Looking for any information on the Dock Hotel, im told it stood near to the tunnel entrance in Birkenhead. Any old photos of it anywhere. My family ran this pub in the 50s 60s and 70s, I have photos from inside the pub but none from outside.
Wow ...we'd love to see your photo's of the interior....People always take a pic of the exterior , but never the inside, there are some pics of the dock on this site ...and the building is still there but it's been converted into a store now ....shame , it was a great pub.
The link is a page on my family web site, scroll down past half way and you will see the Dock Hotel, then 3 pics from inside. Lots of boxing pics behind the bar.
I remember the publican John Hogan & his wife very well I served my apprenticeship near The Dock it was my job to get the kettle filled with 4 or 5 pints of bitter for the afternoon tea break ! I remember Les Macateer the Boxer ran it for a while
John and Sarah Hogan ran the pub, they are my family members. You probably realized that with my user name. Their daughter Mary married an American Airman named Jack Geis.
Most of the family worked behind that bar at some point.
According to the Licence Registers John Gerard Hogan took over the licence of the Dock Hotel on 6th October 1948, from Alfred Colgate, and ran it until 17th November 1971. The pub at that time was owned by Yates Castle Brewery Ltd, who had originally leased it from the LMS and Great Western Railway Companies in 1897.
The Dock Hotel dates back to at least 1857, when the licensee was Thomas Beddows, and was probably open by 1850, when an advertisement for an auction sale describes it as taking place on land near the Brewery and Dock Hotel at Bridge End, the original name for the area of Birkenhead where the building is situated.
According to early Birkenhead resident Henry Kelsall Aspinall in his book 'Birkenhead And Its Surroundings', prior to becoming a pub the building was occupied by Robert Russell and his family; Aspinall describes it as "a pretty villa, surrounded by large gardens, at Bridge End near Wallasey Pool." A building is shown on the site as early as Lawton's 1824 map of F R Price's lands in Birkenhead, on which it is listed a "House, garden and buildings" occupied by Joseph Nichols as part of Bridge End Farm, so the site is of some antiquity in the history of Birkenhead, predating even the Laird family's arrival.
I know it is a good distance away - but was the New Dock (Ilchester Square - corner of Tyrer Street and Stanley Road) in anyway connected - or just a replacement for an older pub of the same name ?
