Forums Forums Wirral History : Chasing the Past History Information Request Leasowe Road - Solar Campus/Heyes Drive

Does anyone have information or pics regarding the area on which Heyes Drive, the Solar Campus, Links View Garage and the surrounding fields (all just off Leasowe Road) used to be? I've had a good scout around your site (seriously addictive I must admit) but haven't had any luck finding anything. If there's stuff on here that I've somehow managed to miss can someone please direct me towards it.

I believe it was a brickworks at some point, all the crap I've dug up in my garden is testament to this but I want to know more.

Thanks

hi m8,on a map dated 1898 it has a brick works marked on it.hard to say where it was exactly but looks like where the solar campus is,hope thats of use to you.

I concur... Wallasey Brickworks was where Solar Campus is.

I'm going to take a guess and say the links view fields have always been fields... sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong though!

Maps of the area circa 1842, 1875, 1910 and modern. Credit for the maps goes to Cheshire Records Office and their Tithe Map website.

I've just been studying the maps from the Cheshire Records Office (cheers greasby_lad) and on the Ariel view from 1970 it looks as though the brickworks, or at least the remainder of the brickworks, was still present. The entrance to Heyes Drive looks to be the entrance to the Brickworks, which is between the houses on Leasowe Road that are still there today. I believe the houses on Heyes Drive were built in the early 70's but can't be certain.

Also interesting to see in the surrounding areas on the OS c1910 map is the Isolation Hospital. This may sound like a soft question but what was that?

I've also noticed that two wells existed on and near the site of the church and primary school just off Gardenside. Interesting stuff.

back in the 90's or early "noughties", there were some cast iron posts in the overgrown bit next to the link road - not sure if they're still there though....

I could be wrong on this - I presume that the Isolation Hospital on the 1910 map was the Leasowe Open Air Hospital for tuberculosis patients (TB was known as 'consumption' although this may have been only in its later stages).

Cheers bazzoh. I'm going to have a mooch around the area hopefully tomorrow, if I can get an early dart from work, and see if I can find owt.

I must compliment you on the pictures on your Flickr page, especially those of the fire at the Twenty Row (The pub I met my missus) and some excellent pictures of the buildings around Liverpool. Thanks again.

I may also be wrong but I think that's the Open Air Hospital, which was situated further down Leasowe Road opposite Moreton Common.

i agree, i think this is the one near to reeds lane - another building destroyed by fire after being refused (initially) planning permission....thats another thread though!

baz

ps thanks for the comments on the picies!

I can't find any other hospitals in Leasowe on the maps.

There's already a thread on Leasowe Hospital with an artist's impression of how the architect intended it to look.

I'm glad that I started my earlier entry with "I could be wrong about this ..." I've now found the Leasowe TB Hospital at SJ261915 and this aerial view from the 1970s -

The brickworks was Barker & Jones. Their main "brand" of brick was called Autumntint. Many Wallasey houses were built with that brick, including mine in 1955. It was a c**p brick. Either the clay was poor or the firing process was wrong because the bricks lack strength and are very prone to frost damage if they became damp ie the patterned face falls off. Look at many of the garden walls around the area and you will see what I mean. I think the brickworks closed in the early 60s and I remember being told (by one of the Jones side of the business) that it was because the clay had run out.

As a lad I remember being warned never to go near the lime pits that were somewhere in the area of that brickworks - but of course we did because it was fun throwing old bricks into the sloppy slated lime

Snod

There were lime pits behind the Black Horse in Wallasey Village, my Nan remembered a boy from her school falling in and dieing.

The Brickworks were run by Barker and Briscoe and production stopped there in 1970. The factory inside literally looked as though they had just stopped everything and walked out. There was one watchman and my Dad got friendly with him and he used to let my Dad bring us in to look around. I don't know his name but he had lost a hand in the war and it was the only job he could get. Eventually they demolished the brickworks and started building Hayes Drive in 1971. the road into Hayes Drive is the actual entrance to the brickworks. There was a pit on the field behind where they had once dug clay. It was filled with water and was about the area of a football pitch and was know locally as "the Oily". This was filled in shortly after work started on Hayes Drive. There also used to be pits where the field is along Leasowe Road as far as where the church is now, but these were filled in in the 50's.

The isolation hospital which stood on the school field (before the school was there) was built to attempt to cope with the massive outbreak of venereal disease at the end of the 19th century. With Liverpool being a seaport, VD was rife on Merseydside even more so than poor areas in places like Manchester. The isolation hospital was built to house suffers (a lot of them seafarers) in an attempt to cure them and also to stop them spreading disease further. The iron gate posts sticking up by the Birket (there used to be 2 sets) were the back gates of the hospital. If I can dig out the piece on the hospital I will post it.

it was later than 1970 because my ex husband was working for Barker&Briscoe when we got married and that was 1975..

I went to St. Georges school before the solar campus was built & Barker & Jones brickworks was right next door to our playground & the brick dust drifted across as the lorries moved about. Where Linksview is or right next door was an old clay pit, partly flooded & I remember one of the boys rescuing a sheep out of it.

Quite Right! Barker and Briscoe continued production at their Moreton site until much later than Leasowe Road. The Leasowe Road site was demolished end of 1970 start of 1971. They were building the houses of Hayes Drive when I went to St Georges middle school in 1971, just after they had finished levelling the danger field off, they started that in 1969. They levelled it by putting about 4 feet of top soil over the entire field and chopping off the high spots. The danger field was the name given locally to the whole area around the brickworks because of the pits and workings. Much of the field has started to subside over the years, recently the council had to fill in some 3-4 foot depressions which had begun to cave in as the ground underneath began to subside. It's still up and down like a fiddler's elbow now!

" THE DANGER FIELD" I had completely forgotten that name !!!

Thanks for the information everyone. It would be good to see some pictures of the area when the brickworks were present and possibly pictures of Heyes Drive being built.

I had good walk around the field yesterday, not really with any hope of finding anything, I squelched through the sodden field nonetheless. There are plenty of patches scattered about the leasowe side of the field, whether they used to be buildings, filled in lime pits (?) or even boggy land I'm not sure. I've taken some pictures (hardly exciting I must admit) which I'll put on sometime and maybe an indication of where they are situated.

Between the Solar Campus and the side of Heyes drive is a short concrete/gravel path which runs for several yards before disappearing into the grass. I can only assume this led to the Isolation Hospital as shown on the OS c1910 map. Thanks for information 'Capt_America'; I didn't get a chance to head over to the Birket to check on the old posts but fully intend to sometime soon. I found some other info about the area on a website www.mikekemble.com/mside/wallasey1.html; as follows is a small excerpt from it.

Very little is known about early Wallasey dwellers. There have been a few finds of animal bones, an adze hammer, a bronze palstave and, in 1864, at Leasowe, of a complete skeleton displaying "characteristics and peculiarities of an original race, or savage tribe." (Sir Edward Cust). The adze hammer was found in 1936 in Brickworks on Leasowe Road, 4 - 5 feet down in blue silt on an old course of the River Birket.

Does anyone else know of this? I intend to dig deeper when I get the chance. The wife thinks I've gone barmy.

Wasn't the brick company called Barker and Jones before Barker and Briscoe ? I have some info on a firm from Leasowe Road called Wallasey Haulage which I think may have been from the same site as the brickworks.
Cheers Chris.

The haulage company ran from a yard behind a cottage which was where the sheltered flats are now (Liddel Court) and ran down parallel to Cross Lane. The cottage had a date over the door something like 1812 if I remember correctly. The entry between these flats and the houses before Chorlton Grove also led to the yard. There were 2 more houses where the flyover is now with a market garden yard behind railings and a massive privet hedge just like on the other side of the road.

Capt america, have you any more info on the haulage yard ? Pics etc ?
Cheers Chris.

The yard and the garage sheds can be clearly seen in the middle. the access road between the house and where Liddle Court is now can clearly be seen. There was another old house on the corner which has already been demolished, Hope this helps?

You ,might like this one as well. It shows the brick works with the entrance to Hayes Drive where it is now, Links View garage one side and the school on the other. Enjoy!

Edit: at the bottom left of centre you can just see part of the "Oily", old clay pit workings yet to be filled in, part of the "Danger Field".

Apparently our house is the old managers house for the brickworks. Think his name was Shackleton.