Forums Forums Wirral History : Chasing the Past History Information Request Stanley Avenue/WW2 Rocket Site

Coming rather late to this thread but I am pretty sure the tripod like bases for the Maunsell Forts in the above photo are still there just off the bottom of the slipway at Rock Ferry near The Refreshment Rooms.

The Mersey forts were built at Bromborough dock but were stationed out in Liverpool bay so I don't think there would be any remains near Rock Ferry. There was a pier with a crane at the location you mention and it's mentioned in a thread here, but I can't remember the details now.

The bases you are looking at are the remains of the old Tranmere Oil Terminal.

The pier was originally much shorter (same length as slipway) and had a bridge leading to the floating ferry terminal on the end but after the ferry closed the bridge and landing stage was removed in 1957 and the pier extended to become Tranmere Oil terminal. Pretty sure some ship hit it at some point and wiped out the end of the pier.

Thanks for the reminder, DD

the tripods were for the pipe-line for the oil-tankers to discharge their load. the line went a good way out as the ships were getting to super-tanker size. (a snippet of useless info is that it took the tankers 14 miles to stop and the captain of one ship miscalculated and hit the jetty which cracked the approach roads (i think the first one was Bedford Place then accross New Chester Rd and up to top of Bedford Rd., across r/about and small cracks were found in Bedford Drive) that must be between 1+1/2-2 miles,some power and i meant to say that there was a pill-box on the shore-line down from the jetty by the Dell Primary school,cheers

The reason for the oil terminals and facilities at Tranmere is quite complex. It started during WW2, when we realised we could not use East Coast ports for oil. We only had 2 main oil import facilities, Stanlow Island Dock at Shell on the Manchester Ship, and Avonmouth. There was a small facility in Bromborough Pool dock.

The issue was that if the Germans bombed Eastham Locks, then it meant that we lost use of the facility, and our oil imports would be halved.

Therefore, we quickly built additional facilities at Bromborough Pool and Tranmere, and a pipeline built to Stanlow / Backford. Unloading at Bromborough / Tranmere also saved time on the tanker turnaround by a day or so, and enabled the tankers to make one more transatlantic trip a year.

We also built new storage facilities at Avonmouth inland (they were on the coast), to make them more survivable, and pipelines between them and the coast. We also built armoured oil tanks at Immingham - flat countryside and difficult to bury oil tanks.

Hi is this thread still active?

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