston-grove. There was also a farm on Claughton Fields called Toad Hole Farm, over the ruins of which many of them no doubt had walked scores of times, either when going from Park-road West to the Dock Cottages, or from Park-road North to Flaybrick Cemetery. Then at Cannon Mount, where the Claughton-road trams used to stop, stood a little cluster of white-washed cottages which constituted Claughton Village. The houses now called Claughton Village were not built until 40 years later. At that time Birkenhead was almost completely cut off from the rest of the world. In order to get to Rock Ferry from Woodside, for instance, it was necessary to go round by what was now Charing Cross and thence up Whetstone-lane. For foot passengers there used to be a bridge over the head of Tranmere Pool. a little way higher up than Central Station in what is now Borough-road. Roughly speaking, the only roads, or rather lanes, were what was now Church-street, leading from Woodside, towards the Priory and Grange-lane, leading from the Priory to what was now Charing Cross and up to Claughton. Before Claughton Village was reached, however, a road branched off to the left known then as Slatey-lane, a name which had since been exalted into Slatey-road.

It was noteworthy, too how much of the land in the neighbourhood was rough heath covered commons. Thus the whole of Oxton Hill was moorland, while Bidston Heath reached as far down as the line of the present Shrewsbury-road North.

BIRKENHEAD’S BACKWARDNESS.

The backwardness of Birkenhead at that time was no doubt mainly due to the difficulty of access. The road approaches were most circuitous, while the Ferry was nearly useless. It was difficult to realise that little more than one hundred years ago the entire fleet of ferry boats consisted of two single masted sailing boats for carrying farm produce, while passengers had to trust themselves to the tender mercies of small open boats, of which the ferrymen possessed three, all of which were at least a quarter of a century old. There was no regular sailing, and the larger, or what they might call, the luggage boats, only ventured on the perilous journey once a day. But the time had arrived when that wonderful agent, steam, was to revolutionise the means of travelling. In 1815 the first boat to be propelled by that new power arrived on the Mersey. She was intended to ply between Liverpool and Runcorn, at that time a famous bathing resort. Two years later one of those marvels was put on to deal with the growing traffic of the Woodside Ferry, which by that time was in more capable and energetic hands.

About 1830 began the great competition between the different ferries along the Mersey bank in conjunction with the famous coaches which daily raced through Chester and the Midlands to London; a competition which grew keener year by year until steam in the form of railway engines again worked a revolution. In 1811 the population had increased to 193, but in the following decade the effect of the new steamboats began to make itself felt, and the numbers sprang up to 419 in 1821, communication of a rapid and effective character having once been established with Liverpool.

BIRKENHEAD’S FUTURE WAS ASSURED.

Within the next ten years two other ferries were developed, and larger steamboats put on all three services. That wrought a marvellous change in the town, so that in 1831 streets were being pushed out in all directions. Liverpool merchants, especially those who indulged in the luxury of fox-hunting, bought up the land greedily, and built many pleasant houses and laid out lovely gardens, where now stand some of Birkenhead’s lowest slums. It was now that the boom time began. In 1833 Parliamentary powers were applied for, and the first Act for regulating the town was passed. The growth during the next five years was very marked. There was a very good map of the town for 1835, and from this you will realise something of the development that was taking place. Great strides were being made, and the population increased fast. Among the early founders of Birkenhead were several of the inevitable Scotsmen, in particular Mr. John Laird, to whose energy and foresight the town owes so much.

Just as the introduction of the steam ferryboat had begun the development of the town of Birkenhead, so the locomotive was to inaugurate a new era. When the Birkenhead and Chester Railway was opened in 1840 the inhabitants realised what vast possibilities lay before them. In the following year the census returns show that the population had risen from 2,700 to 8,500. The town was now

FORGING AHEAD
fast, but the climax of the boom was reached during the following five years. In 1844 a scheme was carried to fruition for making a vast dock or rather series of docks in the Wallasey Pool, with the result that Birkenhead could still boast of possessing the largest floating dock in the world. The progress of Birkenhead during the ten years 1835 to 1845 was indeed phenomenal. When they realised all that was taking place, the new railway, the new docks and other public improvements, and remembered what all that meant in hard cash, which poured into the town week by week, it is not to be wondered that men lost their heads and plunged wildly into land and building speculations. But after the boom came


THE INEVITABLE REACTION.

Like most works of the kind the building of the docks proved more costly than had been anticipated, and the company was running short of funds. When the great railway crash of 1847 shook the financial stability of the whole country, the works were stopped for the want of the necessary means of carrying on. That was a great blow to Birkenhead. The result was so disastrous that after having had an era of almost unexampled prosperity, when buildings were rising in every direction, the town was at once reduced to a state of such depression that the grass grew over the principal streets. The long rows of empty and unfurnished houses gave such an aspect of gloom and depression that it was called at the time “the city of the dead.”

The docks being then at a standstill, every effort was made to revive the attractions of Birkenhead as a place of residence for the people of Liverpool. Rents, which had been exceedingly high, were reduced enormously, and the ferry charge was reduced from 2d. to 1d. The effect of these changes was to gradually revive the prosperity of the town, and from that time, although it has suffered like the rest of the country from short periods of depression, it had gone on increasing year by year until its population had grown from 8,000 to over 150,000.

Could someone be kind enough to put up a map of the Wallasey and Birkenhead docks system and if possible put the outline Wallasey Pool and Tranmere pool to match
Thanks

Toad Hole Farm? That's an unusual name.

I think the one leaving Grange Lane/Road southwards is Whetstone Lane.

Starting from the Old Quay (Woodside) and moving anticlockwise, the roads roughly correspond to the following modern ones:

Bridge Street - A lost extension of Bridge Street running diagonally between Corporation Road & Cleveland Street (which can be seen on Bennison's 1835 map in Bri445's post) - Old Bidston Road - Cavendish Street - Park Road North - Park Road West & the start of Park Road South - Slatey Lane (now Slatey Road) - Grange Mount - Grange Lane (now Grange Road West and Grange Road) - Chester Street. The road running across the middle to Claughton Farm disappeared when Birkenhead Park was laid out and has no modern equivalent.

Here's a larger area coverage of the map in my post 489458, showing the source in the Park. You can recognise the roads better.

Oops! I've just realised the river doesn't quite reach the Park, across Conway Street, but it's heading in the right direction.