Forums Forums Wirral History : Chasing the Past Wirral History Bidston HAA Gunsite

I spotted that this supposedly destroyed gunsite still exists so went along to photograph it today.

The site is heavily overgrown at the moment with nettles, brambles, thistles, gorse, hawthorn and even some grass. The nettles are 4 feet deep in places, there are rushes indicating boggy areas and loads of mole hills hidden beneath the grass - not a very friendly place at the moment, took me a number of attempts to find a route to the gunsite, despite being able to see it from Fender Lane.

I'll do a few posts
First (this one) - maps and building bases
Second - western Gunsite
Third - building between gunsites
Fourth - Eastern gunsite.

The gunsite was numbered "mersey J/H31" and was recorded as disused in 1942, I suspect that it got partly destroyed by a bomb! The Defence of Britain database thinks the site is "Destroyed", however, as you will see, although not perfect, there is a lot of the structure still there.

The perimeter walls of both gunsites are pretty intact, though not visible (see the Puddington HAA site thread for a picture of what they look like)

This is an unusual gundite because it only has two guns, there is no record what size guns where here, but I guess 3.5 inch (mixing decimal and inches is purely to get a response from Pinz!)

The first aerial is 1972 before Fender Lane is built, most of the additional buildings are visible on it. The path starts from School Lane, and is now cut in half by Fender Lane. The southern half of the gunsite path is exactly where the footpath leads from School Lane to Fender Lane today. The two gunsites are at the top left of the site, the building between the two gun placements is almost invisible but is connected to one of the small white blobs.

Second aerial show 1997, after Fender Lane is built, the building between gunsites is visble, but the gunsites look almost gone, this is because they were very overgrown.

The western gun placement, this is very overgrown and most of the shell lockers are missing, I think this had a bit of a hit from a bomb, draw your own conclusions by comparing it to the other eastern gunsite. I notice the big hinges on the opening to the placement, I didn't notice those at Puddington.

Most of this placement was so overgrown photographs were useless.

The building between the gun placements, it took me a long time to find a way to get to this, very overgrown so I didn't go inside in case there is still something there (hole in ground, shells - whatever - I did have a nail penetrate my shoe and foot getting to this one), it looked like it was very secure at one time. Took me a long time to find a route there but sorted it after a while.

Beside this building is a funny structure, don't know what it is, this site needs a winter visit, bit dodgy going round with an 18 inch machette in summer!

The eastern gun placement, although very worn, much of this is still in place - no gun though.

This is last post. ta!

Excellent work again DD.

Excellent DD - very interesting - thanks

Fascinating work DD.
A quick look on windows live maps found this interesting view.

Yeah, good one scoops, it is far too overgrown at the moment to get in most of the areas, but you've tempted me now. Might get my protective gear on and give it a go at the weekend, too hot to wear at the moment. There are bramble walls in that place, about 8 feet high, after battling through the nettles you reach a dead end and have to blaze another path - if only I could use a machette, or even a baseball bat would do - but can't risk either these days, kung foo gets a bit tiring.

Sounds like my back garden
Give it a few weeks and I'm sure some lowlife scrote will set a brush fire.

Seeming as I made a trail today and it goes pretty near those, anyone fancy having a go tommorow night at about 6:30?

Excellent

Thanks for the time and effort into this one

Well done, DD; there's much more here than at Storeton, for instance. With regard to the funny structure, is it possibly some sort of gun-laying radar?

Funny thing looks more like part of a hoist or winch to me because of the heavy duty eyelets (what is the proper name - U cla mps or summit), I couldn't see much when I was by it, partly because my eyes were still watering from having a nail through my foot - that saves another tetanus trip.

Had a quick detour to Ince gunsite today, that is equally overgrown, very similar weeds etc. There isn't much left there but I was just curious.

I keep on forgetting to look for the motor shed on these sites, looked on 1970 aerial for any sign of the radar ramps, but nothing, this site might not of still been operational when the radar came in.

Errata - I meant 3.7" gun above not the tidely metric 3.5"

I will blow up the hi-res pictures after and see what it looks like. Can't go back to Bidston tonight, just had rain, would need a wet suit to get through that stuff.

excellent work, I'd never spotted this one myself, never fancied the undergrowth - buy some secateurs !

brill work thanks for sharing