old pic Been trying to figure out where the pool was on modern day map Looking at old pic I wonder if the artist was sitting at top of Holt Hill/Whetstone lane area. Some say it went as far as Central station/Borough Rd possibly via Waterloo place Blackpool st - which I believe (is/was the lowest part of Birkenheadand)and at high tide as far as the old fire station in Borough road where I presume the Happy Valley ran into it. Can anyone have proof of it
I am unsure and I am unable to locate any maps clearly detailng the pool. There is must reference to it within many books detailing that it did run down the lengh of Bourgh Rd and past the Happy Valley pub towards central station where I think it mergded with a very fast / wide stream coming down from Holt hill that fast and srong that a mounted soldier was drowned whilst trying to cross it. I would be very interested if you or anyone else locates pictoral images of this waterway. please keep in touch. Dave Patrick, Bebington.
not got that map. Is it part of a larger map? Noticed Gillbrook on it - whatever it refers to and Inderton which could be related in some way to Hinderton Rd. Hotel may well be the Castle Hotel opposite Lairds main gate Also Fairfield - a stream? from which possibly the Fairfield Hotel was named Is that a railway line to Monks Ferry - what date built? - crossing the Pool? Where did you get the info about mounted soldier? Hope someone comes up with answers.
Tranmere Pool almost certainly ran along the line of Waterloo Place / Blackpool Street, where it was bridged by the Birkenhead-Chester railway (as nightwalker's map shows). The railway line was opened in 1840.
The stream that fed the Pool from the direction of Borough Road - known as The Rubicon - was eventually culverted, but in wet weather the roadway under the rail bridge regularly used to flood as the water tried to find its old natural course.
Hinderton (Inderton?) was the area of Tranmere between the river front and the rising ground leading up to Tranmere Ridge, which could be accessed from the Tranmere Ferry.
As for the drowned soldier, the excellent book Sidelights on Tranmere, by J E Allison, tells the story as it was recorded at Liverpool Coroner's Court: 'The above-named Robert Greene (late Corporall of Major Boulton's Troope)the sixth day of October in the year of Our Lord 1659, about ten of ye clock in the forenoone of the same day being on horseback and going towards Chester at a certain place called Birket Poole, in ye usuall Place of ye same roade hee entered into the Poole, the water being deepe by reason of ye tyde and his horse plunged inn, and having lost his footeng hee turned several tymes about in the water, and then they both sunck down and for some time were under water, then the horse came up and landed on the further syde but the said Robert Greene was then and there by accident, misadventure and misfortune drowned and found lying there dead in the Bottom being left by the Tyde's ebbing neere the place where hee entered into ye Poole.'
Great stuff, yoller. Could the map be showing the 'illegal' railway line? According to wikipedia "The station [Monks Ferry] was originally opened without authority in April 1838. However, due to the objections and legal proceedings of the operators of the Woodside Ferry the station closed until it was purchased and reopened on 23 October 1844 via an extension of the line from Birkenhead Grange Lane". This would confirm the date of the map as about 1838.
Thanks, nightwalker - although the credit goes to Sidelights on Tranmere, which I recommend to anyone who's interested in the history of Birkenhead.
It would be interesting to know exactly at what point poor Corporal Greene was trying to cross the Pool. Was it near where the railway bridge was later built, or further east towards the Mersey?
It certainly looks like the 'illegal' rail route to Monk's Ferry is shown on the map and that sounds like an interesting story in itself.
However, the bridge at Waterloo Place / Blackpool Street was part of the original railway line and presumably would have spanned Tranmere Pool when it was still a tidal inlet. The bridge is still there today and you can see how the land was embanked either side to raise it across the gap.
As Derek said, this is the lowest geographical point in Birkenhead and Blackpool Street would have been the floor of Tranmere Pool.
Incidentally, when the gasworks was built nearby, tne waters of the Pool became very polluted. I wonder if that's why it was called Blackpool Street - not after Blackpool the place, but because the pollution made it a 'black pool.'?
Some great stuff. Am I being teased with small parts of maps.Who's hoarding them? Still say we should have a part of wiki for maps only. Interesting to see railway now map dated 1831. I shall have to look up how maps were made hundreds of years ago considering they didn't have the aerial views we can get nowadays.
Some more edited extracts from Sidelights on Tranmere: 'The Happy Valley, whose course is now indicated by Borough Road, swept north, north-east and east for over one and a half miles. The stream which flowed down it into Tranmere (or Birket) Pool was sometimes called The Rubicon by the Victorians (the Rubicon was the river in Italy which Julius Caesar famously crossed as his point of no return as he invaded Rome). But this classical name could not have been the original one. The stream entered Tranmere Pool near the present Central Station. The creek, about 300 yards wide at its mouth, curved inland for about half a mile, forming on its northern side a tongue of land on which the gasworks were built in the 1840s. The Pool could easily be forded at low water, but at high tide its crossing was made at great risk. Very high tides must have come well up the valley, at least as far as the site of St John's Church.'
Think some of the dates on these old maps are getting a bit confused. I'm pretty sure that the first of bri445's maps is Bryants Map of 1831. I don't think the Monk's Ferry Railway line is shown on that one.
There's an earlier one of Cheshire by Burdett (1777) which shows Tranmere Pool but it doesn't have as much detail.
Still say we should have a part of wiki for maps only.
I keep going back to the great maps on the Fender thread and I'm sure that there must be loads of others dotted around the site which I've not come across yet.
I have a map in my posession showing the proposed Birkenhead - Chester line. The map dates from 1836 - see here for the photos of it (from the Railways of Wirral Wiki thread): Clicky
I've cropped and rotated the relevent part where it crosses Tranmere Pool and attached it below - thought it might be of use?
Sitting on a cornflake, waiting for the van to come.
I keep going back to the great maps on the Fender thread and I'm sure that there must be loads of others dotted around the site which I've not come across yet.
