Forums Forums Wirral History : Chasing the Past Wirral History Wirral gun sites from the second world war

I remember where I saw the pictures of the rocket battery, it was in one of the the displays at Perch Rock.

The pictures of the New Brighton Rocket Battery are HERE

Been using Dava2479 link http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/search/keyRes.cfm on the 1st page of this topic
which I could never get working until a few days ago and have been looking at the defence of the nation database and found number of places in the area,it gives a war manufacturer in the boating lake at New Brighton as it gives OS map positions and latitude and longtitude positions,I presume the real position should be the cellars under the indoor fair,but it gives a decoy site at Thurstaston on a field at SJ 2446 8333, W 003 08 04 N53 19 29 ,as destroyed,it gives the other site as in fair condition,the slab on the side of the railway enbankment which I have on here as a photo intrigues me it is more or less inline
with that area,next to Heswall Fields,it also gives a position for a military building Wittering Lane and Delvour Road which I must check out.

The official locations of a lot of the WW2 sites have been found to be misleading, sometimes they are based on the entrance to a site which can be two or three fields away from the gunsite or whatever.

The decoy site at Thurstaston IS destroyed, however the control bunker is still extant.

I am in touch with the relevant people at DoB and hope to improve their records, they also asked me to provide photos of sites that have remains but are marked as destroyed or unknown. This is a much bigger job than I thought when I volunteered, one of the biggest problems is trying to identify what building/structure each remain is - they don't want a vague decription of gun hold-fast they want to know the size of gun etc, as many guns were replaced then you have to try and find if the site was changed or not.

The KMZ file for Google Earth is useful but you require Google Earth installed on your computer, its not always the best behaved of applications (I specifically don't recommend using street-view on a local PC, stick to using the internet version for that).

The problem with WW2 map references, is that the Ordnance Survey have re-projected the OS maps since WW2, and everything simply - changed and moved.

The problem with decoys is that some occupied a good mile or so, with a remote bunker - what do you give a grid refernence for - the middle of the site, the bunker, the edge or what ?

I too have sent in amendments to the DoB site, and various other databases of remains. I've even had acknowledgement that the official description is wrong, but has it ever been corrected - NO !

I feel more inclined to dispense what I know to local people, who are, as rule, are much more appreciative.

I have a description and some photos of Heswall Decoy on my own web site: Heswall Decoy

And other WW2 sites on: Minwex

Had a look at the Wittering Lane and Delvour Road,but didn't have the OS location as details are on a list to check out on another pc,their are two entrances to a field looking towards the Dee,both have no entrance gate posts,one is a straight run into the field so looks normal and the other appears to have an overgrown sharp right down to the field,the entrance ground is made up of bricks from a building and other parts appears to be a concrete floor,could this have been an air-raid shelter.

The concrete slab that I was looking at has a bit of concrete path from the railway,the thickness is only about 4" in imperial money,suppose it could have been a base for the platelayers shed,spoke to some guy doing paragliding and asked if they could take any photo's Thurstaston and the Starfish site and the guy rang up another lad who does the photo's,I did ask if they did could they publish them on Wikiwirral,maybe low level air photo's of the area will show something for us to investigate.

This the mystery one that I refer to.

I thought of a plate layers hut, but it's obviously never had anything built on top (no marks on it anywhere), it's undercut somewhat, about 4 inch thick and looks like MoD concrete. I don't think anything to do with the decoy, we know where the decoy bunker is, and I know the boundary of the decoy site. It looks like the top of something, not a bottom:

That's the same one I am on about,as you say could be mod concrete,they would have had to get the materials they used from somewhere maybe it came in by train and that was a stopping off point,the rear part by the path has started subside along the length of the concrete,so I don't really think it's a roof,I would like to know the route they used to get the materials to site,was the horse track a narrow road and why a bit further up what looks like an old pond and when were the hedges put in etc.

It looks like the hills at Thurstaston common are starting to reveal their secrets. There is concrete starting to show through in several places on the largest one. DD will be down there with his fold away spade like a shot.

Fantastic piece, thanks.

After looking at the 1970,s air map of Thurstaston on Cheshire Tithes web,to me it looks as if Thurstaston gun site was a tip,where the Dee Sailing club is and the ground around it was a tip the old maps show the area as clay pits and limekilns,I was hoping that the horse track towards the Dungeons was an old path but the old maps and looking at air map it appears as new,so is it me using rose coloured glasses and missing things,are there any older air maps or OS maps online that can be used.

The path towards the Dungeon was there on the 1875 map, lined by two hedgerows.

That 1970s aerial is quite hard to interpret.

Older aerials have considerably less resolution and are very hard to pick out details.

The Thurstatston station area (as also did other station sites on that line) was also used to store Uranium ore (lots of it) for processing at Capenhurst, I guess in the 50's. It's on one of the Wirral Steam video films.