Forums Forums Wirral History : Chasing the Past Wirral History Townfield pond

I live on the holmlands and my house backs onto te school field. The land with the pond on has always belonged to the school. It is now surrounded with railings all the way around but yes the pond is still there.

That's great news DoctorFrick. A nice end to the year.

Could you possibly post a photo of the pond ?

Can i just mention the bomb craters found in MANY fields around the Wirral.
What happens was that Hitlers (well Goering was in charge of the Luftwaffe realy!) brave `lil airmen were sent over to bomb the bollox out of our dock! but when they came across our Ack Ack (anti aircraft!) fire they poo`d themselves and just jettisoned their payload ASAP to get rid of weight and gain height!
i know that many did get thru and caus havock in and around our docks and city centers, we are still seeing the aftermath today in our buildings, look at the `new` brickwork on the hydraulic / clock tower at the four bridges!
If you realy want to see more , get yourselves down to Fort Perch rock! Go into the air crash section, they have all the info on dates and locations of local bombings and damage, plus mock-ups of shelters and home life. Also got the Spitfire engine dug uo from Birkenhead park earlier this year and accociated artifacts! Realy interesting place the fort, bit run down but good wey to spend an afternoon. worth the £3.00 anyday.

excellent info hoseman

took a few pics of the area today

the caernarvon castle





the oak tree on townfield... must be a few hundred years old

If you goto townfield school check out the tree there, its bigger than that and much older !

I will try and get a picture of the pond for ya Phil, but dunno how good my camera zoom is.

There was a pond there ... If you head down the road to Sainsbury's/Aldi/Home Bargain, the road is called 'Duck Pond Lane'.
There was also an awesome BMW track there, which has probably been raized thanks to Health & Safety or something.

"This is possible as quite a few houses in the Prenton area were hit during the war."

Should of added in my post of a while back that my family used to live on Mountwood road and several of the windows didn't match - turned out that was from bomb damage. Another place that bomb damage certainly used to be seen was in St Savouirs where the windows on one side it don't match as they were blown out (saw that on a school trip 20 years ago so it may of been fixed by now!)

I know one of the houses on Northwood Road was damaged by a bomb

Nos. 52 & 54 Northwood Road got badly damaged in May 1941. Loads of info. on the raids on B'head in:-

"Birkenhead at War" by Ian Boumphrey.

A really interesting book. Well written and lots of excellent photographs. Still available. (£9.95p)

There was lots of bomb damage in Prenton especially around Woody Road. There was an AA site on the opposite side of Holm Lane where Shavington / Davenham is now.

Iv got 200+ photos i will be putting online later this year

There was a lot of bombing activity around Beech rd, Milton and Victoria in Tranmere as they had all those temporary houses on them can't remember what they were called(Chris or Pinz would know)I lived in Dingle Rd. My dad said it was because the jerry's couldn't find Lairds or the ack ack was too intense and just dropped their bombs wherever. Apparently there were a lot of men women and children killed in that area. Jeez I was lucky, Beech Rd entrance was just across the road from my house.

LOL, you mustn't place too much faith in the memories of two old fogies; we do what we can tho'.
The temporary houses were called prefabs, short for prefabricated. Can't remember the constructional details (Pinz?), I suspect a lot of asbestos cement sheeting was involved, but some of them lasted a long time, in fact I think there are still some, much improved, down Heath Rd., Bebington.
I'm really pleased that you're getting so much enjoyment from this site. Please continue to contribute your memories.
Quote/ My dad said it was because the jerry's couldn't find Lairds/end quote. Listen, aiming for Laird's & hitting Beech Rd. would be considered accurate in those days.

Cheers, Chris.

The Prefabs were factory built. I think about 4 separate sections were fitted out internally, transported to site, plonked on (concrete ?) foundations and bolted together. Electrics and plumbing joined up..... and here's the door key !

Cheap to make thanks to mass production. 3 main manufacturers. Arcon, AIROH and another ??? Most of the one on the Wirral were AIROH ones, having a rather nice curved metal canopy over the front door. A lot of the basic structure was made of aluminium !! Yes, you read that right. Aluminium was again available as the war had just ended. Some aircraft factories switched over to making prefabs instead of bombers.

Remember prefabs nr. Fairview Rd., Oxton. Think there's a school there now. Some prefabs were little "palaces" with immaculate, but small gardens.

Not on the Wirral, but some have actually been given listed building status !! Quite right too.