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Dock Cottages (Block D)



Blood Tub

I wasn't insulting northenders jenny.
My great-great-nan and her husband lived in Dock Cottages (Block K). In fact if you check earlier on in the thread there's a page from the Census (post #243846 ) - check it out. If you had relatives in there you might find them on that page.

hi many thanks for the photo my family grew up in ilchester square do you have any pics of ilchester square

the pix are very good paul mate thanks mate!

pics of what remains of Ilchester Square today
just to see what they used to look like

It is very interesting seeing those pictures of Ilchester Square again. I was actually born in a flat in Ilchester Square .

The above picture is what you would see if you went in the entrance next to the Blood Tub, roughly where the Blood Tub car park is now. The arch led into Ilchester Road which you can see through the arch. The arch and the flats above it were built in the 1950's and were all 3 storey, but the flats on the left (which you can see through the arch) were built in the 1930's and were 4 storey.

That picture, I reckon would have been taken in the late 60's maybe 1970, going by the corrogated iron roughly nailed to that flat to the left of the arch.

Here is another picture of Ilchester Square taken at the Coronation parties in 1952, or was it 53? I believe this picture was taken by a Birkenhead News photographer and some residents bought them.
These are the newer 3 storey flats completed in the early 1950's. If you stood in the middle of the field with your back to St James Church, these flats were roughly just in front of where the kid's playground is now.
Ilchester Square was demolished by 1974, except for the flats over the Blood Tub. Higson's brewery wanted £90,000 compensation if the pub was demolished and, as it was also too expensive to downsize the building, the flats over the pub were refurbished.

2nd of June 1953, every street in Birkenhead and probably in most other towns and city's in the country had a street party on that day. i was 13 at the time, we all got coronation mugs {think they where issued at school to us all}

I still have my Coronation mug !

Snod

Ilchester Square has now disappeared along with The Blood Tub !!

Here is another Ilchester square picture from that BBC website which I have resized and enhanced but it is not very clear due to the size of the original.
They list it as being the dock Cottages, but in fact it is inside Ilchester Square at the Tyrer Street end.

Looks like a great community atmosphere in the coronation pics, didnt it end up with the terrible reputation by the time it was knocked down? If this is true, its amazing how it all went bad in 20 years!

Same as most places around here - 90% of the population are brilliant - but the ... make a mess of anything they touch.

i think another reason the north end's community went from great to it's current state was that the docks were pretty much closed during the last 30 years which left most people in the area unemployed as they worked on the various docklands. many people from the area managed to find other jobs but there's always that small section of scumbags who ruin it for everyone.

So interesting reading this thread.....my dad grew up in ilchester square and my great unncle (Bill Houldin) wrote 'Up Our Lobby' about the dock cottages which someone mentioned earlier....i have a copy at home and love to look through it.

Great to see some pictures of the place my dad always takls about!!

Ill have to show him the pictures see if he can spot himself.