Hi! All. Need your invaluable help again please. Has anyone got any photos of Hind Street and the Gas Works offices and Thomas Street please. My aunt lived in the first house on Thomas Street on the corner of Hind Steet facing the Gas Works Gates and I spent many a happy weekend there but cannot remember the house number.Walked down there last Sunday sadly it sure has changed,to much Industrial Estate, not enough community. Great to see the old railway bridge still there and Blackpool St and Waterloo Place, shocked to see the retail estate etc dominating the area. But does anyone know how I can get details of persons living in Thomas Street and Hind Street please. Thanks Reno
These two pictures of Thomas Street were published on a Wikiwirral thread some time ago, but I can't find it. I think they were taken when the area was being demolished in the late 1960s. I'm sure someone will be able to find the thread.
YOLLER Thank you so much for the photos, looking at the second photo I can identify the gas holder on Hind Street and the Gas Works, clearly visible from my aunts house on the corner of Thomas Street with its whitewashed back yard which looks like either number 32 or 34. I spent many a great time here with my cousins and the super people who lived there exploring the area,the Haymarket, and old Grange Road on a good day. But it was taboo to stand on a newly pummy stoned white step when calling for freinds. I wonder how many people remember the shop at the top of Thomas Street tucked on the end of the Victorian Terrances on the opposite side of Borough Road We bought many sweets here. The gentle guy who owned it also repaired childrens dolls, and the shop was known to all as 'The Dolls Hospital' . Great photos, many memories, many thanks.Reno
I certainly remember the doll's hospital opposite Thomas Street on the corner of the Haymarket. It also sold sweets, papers and magazines.
Next door there was a Marriott's store, selling tools and hardware - Marriott's also had a bigger place in Exmouth Street.
At the top of Thomas Street was a pub, and opposite was an entrance to the Shaftesbury Boys Club. Alongside that was a shop call The Moat, which sold sanitaryware, tiles and bathroom fittings (although none of us had bathrooms - so presumably it must have catered for posh people from outside our area!)
Further along, towards the top of Jackson Street, were the Army recruiting office, Bentley's the pawnshop and Clifton Cycles, where as kids we'd spend ages gazing through the window at the shiny, totally unaffordable bikes with amazing accessories such as Sturmey-Archer three-speed gears.
At certain times of year, the road under the railway bridge at Blackpool Street / Waterloo Place, would flood quite deeply. This area was originally Tranmere Pool, an inlet of the Mersey and the lowest geographical point in Birkenhead.
The Rubicon, the stream that once flowed into the Pool along the present site of Borough Road, had been culverted many years earlier. But in times of heavy rain, the old watercourse would rise and cause flooding.
Cars could still get through - Waterloo Place led on to Chester Street in those days - but the road under the bridge became impassable to pedestrians.
However, the flooded bridge was a bonus for some of the local kids. They'd put on their cossies and go for a swim, washed by the bow waves caused by cars. Welcome to Birkenhead's first waterpark!
Last edited by yoller; 26th Nov 201311:45am. Reason: Add
Yoller you know and remember so much more than I do about this super area, its a pleasure to meet you even on line. I also seem to remember when my cousin Neil and I went walking up Hind Street we used to call for a couple of his school mates who lived in the houses which faced the Gas Board Offices, the houses now gone and replaced by industrial buildings with broken windows. As kids we never busted windows, it was more than our lifes worth to do so if mum /dad found out. When we got to the top of Hind Street with Central Station on our left I seem to remember to our right looking towards the Haymarket, between Hind Street and Thomas Street on the same side of the road. There was a large shop that sold weighting equipment shop scales etc,but can never think of its name, nor the name of the pub in Thomas Street were my uncle drank.I remember Bently's Pawn Shops they sold great used blue boiler suits at 5 shilling and 6 pence, bought for my dad and uncle who worked at Lairds. My nan used to get coke ( coal by-product ) from the gas works in her old four wheeled baby pram, the domestic barrow of the 50's & 60's, and I certainly remember paddling in the water, as you say in our cozzies under the Waterloo Place Railway Bridge. What great days, the likes of which are to us gone forever. Thanks Yoller for the memories. Best Wishes. Reno
Thanks, Reno. I too remember as kids my brother and me trundling down to the gasworks with an old pram and getting it loaded up with a hundredweight sack of coke.
The coke used to be dispensed down a big tube from a massive hopper, billowing dust and grit. It was operated by a lever and the poor bloke who had to stand there pulling it possibly had the worst job in town.
Once loaded up, you had to haul your coke back home. But it wasn't child labour - it was an adventure and we begged our parents to let us go to the gasworks.
They were tough times, but less complicated and more innocent than childhood for today's youngsters.
By the way, the weighing machine place was called Avery.
Looking through my stuff, I just found this copy of an old pen drawing of the gasworks entrance on Hind Street / Blackpool Street, with the bottom of Thomas Street seen on the left. I've no idea who the artist is and I can't even remember where the picture came from. But it's an excellent piece of work.