its neither closed down or up for rent my friend but your right its is the one by the bridge were one crosses over to the train station... its been open for a year, has been totally refurbished and begins serving all day carvery from the 29 August 2010 ...... she gorgeous and we love her :-)
Welcome to the machine rockstation. Fond memories of the Rock Station, they let me in for a drink at 10.30am on the day of my first wedding at St Anne's church in 1986.
I would be very interested if there are any pictures lying around of the original Rock Ferry Railway Station, which was just behind the Rock Station pub, on the other side of Bedford Road than it is now.
We don't do charity in Germany, we pay taxes. Charity is a failure of governments' responsibilities - Henning Wehn
I've got a picture of a (steam) train departing taken from the other side of the bridge - I guess round about 1965. I found it on the internet a couple of years ago, but for the life of me I can't remember where.
Can anyone tell me if it would be naughty or not to post it here, as I can't credit it?
Sitting on a cornflake, waiting for the van to come.
I would be very interested if there are any pictures lying around of the original Rock Ferry Railway Station, which was just behind the Rock Station pub, on the other side of Bedford Road than it is now.
Now that is interesting, looks like this will cause a bit of confusion. If you look on 1875 map, you will find Rock Ferry Station on the south side of Bedford Road.
The current station opened in 1891 (on North side of Bedford Road) which is after the Pub was built, hence the pub was named from the station on the south of Bedford Road (Rock Lane West would have been too far away).
The big question is whether Rock Lane West station existed, and when did it move north?
The tithe map is dated 1843, which is before Bedford Road even existed.
Last edited by diggingdeeper; 23rd Aug 20102:01pm.
We don't do charity in Germany, we pay taxes. Charity is a failure of governments' responsibilities - Henning Wehn
Interesting; I see what you mean on the 1875 map, where the station is shown South of Bedford Rd. I'm pretty sure Rock Lane station existed; it's documented in some detail. Opened 1846, closed 1862. On the 1875 map, you can see the ramp leading down from Rock Lane West to where the platform was (this is shown more clearly on the 6" O.S.map of 1870 on the disused stations site). I would guess the first Rock Ferry station opened when the Rock Lane one closed in 1862. Maybe this coincided with the building of Bedford Rd.
Rock Ferry Station was south of its present position. It was accessed via Railway Road and on being moved to its present position the station and it's surrounding area became a scrap yard, a function that survived until the late 1960's. The propietor often purchased redundant Birkenhead buses which could clearly be seen awaiting their fate from the top deck of a bus traversing over the stations hump. The last buses to be scrapped there were three Leyland Massey Bodied PD2's (121-123-124) new in 1947.
As well as his excellent pictures of the Mersey Railway stock at Rock Ferry, Dewi Williams has a lot of other transport/gen.interest photos from Merseyside in the late 50's. A real nostalgia fest. !
This one’s not of Rock Lane, but a very atmospheric shot all the same of Rock Ferry Station taken from the south side of Bedford Road on a damp murky day in what, 1965-ish? That’s a Stanier Class 4 tank on the Up Slow line, so it’s probably on an all-stations ‘stopper’ through to Chester. Over on the siding is a 16T Mineral wagon being unloaded (by hand) onto the back of the Coal Merchants’ lorry. I love photographs like this, taken from unusual viewpoints of the everyday…
It’s interesting to note that the siding the wagon is sat on is not shown on the Rock Ferry Signal Box diagram that is in my possession (which was found in an antique shop in Preston(!!) about 20 years ago). I’m guessing that because its hand (lever) operated within the confines of the yard, it didn’t need to be shown in the box?
See the photos below of the (cleaned) part of the diagram (note the signals appearing on the photo correspond to signals 48 and 56 on the diagram), and also another of what it looked like halfway through cleaning it (it was covered in nicotine - must have been a very fuggy signal box!)
Sitting on a cornflake, waiting for the van to come.
