Forums Forums Wirral History : Chasing the Past History Information Request hoylake / new brighton ww2 ?

I have just been out with the kids on the rocky little island just off hoylake shore (in between hoylake and hilbre island) and the kids noticed holes drilled into the sandstone. These holes are equally spaced apart and form squares (we spotted three of them), there is also a line of holes drilled into what looks like a flattened piece of sandstone. Does anyone know if anything was ever built there? My intial thought is that it has something to do with coastal defences during WW2.
Also up at new brighton (at the start of the concrete walkway going from the old derby pool to moreton is a large hill with a cocnrete base panel fence in front of it- some graffiti on this refered to it as a gun site, is this true?)are there any pictures ?
and finally does anybody know why they havent built on borough road playing fields near the shafts boys club??? There have been loads of surveys performed and rumours of another estate being built but it has never happened. I heard a rumour suggesting it was because it used to be a quarry for brick making. any info on the above would be great as would old pics of the mount estate!

Definitely a gun site near Derby Pool towards Moreton - sorry no pictures

the playing fields behind the houses on Borough road are where one of the new schools was going to be built. When the council anounced that a acadamy was to be built to take the place of rock ferry high and park high they also mentioned on the side that a boys acadamy was to be built on the school playing field behind the mount estate houses on borough road.

Welcome to the machine L JAI. I am intrigued about the drilled holes, anyone got a clue? Oh amd the gun site had a rocket battery as well there is a fairly pecent topic in one of the forums about it.

The rocket battery was in the dips I think.

The "gunsite carpark" was indeed a ww2 gunsite but the correct location has no remains as far as I am aware, its a bit that juts out into the sea a little bit.

I seem to remember the remains of a sign on the rocks you are talking about, it was fairly heavy because it is tidal there. Maybe some of the other old-foggies can remember better.

The area by the old Derby Pool site has been rebuilt so much over the last 30 years I doubt if anything original remains from WW II.

The gunsite you refer to (I think)is the one that was situated at the end of what Google maps refer to as the continuation of Green Lane, we always called it the cinder track as that's what it was made from. Nothing now remains of the site & any debris is under the sandhills. We used to play on the guns as kids.

The holes in the rock near Hilbre may be part of the anchoring devices for the cable that ran to Hilbre Island for the dummy oil burning sites in the war. There are threads on here somewhere on both of these.