Rock Ferry
Rock Ferry | ||
---|---|---|
Metropolitan county | ||
Region | ||
Country | England | |
Sovereign state | United Kingdom | |
Post town | BIRKENHEAD | |
Postcode district | CH41,CH42 | |
Dialling code | 0151 | |
ISO 3166 code | GB-WRL | |
Police | Merseyside | |
Fire | Merseyside | |
Ambulance | North West | |
UK Parliament | ||
Rock Ferry is an area of
History
There are references to a ferry as early as 1357.
In 1836 the Royal Rock Hotel was extended and a bath house was built. In the following years the area received an influx of luxurious villa housing, the villas of Rock Park and many other large houses around the Old Chester Road making Rock Ferry one of the most desirable addresses in the North West.[citation needed] In the later part of the 19th century, Rock Ferry expanded due to the need to house the increasing population of workers, especially at Birkenhead's Cammell Laird shipyard.
Rock Ferry was historically part of the parish of Bebington. It was incorporated into the municipal borough of Birkenhead in 1877.[5] The Local Government Act 1894 said that parishes could no longer straddle borough boundaries, and so the part of Bebington parish within Birkenhead borough became a separate civil parish called Rock Ferry. The parish was short-lived, being abolished in 1898 when all the parishes within the borough of Birkenhead were united into a single parish.[6]
In 1910, the Olympian Gardens were opened adjacent to the Royal Rock Hotel. These
The decline of local industries in the 1950s took its toll. Rock Ferry's original wealthy inhabitants had for a long time been moving away from the area to areas such as
As of 2022, a new £13 million park is being constructed which will link Rock Ferry with Bidston Dock.[8] Known as Dock Branch Park, it will provide a mile–long pedestrian and cycle corridor between the two locations, as well as providing land for 1,000 homes and a new venue for Wirral Transport Museum.[9]
Geography
Rock Ferry is situated on the eastern side of the Wirral Peninsula, at the western side of the River Mersey. The area is approximately 8 km (5.0 mi) south-south-east of the Irish Sea at New Brighton and about 9 km (5.6 mi) east-north-east of the Dee Estuary at Heswall. Rock Ferry is at an elevation of between 0–30 m (0–98 ft) above sea level.[10]
Architecture and famous residents
The best-known part of Rock Ferry is Rock Park, on the banks of the
Other areas of architectural significance include Egerton Park, an oasis of late nineteenth-century villas in a leafy setting, and the Byrne Avenue Baths, a 1930s swimming pool with plenty of
Highfield United Reformed Church, completed in 1871, is a sizeable place of worship within Rock Ferry and a Grade II Listed building.[12]
Ferry service and shipping
There are records of a ferry service from Rock Ferry pier to Liverpool from 1709 onwards,[13] until being discontinued on 30 June 1939. The ferry landing stage was removed in 1957 and the terminal building demolished. The pier became part of Tranmere Oil Terminal and modified for use as a berth for tanker cleaning and degreasing. It has since fallen into disuse and become very dilapidated. A stone slipway originally used by the ferry service also remains.[14]
The Royal Mersey Yacht Club was founded at a meeting held in the Mersey Hotel, Old Church Yard, Liverpool on 26 July 1844. The club opened the doors of its present premises in Bedford Road, Rock Ferry, on 31 May 1901.
Rock Ferry was home to a number of boat builders including the yard of Samuel Bond and the Enterprise Small Craft Company. Between 1906 and 1935 both yards built Royal Mersey Restricted Class boats, including Mefanwy and Phyllis.[15]
Bonds built many boats including Mersey Canoes.[16]
Enterprise built a number of notable boats. Among these were 11
The Naval training school vessels HMS Conway and TS Indefatigable were moored at the Sloyne, in the River Mersey, between Rock Ferry and New Ferry. These were ships converted for the purpose of training boys for a life at sea. During the nineteenth century, the reformatory ships Akbar and Clarence were also moored there.[18][19] In the early years of the Second World War, both the Conway and Indefatigable were moved from the Mersey to avoid damage.
Isambard Kingdom Brunel's SS Great Eastern was beached at New Ferry for breaking up in 1889, which took eighteen months to complete.
Transport
There are also several scheduled bus routes that run along New Chester Road into Birkenhead and central Liverpool
The first municipal motorbus transport started at from Rock Ferry Pier on 12 July 1919. It had been planned to commence a bus service from here in 1914 when the Tramways Committee hired a London bus and spent a day touring the Wirral and in particular Moreton Shore, but this proved impossible because of the outbreak of World War One. The first bus service ran to Duke Street (Park Station) and a month later the service was extended to Moreton. Birkenhead Corporation Transport department continued to expand and completely replaced the municipal 1901 electric tramway system in 1937. By 1969 the Corporation fleet of buses totalled 225 and up until the early years of the 1960s has made a profit. The profit was used to keep the General Rates down for the Birkenhead rate payers. On 1 December 1969 the fifty year old bus operation of the Corporation was amalgamated with the fleets of Wallasey and Liverpool to become Merseyside Passenger Transport Executive.[20]
Education
The area was previously served by
Rock Ferry also has many local primary schools, such as Rock Ferry Primary, St Anne's Primary and Well Lane Primary. The Dell Primary School closed in 2006 and has since been demolished.
Cultural references
Liverpool band Deaf School released the song Rock Ferry on their 1977 album Don't Stop the World.
Welsh singer Duffy revealed that her debut single "Rockferry", released in the UK in 2007, and the album of the same name, were named after Rock Ferry. She said, "My dad grew up there and I used to visit my grandparents as a kid. My nan still lives there now. It's a really nice place and I love everything about it, so I thought it was only right I remembered it somehow through my music."[22]
Rock Ferry is mentioned in the song "This One's for Now" by the band Half Man Half Biscuit on their 2014 album Urge for Offal.
See also
References
- ^ "Coordinate Distance Calculator". Boulter.com. Retrieved 6 March 2016.
- ^ "Ward population 2011". Retrieved 1 June 2015.
- ^ a b Tony Dyson. "'Honeygreave' and the Rock House ferry" (PDF). Bhl-china.org. Retrieved 13 March 2022.
- ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 22 March 2018. Retrieved 22 March 2018.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ "The incorporation of Birkenhead". Manchester Courier. 22 August 1877. p. 5. Retrieved 23 December 2023.
- ^ "Rock Ferry Civil Parish". A Vision of Britain through Time. GB Historical GIS / University of Portsmouth. Retrieved 24 December 2023.
- ^ Ward, Mary (1991), The Changing Years, Rock Ferry Local History Group / Wirral Metropolitan College
- ^ Manning, Craig (16 May 2022). "Work starts on new park forming part of Birkenhead's regeneration". Wirral Globe. Retrieved 5 July 2022.
- ^ "Wirral Green Corridor". www.wirral.gov.uk. Retrieved 5 July 2022.
- ^ "SRTM & Ordnance Survey Elevation Data in PHP". Osola.org.uk. Retrieved 4 November 2016.
- ^ Pool closes - so is THIS what they mean by 'community transfer'?, Wirral Globe, 17 February 2009, retrieved 22 February 2009
- ^ "Highfield United Reformed Church, Birkenhead". British Listed Buildings. Retrieved 24 March 2012.
- ^ Port Cities: Ferries across the Mersey, E. Chambré Hardman Archive, archived from the original on 18 October 2007, retrieved 28 October 2007
- ISBN 0-86317-166-4
- ^ Goulding, Kevin. "Phyllis". Kevingoulding.com. Retrieved 12 October 2014.
- ^ Powell, Richard. "The Canoe Yawl" (PDF). Lodestarbooks.com. Retrieved 19 April 2017.
- ^ "Fairwind". Association of Dunkirk Little Ships. Retrieved 12 October 2014.
- ^ School ships in the Mersey, E. Chambré Hardman Archive, archived from the original on 15 March 2008, retrieved 9 January 2008
- ^ Moorings, Mersey Training Ships Memorial, retrieved 5 February 2016
- ^ The Birkenhead Bus by Tom Turner and an earlier publication by TB Mound
- ^ Online newsletter, Rock Ferry High School, retrieved 19 August 2007
- ^ "Revealed: Why Duffy named album after Rock Ferry". Liverpool Echo. 11 March 2008. Retrieved 19 December 2019.
Further reading
- The Story of Bebington by W. Lowndes (1953 Coronation Souvenir)
- The Wirral Peninsula by Norman Ellison (first published 1955, reprinted 1955, 1956, 1958, 1962)