Does anyone know when these houses in Ivy Street, Birkenhead (pictured below, left), were built?
They look similar in style to Hamilton Square, which was built between 1825 and 1847. They are also similar to the ‘Antiques Triangle’ buildings in nearby Chester Street / Cross Street (pictured below, right).
I’ve seen the Ivy Street houses on the 1875 Town Plan, but were they built earlier? They were demolished in 1966-69 during the building of the Mersey Tunnel flyovers.
Thanks for your help, Bert. I think you're right about the age of the houses - they were some of the oldest properties in the town, going right back to when Birkenhead was first developed by the Lairds.
They were quite handsome buildings. It would have been nice to have preserved them, rather than flattening them and putting an industrial estate in their place.
I always thought Ivy Street and the Hamilton Square end of Cleveland Street and Price Street should have been saved, beautiful buildings showing the history of Birkenhead, our council proving that they could do a better job than Adolf Hitler, still at it as well.
I've just been looking at The Headland With The Birches, by Agnes McCulloch, a superb little history of Birkenhead published in 1991.
It says that by 1833 one side of Hamilton Square - which was started in 1825 - was completed and other streets to be developed included Ivy Street, Argyle Street, Bridge Street, Chester Street, Church Street, Waterloo Place, Market Street, Catchcart Street and Grange Lane.
So it looks like building in Ivy Street was started not long after Hamilton Square.
