Forums Forums Wirral History : Chasing the Past Wirral History Fever Hospital : The Cellars

Notice how i got shoved down the hole

Not far enough, some might say.

lol, love the avatar doc

Hi
I am really fascinated by this find of 'rooms'. I have been speaking to my dad who used to work at St James Hospital in the 60s. He reckons that where you have located these rooms, you are no longer on the hospital site.
The building you refer to as the old nurses home is in fact ward 8 and 9 (cancer patients were treated here in the 60s). Ward 8 and 9 were built to treat patients with TB hence the verandas you can see in the photo - where they would push the patients beds out to get air - believing this would improve their health (this is the method used by most sanatoriums - nothing to do with mental health btw). He says that the majority of buildings there did not have cellars, unless they were in the admin block (which was the last bit to be pulled down (was a nursing home in its final years). But this was situated near the corner of Tollemache and Mercer Roads (this bit still derelict?). I assume the wall you are walking alongside is that which backs onto the gardens of houses in Maplewood Close? If that is the case then are you not in the boundary of the cemetery? My dad also thinks that the buildings nearest to the boundary wall had a door which went directly into the graveyard, possibly for transporting corpses to their resting place. I'm eager to see a map that shows the hospital built and where the boundary lies. I might have to go back the Central Library - if its still open!!

I have a map of this area in 1870. The majority of the cemetery is marked out but that whole area where the hospital stood is in fact quarry, as is the other side of Tollemache - which we know as the top and bottom rec - before they built the new houses. I will attach the map. I actually took a photocopy of it from the archives in Central Library. The reason it looks so stained is because I attacked it with a tea bag to make it look old (lol).

Another thing. There have never been any buildings where the top rec (kids playground) is. I asked my dad about air raid shelters cut into the edge of the rec and he said he can't recall there ever having been air raid shelters or tunnels there. It may be an urban myth (unless of course someone knows somebody who actually went in them).

http://www.panoramio.com/photo/12238492

This is a photo of the map - not the best quality. But it gives you an idea of how the land was being used in 1870. Flaybrick Cemetery opened in 1864 so this may explain why it doesn't stretch as far as it does now. As you can see from the map - the main chapel was split so that dissenters (non-conformists) were held in the mortuary chapel on the left and the CofE people were kept in the right. The RC were kept in the chapel up by the nanny goat gate. These were mortuaries, not crematoriums, crematoriums were only just being built in 1870s as people began to accept it as a means of disposing of the dead. Other interesting points:
- Bidston Avenue is called Bailey Street
- The land where they built Birkenhead Institute was marshy which might explain the excuse they used to demolish it (subsidence...)
- There is a road running through where all the flower avenues now stand (marked 42 .674 on map)
- You can see Tam O'Shanter farm on it (292 1.349)
- There are trees all the way along Tollemache including where Bidston Avenue School stands. Could any of the trees in the playground be original?

I know my nana went to the fever hospital cas she had TB, my aunt and my dad had to go there too for their jabs. And they have told me about the old air raid shelters up on the wreck, they used to be there, they used to get so full that alot of people were left out, my grandad ended up building a shelter in our backyard. When we dug up where it used to be a few weeks ago.. when we got far down we found stone steps too.. that was odd.

Yeah my Nan and aunty got TB and had to stay there for a bit.
Well that's good - we have evidence of air raid shelters from relatives - but I bet they have filled it all in now

Did you find any relics in the shelter?

That was a really good explanation of the origins of the Fever hospital!

Just found this:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/52/a5864952.shtml
and http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/27/a2040427.shtml

The 2nd one mentions:
At the back of my memory there is a picture of being put into a brown wooden sided light brown coloured ambulance and taken to a place which had a bed looking into the night. Was it an isolation hospital, and did I really have diptheria?

I wonder if this was St James and he was out on the veranda?

I've just found out there were 3 parts to the hospital.. Births, Burns and Diptheria. There was/is a tunnel going from the hospital to the church in the graveyard. My aunt says she remembers looking over the wall and seeing them taking bodies to the bunkers/tunnels to be taken to be burnt, and one of my great aunts or someone used to work in the Diptheria section of the hospital.

As for the shelters, my dad said if you look at the wall by the wreck you can see a differance in brick work, thats where they bricked them up so no one could use them after the war was over but there used to be 3 bunkers built into that wall behind all the new houses.
Also my nana wasnt treated in the fever hosital for TB, the hospital for TB back then was Clatterbridge, she was told by the fever hospital she had TB, sorry got a bit mixed up lol.

Here's a map - note what looks like a small cutting, possibly natural, running between cemetery and hospital grounds. Maybe this is what was found, with roof strengthened with girders (like cut and fill technique?) Checked 1882 map and the cutting is there then as well, and 1876.

Wow, good work peeps, finding out more all the time

The red dot marks approximately where the location of the cellars pictured earlier in the post are. When we investigated them we saw no evidence of any tunnels . Depending on who you talk to there are lots of stories of tunnels running from the cemetery ,bidston hill or the hospital but other than the shelters, we have found no signs of any.... YET.

Why is St James' in such a weird place? why was it ever on a roundabout? cant although it was better!!. How did people used to get to it? i cant remember and now i have visions of OAP'S dodging traffic and leggin it across the road lol.