I'm posting to query, can anyone provide photogrpahs for the Willmer/Wilmer Rd area of Tranmere - according to Tithe Maps this used to be the site of a park called Tranmere Park, which is now the ground of TRFC

Just general interest really, thanks in advance

Could you give a bit more info. about your source? On the tithe maps 1836-51 I can't find Tranmere Park, certainly not near Willmer Rd. Also, since that area is hilly, it doesn't seem suitable for a football ground.
(I do know Willmer Rd.; we had friends at No.96).

Tranmere Rovers ground = Devonshire Park ?


Never heard of Tranmere Park and Chris is correct, far to hilly for a sports ground around Wilmer Rd.

The area around Willmer Road and Derby Road was at one time in history farm land, and Borough Road was a river but Ive no records of this as this is what Ive been told over the years.

Whether this is helpful to your search I dont know.

There is actually an area marked as 'Tranmere Park' on an old map on this site. The text appears just north of Victoria Road and just east of Dingle Road, stretching up to Derby Road. The map is from 1862, and appears in two threads about Borough Road.
See it here - Birkenhead Map
By 1875, a few more roads were appearing, running down to Happy Valley, and originating from the Tranmere or Oxton ridge area. Willmer Road and Balls Road East were not there at that time, but they do appear by 1899, even if not fully built. There is no football ground.

Tranmere Rovers are currently at their third location, and have been since 1914. Prior to that they were at the bottom of Temple Road, between what is now Borough Road and Prenton Road West. They literally crossed over the road, but the ground still remains known as 'Prenton Park', even if it wasn't actually in Prenton when it was so named!

Earlier maps label the area to the north of Temple Road as 'Egerton Park', with the text to the left of Happy Valley, while later ones put it to the East side of what became Borough Road. It is a label that seems to have been dropped since the 1930's.

You may like to look as the OS map repository at 'old-maps.co.uk' where you can follow the development of the area.

The district of Tranmere Park has not got anything to do with T.R.F.C. !
A really good map to use is the Ordnance Survey , Cheshire X111 , of 1872.
You can buy a very good quality copy of this from firm Heritage Cartography
of Jesmond, Newcastle upon Tyne NE24RR ( Proprietor Peter J.Adams ) His Web
address www.ancestralmaps.com Tel No 0191 281 9307 . Any bookshop can
supply ISBN.1-903004-99-3 The whole area bounded by Happy Valley Rd.
( Borough Rd )/ Whetstone Lane/Church Rd. was called Tranmere Park. Includes
Beech, Milton, Elm Grove, Chesnut Grove and all that lot. The last vestige of this
was the Tranmere Park Pub at the end of Church Rd. just before the left turn to
go down Whetstone Lane. Destroyed by vandals of W.B.C. approx 2 years ago.

As a side note on 1876 town map
Vale - A valley, often coursed by a stream; a dale.

there was a street called Tranmere Vale with The Vale pub at the top and The Happy Valley pub at the bottom not fa from Wilmer Road

#

Hi, littlestan; there seems to be a problem with the site link you've given. Could you check it please?

This seems to be the site you were after - Victorian Town Maps

Name and address on site (shown below) compares to the one above -

Heritage Cartography, 18 Brandling Park, Jesmond, NEWCASTLE upon TYNE, England, NE2 4RR
Tel/Fax: +44(0) 191 281 9307

Hi chriskay
Seems to work for me-although a little slow. Otherwise can only suggest you use phone no.given or try bookshops or Amazon using ISBN given.
The map is really good & quite large scale. Company also do Liverpool 1845 ISBN
1-903004-42-x. Wallasey 1872 is 1-905718-00-4.

A bit off topic to begin, but I hope it explains in context.

I could never figure out why Tranmere Vale was so called in the 19th centuary, or why it became Carnforth Street in the early part of the 20th. Carnforth St suffered bomb damage during WW2. The terraced housed were cleared and prefabs built in their place.
In the late 50's, the prefabs were demolished and two blocks of flats were built, to be called Carnforth Close, which bisected Carnforth St. No longer being a through road, the Oxton Rd end was renamed Cartmel Close. I think the Borough Rd end stayed as Carnforth St, although it was only a short cul-de-sac by then, with the 'Happy Valley' pub on the corner.
In the 1990's, the 1960's flats were demolished, to be replaced by modern flats. The name Carnforth Close has been retained. It starts in the same place, but instead of being parallel with Balls Rd East, it is now parallel with Borough Rd for a short distance.

Re: Roads in Tranmere Park
Following the logic of the list of roads quoted above - i.e. those north of Victoria Rd and Milton Rd are all named after trees - then Larch Rd and Sycamore Rd would seem to fit in. Elm Grove (extending from the top of Willmer Rd) was already making its way from Whetstone Lane to (the yet to be completed) Derby Rd. Perhaps Willmer was going to be named after a common tree, but ended up being named after a local dignatry.

Next: Some photographs (below).
They were all taken near the junction with Borough Rd. The one in the snow has been posted by me before, in a Borough Rd thread. Next shot is looking at the junction from the other way, as a 71a bus crosses in front of the launderette (which, in an earlier life, had been a grocers store where the Mantunna tea blend originated) and later became a car showroom.
In the third photo, looking down from a bedroom window, a number 6 bus turns right into Balls Rd East, on the Oxton Circle. Behind it is the printers.
On the skyline we have the 1960's flats on Carnforth Close.
(Sorry about the quality - I was barely able to get an image at all.)

Hi, littlestan; no luck with that link, I'm getting "this domain name may be for sale". The link Norton gives works.

map with Tranmere Park on it (don't know what date)

The Tranmere Park Estate was established in 1854 by the Birkenhead Freehold Land Society, an early form of Mutual Society, that had been set up in 1851 with the object of enabling its working-class members to acquire freehold land more cheaply than they could acquire it as individuals. Members paid a subscription towards buying shares in the Society, and the accumulated funds were eventually used to purchase large areas of land that were subsequently divided up into small building plots that were allocated to the shareholders by ballot. Buying the land in bulk was considerably cheaper than buying it in small plots, particularly as it resulted in consderable savings in legal fees and other expenses. The following report from the Liverpool Mercury of 19th September 1854 describes how the Society members took possession of the first land that had been acquired:

Excellent piece of discovery, marty99fred.

The map is the 1876 OS, and it would appear that the houses with gardens had already been built, as planned. The document stated that the five pockets of land, comprising 16.5 acres, were to be called 'Tranmere Park'. This has to be the genuine original area of that name. The tree naming convention does carry on from Church Road, as per the report, and not Derby Road as I first thought.

The remaining five pockets of vacant land on the 1876 map comprises of plots 1, 15, 17, 18 & 20, which total 17.1 acres. There is also a little plot off the top of Whetstone Lane.

So, did the cartographers of the time write 'Tranmere Park' over the nearest blank part of the map?
Or, did this, or another consortium buy the adjacent 17.1 acres (or part of it, say plots 16 & 20) to extend the park northwards towards Willmer Road?

Although none of the houses in plots 16 & 20 have gardens, the street naming convention continues. Perhaps in modern day terms, this would be Tramnere Park Phase Two.

It is also true to say that Willmer Road was built in phases, by different builders in different styles. I was once told that there is a number 2 and a 2a due to the delayed building of the first row of houses, where the builder added an extra house after the next block had been built and numbered. Note that this bottom block differ in design to the others, and are faced in yellow brick, although mainly painted over now, and were the only ones to have a glass verandah over the front door.

If I remember correctly, the centre of Willmer Road was also the boundary for the catchment area of the two local secondary schools, Hemmingford St and Temple Rd.

Comparing the 1875 map with the online version of the Tithe Map, I suspect the five fields that were purchased were those numbered 448, 468, 469, 473 and 474 on the Tithe, which together form a contiguous plot belonging to Edward Francis French (though the total acreage works out at about 18 acres rather than 16.5). This would suggest that Tranmere Park essentially consisted of the area between Victoria Road and Willmer Road, together with the north side of the top end of Victoria Road up to Church Road. As far as the OS map is concerned, I think it is almost certainly the case that the cartographers simply wrote the name on the convenient empty space next to the estate, instead of attempting the fiddly job of trying to write it across the actual built-up area.

Derek, the vale pub is still there, if you drive along Oxton road you pass it

Hi martyFred very interesting now I know where Dingle Rd came from. Interestingly all the houses from Larch Rd to Victoria Rd and Dingle to Derby Rd all had some type of front and back garden, some of them were quite large. Whereas over to Wilmer and up to Derby had virtually none at all. I lived in Dingle Rd and can see my house on the 1876 map. But not sure about the "working class housing", some of the houses were pretty classy and did not appear any where similar to the ones in Larch and Wilmer. Even as far as Raffles very few had front and back gardens.

Wow - I'm overwhelmed by the responses here; a huge thank you to everyone who has contributed so far - admittedly it's going to take me a while to digest all of this.

The photographs and maps are great, exactly what I was after - is there a source I should be looking within for further ground level photographs of this area? I've searched these forums and found many of Wirral but would love to see more of the specific area

It's interesting to read about the 'area' of Tranmere park (as marked on the pre 1900 maps) I wonder if there might be any photographs of the land before it was built on, the land on which Willmer Road and surrounding roads were built on or where best to try and source these from

Again thank you to everyone for this wealth of information :-)

I don't think I referred to the land being for "working class housing". The essential motivation behind the Freehold Land Society movement was to enable men of working class background to acquire a piece of freehold property and thereby gain the right to vote, as in those days you couldn't vote unless you owned freehold property above a certain value. What they did with the land after they acquired it was entirely up to them; they were free either build on it themselves or dispose of it to a developer at a profit.

I did mean you said Working Class Housing. The document from from the Society mentioned Working Class Housing so I assumed(incorrectly) that the plots would be for Working Class Housing. But all is good, more history of the area is fantastic.

A few more cuttings from the Liverpool Mercury concerning the beginnings of the Tranmere Park Estate. The advert for railings to lay out the plots of land is from September 1854, whilst the first two ballots for allotting the land took place in October and November. The final piece comes from an article on 'Birkenhead and It's Progress' from June 1856.