I have been researching my Mother in Laws family tree. Her father was from Birkenhead. Below are some Street names that have come up on census's etc , if anyone has any info, pic etc about any of them , that would be fantastic! grateful for any info as I have no personal knowledge of the area at all. Thank you.
Whetstone View Carpenters Row Warwick Street Huskisson Street Old Chester Road Gladstone Street Egerton Street
Hi Emmski,can`t help you with whetstone veiw,but carpenters row is off chester st which is near b/hed town hall and I`m pretty sure it`s t the top of market st.A lot of streets in Birkenhead have been renamed over the years which makes your request harder to gain info on,however I can suggest emailing Will at wirral archives for info.
I have found Egerton st,click the link and zoom in and have a look around Chester st area.It`s on the 1910 map.All the streets you have named seem to be in the same area.
Gladstone st gone, was off Exmouth st, Warwick st gone was off Oxton road, now called Maritime park and the other end is Warwick close, Huskisson st gone I think It ran around St Johns church which has gone and now built over with the pyramids Grange road. Old Chester road is a long rd so you would need a number.
If you look at the topic further down this forum list you will find one on Lowther st ,Fox st, I think there's a map where Gladstone st was.
Thanks for those pics, they help to try and bring my research alive , names and places mean little on paper. Does anyone have any knowledge of this area in the period 1850 onwards? what kind of houses would have been on these streets? was this a particulary poor area? Any knowledge gratefully absorbed
Hard to say what your after, the houses were terreced 2up 2 down or 3up 3down etc, front doors were never locked ,everybody knew everybody, people worked hard ,lots worked in Cammell Lairds or the docks, I was christened at St Johns and went to St Johns infants and Junior school which when we had a school holiday day off we were force marched into church at 9:00am and berated with the evils of whatever the very rev Albert Howarth came up with, we were then kicked out at 12:00 to enjoy the rest of what was left of the day, I lived in Lowther st next to Gladstone st ,the same one that Paul O'Grady goes on about, Vera did exist , there is a picture of Lowther st in the Lowther st ,Fox st topic, the Gladstone st houses were similar but some of the had a window that jutted out and missing iron railing holes in the sandstone ,the railing long gone in WWI, WWII for guns.
Sorry had a look , seems I need to know postcode before it will show map??
Emma
Hi, emmski. You don't need a postcode. Under the postcode box, there's a link to go direct to the maps. (There seems to be a little problem with the modern map, but if you zoom in a couple of clicks it sorts itself out). I've attached a couple of maps. On the first, your rough street locations are: 1. Egerton St 2. Gladstone St 3. Huskisson St. 4. Warwick St. I can't find Carpenters Row, although Dava2479 seems to know it. I can't find Whetstone View either. There's a Whetstone Lane, marked 5 on the map. This is a steep hill, climbing the Tranmere ridge. There's some quite big houses on it & my guess is that Whetstone View is the name of one, or a group of, these houses. Bearing in mind that you don't know this area, I've marked with a 'W' the location of the Woodside ferry, which you will be able to find on a larger map. As davew3 said, Old Chester Rd. is very long, but the second map, from 1910, shows the first 1/2 mile or so. It starts where the 'X' is. That point is a couple of hundred yards below 'B5749' on the first map.
p.s. do you know you can make the maps bigger & smaller by holding Ctrl & using +/- Hope that helps.
Last edited by chriskay; 20th Mar 201112:58pm. Reason: DOH. Forgot to add the maps.
Egerton Street was situated between Chester Street and Tunnel Road. At the top of the street (north) was King’s Square, leading across to the Mersey Tunnel entrance and the old market. Before the tunnel was built, Grange Street ran across the top of Egerton Street. At the bottom of Egerton Street (south) was Waterloo Place. Egerton Street was bisected by Getley Street, which ran between Tunnel Road and Chester Street. Carpenter’s Row was a row of large old Victorian houses on Chester Street, situated about halfway between Getley Street and Waterloo Place. A narrow alleyway ran under the houses towards Egerton Street. The Egerton Street area was originally called Back Chester Street and was the location of some notorious slums such as Walter’s Court - there are some excellent pictures of these in local history books, and they may be available here on Wikiwirral. These slums were cleared under the Housing of the Working Classes Act of 1890 and the council built terraced redbrick houses and a small block of tenement flats in Egerton Street, Tunnel Road and Getley Street. The whole area was demolished in 1966 / 1967 to make way for the tunnel flyovers.
My mum and dad were married in St Johns and used to live in Oliver Street as kids and teenagers. They were saddened to see it knocked down even though they weren't God botherers.
I seem to recall in the mid '60's there was another road may have been opposite Derby Rd or Clifton Rd that use to go down to Hollybank Rd. There was a sort of road at the top parralel with Whetstone lane but it was only very short and did not go anywhere. Maybe this was Whetstone View. I did some roofing work on the houses on the corner of Derby rd and Whetstone Lane and my doctor was on the other corner. Maybe E Mapping can solve this. mindplayer(posing as Jolly - at work and haven't got my mindplayer password)
Hi Emma, I think I can help with the location of the two places that seem to be the hardest to find.
Whetstone View was a short terrace of four properties situated between the Charing Cross end of Whetstone Lane and Cook Street, behind what is now a row of shops at the bottom of Oxton Road. The first map below shows the exact location outlined in blue, whilst the second, from 1875, shows the houses in more detail.
Yoller had exactly the right location for Carpenters Row, but not the right properties. It was actually an enclosed court of 14 houses situated behind the houses fronting onto Chester Street that he describes, accessed by the covered passageway that he mentions. These court properties were amongst the worst slums that you could imagine, consisting of houses one room wide by two or sometimes three stories high, into which little sunlight penetrated. Often the only source of water was a communal tap or pump situated in the courtyard, and sanitation was pretty non-existent. The third map shows the location of Carpenters Row, but dates from 1909 by which time they had already been condemned as insanitary and demolished. The larger scale map, again from 1875, shows the houses when they still existed; they seem to have been a little better than most court properties as they at least each had a small yard with a water tap (W.T.) and what appears to be an outside toilet. The photo is of a typical unnamed court in the Back Chester Street area, and shows the living conditions rather more graphically than any description I can give.
To help you locate the properties more easily I've taken the liberty of 'borrowing' Chris Kay's aerial view of Birkenhead and adding a couple of blue blobs; the left hand-one is the location of Whetstone View, the right-hand one Carpenters Row.
Thanks for some fascinating information about that area, marty. Up until the 1960s, there was still a street sign saying Carpenters Row along the frontage of Chester Street near the old passageway - that's why I thought those houses on Chester Street were Carpenters Row. It's unbelievable to see from the map how close-packed those court dwellings were - what an awful place to live! I'd love to see a bit more of the 1875 map. Can you tell me where I can get a copy?
The large scale 1875 OS maps are officially referred to as 'town plans' and were drawn at 1:500 scale, which I believe roughly equates to 60 inches to the mile.
The series covering Birkenhead (and a bit of Rock Ferry) consists of about 80 large sheets; there are 25 of these sheets to every one of the familiar 1:2500 maps (ie the ones that are published by Alan Godfrey). I'm not sure whether Birkenhead Reference Library still has a full set of these plans; they certainly used to. Wirral Archives at Cheshire Lines have several sets, but many of their copies have alterations and additions made over the years in the late 1800s by the Corporation's Borough Engineers Department.
For reference purposes, all the original sheets are available online (albeit digitally watermarked) via old-maps.co.uk; their website is not the easiest to use, but once you get the hang of it you can access virtually every OS sheet ever published up till the mid-1960s and a few from the early 70s.
Thank you all so much for taking the time to reply with such great info!! Carpenters Row is where my Mother in laws Great Grandparents , John and Jane Smith lived with their family. They are listed as residing there at both the 1841 and 1851 census but had moved to Egerton Street by 1861.Being able to offer some insight into the conditions of her ancestors will really add to the content of the family tree I am doing as a gift for my mother in law. The info on Whetstone View is also great as I think this is where her Father James Smith was born in 1915. The family were living at 1 Whetstone View in 1911. He came down to Coventry and Married in 1939 , from what my mother in laws says , he never spoke of his family in Birkenhead and she never met any of her relatives. She describes him as a rather cold and harsh character but hopefully some of the information describing the harsh conditions may go some way to explain why he was how he was. Thanks once again I'm so glad I found this site and posted.
1840s would have been a time when Birkenhead was really beginning to grow and labourers came from all parts of the country to find work here Have a look HERE
Whetstone View was still marked on the OS map in 1954, but had gone by the next edition in 1974, so was probably demolished some time in the 1960s, when a lot of other old property in the centre of Birkenhead was pulled down. No 1, by the way, was the house at the right hand end of the row on the map.
The large scale 1875 OS maps are officially referred to as 'town plans' and were drawn at 1:500 scale, which I believe roughly equates to 60 inches to the mile.
Hi, marty; if the plans are indeed 1:500 that is roughly 126 inches to the mile. the Ordnance Survey commonly used, as well as 1:500 & 1:1000 scales, 60 inches to the mile (1:1056) & sometimes 120 inches to the mile (1:528). The mind boggles at the amount of work required to map at these scales. As a matter of interest, I bought on CD from Liverpool archives the 1847/1864 town plan at 60 inches to the mile.
Sorry Chris, you're quite right. I didn't have my calculating head on yesterday! The 1:500 plans were drawn up as the metric equivalent of the earlier 10 feet to the mile maps. Mea culpa.
The amount of work involved in compiling such detailed maps was indeed tremendous - which is one reason why the OS essentially gave up producing maps at such large scales in the 1890s.
I my served my apprentership with a company based in Egerton st it was opposite the main enterance to the tunnel the company was called J&E HALL in the late 50s My best mate used to live in no 2 Gladstone st off Exmouth st I dont think any of them exsist now Ex Birkoneon and proud of it
Don't suppose anyone can tell me when Thomas Street (by Birkenhead's Central Station) ceased being a residential road? Did it get bombed during the war, or was it simply bull-dozed away to make room for the flyover?
No sign of any bomb damage on the post WW2 OS maps. The east side of the street was demolished in the late 60s when the Tunnel Approach flyovers were being built. The west side must have followed soon afterwards, as all the properties had gone by the time of the 1973 OS revsion.
Thanks marty, that's very useful. I'm doing some family research and only recently discovered that the family home in question is now the site of SRT Motorcycles in Thomas Street. It's hard to imagine anyone ever used to live around there, as it's such a soulless area.
I'll have to ask around and see if I can find any pictures of what it used to be like.
A few pics of Thomas Street & Jackson Street in December 1965. It looks as though much of the east side of Thomas Street at the bottom end had already been cleared by then.
REGARDINGphoto of shaftburybuilding in the early forties this used to be a cinema any information please .Name if possible Thanks
Never heard of it being a cinema. The Shafts have been there for years - I think originally it was a church/church hall? where's bert when you need him with his book about the Shafts
No. My family lived mainly in the North End, at various addresses around Laird Street. My maternal grandparents lived on Cleveland Street next to the Corpy Depot, whilst my dad's family lived mainly in the streets off Oxton Road.
I've just had a quick glance at a book I have about the Shafts. The club was originally housed in an old Baptist chapel in Jackson Street, but the main buildings (part of which are still there) were purpose-built as a boys' club, with development taking place in 1911 then in 1934. So I don't think it was ever a cinema.
