Forums Forums Wirral History : Chasing the Past History Information Request Aerial photo 1923

An aerial photo of the Woodside area,what was the large chimney and what building was it attached to?

Don't know when the Grasshopper was installed on that site?

What was going on in Hamilton Square?

Do you have a date?

The date is 1923, as far as i know, nothing was going on in Hamilton Sq, other half of photo below.

I'm sure the building is the Shore Road Pumping Station, which housed the giant steam pump called the Grasshopper. The chimney was the exhaust for the pump, which was used to keep the Mersey underground railway clear of water.

The chimney was 280ft tall.

when was the chimney demolished, seem to remember it in the late 40s early 50s and thought it was still there.

Yes indeed. Shore Road Pumping Station. Up until the late 1950's the former Mersey Railway generated it's own juice there. When they switched over to the National Grid, the steam plant was closed down. Grid supplies were then used for traction and lighting, also for pumping. The "Grasshoppers" were shut down. One was scrapped and one survives. Pumping is now done by "down the hole" Sulzer pumps with spider bearings concentric within the pumping main. Can't recall the output, but I remember being told when on a visit down the pumping shaft that if all pumps stopped, you have 4 hours before river water rises to conductor rail level under the river bed. It's then "Game Over" !!

The chimney was clad in scaffolding and demolished brick by brick in 1960/61 (?). No room for a Fred Dibnah job !!

Extract from "The Mersey Railway" by G.W.Parkin.... "and on Thurday 25th June 1959, Mr Robert Varley, the Company's last General Manager and Engineer formally closed the station down"

Sorry for the long-winded reply !

It was fully scaffolded in the late fifties and early sixties, and I remember seeing it in the early sixties.

Here is a 1961 picture ...

Thank you all, excellent info as usual.

Moonstar: The Grasshoppers were installed in 1884. Built by Andrew Barclay & Sons, Kilmarnock.

Thanks for that Pin. I seem to remember some years ago seeing the engines working - are they still open to view?

Its been closed since the middle of last year, there are talks about mersey-travel taking it over.

Brilliant one that. It's amazing how much I've forgotten over the years and these sort of things were the big landmarks of our area. I think each time I take in some new stuff it must shove some old stuff out of the file.

That chimney was BIG by any standards! It frightened me every time I looked up at it and thought 'what if it blew down'! It would have obliterated Woodside!

A nice photo of Shore Road Pumping Station in the late 50s (probably 1959 to judge from the negative number on the back), and one of each of the 'Grasshopper' engines.