Hargrave Lane next to Bromborough Golf Course is Roman, I've seen a much more complete version of this article focusing on Wirral by a female author but can't find it now.
Here's the link I found Street Hey Lane to be a possible Roman rd still being used today, but it is inconclusive. It doesn't really mention other big finds on the Wirral. http://www.romanroads.org/gazetteer/cheshire/M670.htm
On the 1844 map yoller posted, Corporation Rd extends further to what is Tower road today. You can just about make out 'ning street' on the bottom left of the map for Canning St which isn't on the 1835 map. But saying that, a lot of the streets aren't named on that map, and where it has Laird St marked, it looks like it is where Cathcart St is today.
This map may be of help. It was printed in October 1844, showing the plans for the new Birkenhead docks. I've copied sections of it and then the whole thing. It should be legible if you zoom in on it.
Proposed maps are fascinating comparing them to the actual layout and street names of today. It took me a minute before I realised I was looking south. Cracker yoller, cheers.
It’s interesting to see the original dock proposals on the 1844 map and to remember how things eventually turned out very differently.
In 1827, the land bordering Wallasey Pool had been bought up by William Laird and Sir John Tobin. They then devised a scheme for docks there, linked to a cross-Wirral ship canal from the Dee near West Kirby.
Liverpool Corporation, fearful of a rival for its dock trade, panicked and bought out Laird and Tobin at an inflated price, promising that it would itself develop Wallasey Pool. But nothing was done.
Then in 1843, in need of fresh finances, the corporation decided to sell the land, which was snapped up by Birkenhead business tycoon William Jackson, John Laird – William Laird’s son – and other investors for a total of £320,000.
Then on November 7, 1843, Jackson dramatically announced to the Birkenhead improvement commissioners the ambitious new scheme for building docks.
The basic plan was to enclose Wallasey Pool by a dam across its mile-wide mouth between Seacombe and Woodside. Along a large part of the frontage, land would be reclaimed to be profitably developed.
The pool would then be turned into a huge 120-acre ‘inland sea’ of navigable water, docks, quays, railway sidings and warehouses called the Great Floating Dock, or the Great Float, divided into the East and West Floats.
The most ambitious part of the scheme was the construction of a massive low water basin on the seaward side of the dam.
This 37-acre harbour was supposed to enable ships to berth safely whatever the state of the tide or the time of day, offloading passengers or cargo. Vessels would be able to enter and leave the Great Float via locks in the basin. The cost of the whole enterprise was estimated at around £4million.
In 1844, the foundation stone of the docks was laid by Cheshire MP Sir Philip Egerton and a general holiday declared for Birkenhead.
Streets were decorated, church bells rang and there was a grand fireworks display in Argyle Street. Banquets were held and bread and beef handed out to the poor, while children were given buns and fruit.
Three years later, at noon on Easter Monday, April 5, 1847, Birkenhead’s first two docks were opened by Lord Morpeth, having cost £2million.
One dock, the Morpeth, was named after Lord Morpeth, while the other, the Egerton, was named after Sir Philip Egerton.
Lord Morpeth, the 7th Earl of Carlisle, was the First Commissioner of Woods and Forests, representing the Crown. When the Morpeth Dock was being planned, it was found the proposed site was Crown land and he helped smooth over the legal difficulties, allowing the project to proceed. So the dock was named in his honour.
The two docks were to provide a temporary entrance into the Great Float for shipping until the dam and low water basin were built.
Later that same Easter Monday, 56,000 people gathered in Birkenhead Park amid driving rain to see it officially opened by Lord Morpeth. It was a great day of hope and optimism in the town’s history.
But a few months later, overspending, financial mismanagement, suspected fraud and technical incompetence on the docks scheme came home to roost amid a nationwide financial slump.
Almost £250,000 had been wasted on the project, and it was halted by midsummer for lack of funds. To the horror of investors, the Birkenhead Dock Company’s coffers were found to be empty and, with some Merseyside banks forced to close as the recession deepened, the company could borrow no more money.
One of the main issues was that the dam and low water basin, designed by engineer James Rendel, was hugely over-ambitious. The whole project was dogged by technical problems, which ate up the available finance.
As dock building was suspended, other development work was abandoned in Birkenhead, unemployment soared, and thousands left the town in search of work elsewhere. Things were made worse as the Laird shipyard saw orders dry up.
In 1852, the famous railway-building contractor Thomas Brassey – who had strong connections with Birkenhead – became involved with the ailing docks scheme, pledging to complete the dam across Wallasey Pool and excavate the low water basin. But in 1854, his dam collapsed in a storm and he quit, having invested large amounts of his own money.
In 1856, a new engineer, John Hartley, took charge of the docks scheme. He redesigned it to incorporate a second entrance from the river through three locks, north of the planned low water basin entrance. This was to prove a vitally important decision.
In the wake of the 1847 mismanagement crisis and financial crash, the docks were transferred to the control of the new Mersey Docks and Harbour Board and work began to revive their development. The board also took charge of Liverpool docks.
In 1860, the Great Float opened to shipping. But trade was sparse because the planned entrances via the low water basin and the three-lock system further north were not yet built and vessels had to go in through the restrictive Morpeth and Egerton docks.
By 1864, the low water basin was almost complete, but now covered only 14 acres instead of 37 acres originally planned in 1843.
It was supposed to be scoured daily by sluices which, when opened, sent up to 200million gallons of water gushing down from the Great Float at 20mph and along the bottom of the basin in a wide jet to clear mud and silt.
But during the first months of use, it became obvious that the sluices were failing to scour the basin properly. Deposits were merely being moved along to the riverside end of the harbour, where they built up. In addition, the daily outrush of water from the Great Float was destabilising shipping berthed there and threatened to undermine the foundations of the sluices.
More than 20 years after it was first designed, and despite all the time and money spent on building it, the low water basin was a failure and would eventually have to be abandoned.
But in 1866, the eight-acre Alfred Dock opened along the East Float, named after Queen Victoria’s son Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh.
Linked to the Mersey by the three locks added to the original docks project by engineer John Hartley in 1856, it finally provided a workable entrance to the Great Float for shipping, and the fortunes of the Birkenhead docks at last started to pick up.
In 1878, the ill-fated low water basin was closed off from the Mersey and converted into the Wallasey Dock.
Here's the map that backs up most of that. Sorry I've not been adding many attachments recently but I've been on the wrong computer and I am not good at juggling too many keyboards and mice.
We don't do charity in Germany, we pay taxes. Charity is a failure of governments' responsibilities - Henning Wehn
