263 Great Eastern Hotel 48 New Ferry Road 48 48

The Great Eastern in 1912.

See more New Ferry pics at www.newferryonline.org.uk

In 1898

The pub is to feature in this weeks wirral globe. I was e-mailed for info from the journalist.

25/6/2010

Fabulous photos ..what a sad ending to a beautiful building....didn't realise it had gone.

what a waste! and they still haven't built on it! they've left it to over grow with weeds, it's a right mess!! should of left it alone, i'm sure they could of done 'SOMETHING' with it!

They knocked it down because they thought they were just about to get a ban from knocking it down, increased the value of the land enormously.

did the guy in the hi viz & jeans do anything but scratch his arse?

If it had anything to do with the Council it would have caught fire first.

i drove past a few weeks ago on my way to the water front, i was very put out to see a local land mark has vanished, how did they get planning to knock such a place down ?!!.

Unfortunately, the developer who bought it did not need planning permission to knock it down. As long as the building you own is not listed (and the Great Eastern wasn't - I tried to get it so!) you can knock it down whenever you like. YOU could demolish your own unlisted home tomorrow if you decided to do so. What you need planning permission for is what you build in its place. A totally mad system, if you ask me, but that is the way it works, unfortunately.

The developer knocked the pub down because he knew NFRAG were campaigning to keep it. Its a long story, covered elsewhere in threads on this site if you look.

Not quite - you need to give the council a "notice of demolition" at least 6 weeks in advance.

SOURCE

it was a lovely pub a real friendly atmosphere my wife and I had our wedding reception in there in 2001

Anyone knwhat is happening to the land

...and another one, circa 1900 I think.

Might be bit dumb here, but does anybody know what 48 New Ferry Road means. Is it just the index number,only my Great Grandad lived at 51 New Ferry around that time.

48 is the postal address.

Thank you

The land is getting built on now.

seen them putting the boards up----taken them long enough---still sad the Eastern has gone!they said the Eastern was an eye sore!!! what they left was an eye sore!!

They are indeed putting boards up, but I will be checking with the Council about something everyone seems to have forgotten. I attended and spoke at the planning meeting when permission was granted for the replacement housing. I remember that permission was granted on condition that "no building works can start until a second additional application has been submitted and approved for the erection of a memorial to the Great Eastern, the design of the said memorial to be agreed in conjunction with the community and surrounding residents."

To my knowledge (and I've been patiently waiting all this time) NO PLANNING APPLICATION has been submitted for the memorial, there has been NO CONSULTATION and therefore, if one brick is laid on the site, they will be in breach of the planning condition. Tut tut.

Such a sad tale of a lovely and historic local building. I find it dreadfully sad to see pubs being torn down. They are far more than just the sum of their bricks and mortar, they are the holder of local memories, a vessel full of shadows of the past, a tangible link to our very own history. If I had my way none would be allowed to go but out-of-town developers and greedy PubCo's care nothing for history and see only pound signs.....shame.

well all i can say its about time !!! peaple i have spoke to are sick of having to look at the waste land sooner the better.

Yes some lovely new 'boxes' going up 'cos that's what The Ferry needs isn't it? No community just little boxes where people go to drink their cheap supermarket plonk and never meet the people they share their town with......like I said, shame.

would rather stay in than go out round there !!!

Precisely why they should be preserving pubs and the like and trying to instil some sense of community and communal responsibility for what goes on in the area where that community lives instead of closing themselves away with a bottle of £8.00 Vodka and accepting the feral youth culture.

im sorry but who really wants to go drinking round there, its the best thing the council have done is get rid of the pub and bulid some affordable homes for first time buyers and make some good use with the waste land that is there !!!

What's up with ''round there''?

Hi, I've only just joined but feel incensed enough to ask what is wrong with New Ferry? Why such negative comments? I have lived here for over 12 years and it's a lovely place.
I used to go to the Great Eastern many a time before I moved, then used it as a local when I came to live in this area. There was a petition to keep the pub, which loads of people signed. Unfortunately, they wanted the land to build flats on at the time, so it got knocked down
Not once has there been any trouble around here and the people I've met are very friendly.

PLEASE LEAVE US ALONE.

Sorry for caps, was a tad upset. Won't use them again.

I understand your anger, i live in the same house i was born in in Woodford Rd and i'm 51, the neighbours are great, there's plenty of places to walk around and there's some good shops around, ( plus a new cost cutters in spitting distance ).

Plus we've got the family pub, Wetherspoons, which is very popular and now an Indian restaurant across the road from there too.

So Engineer, don't know why you've got such a downer on New Ferry, would rather you pick on somewhere else.


ps. Yes yewgarth, that costcutter is really handy for me too,lol.

From what little I've seen of New Ferry, it's an OK area. Like with anywhere else, there's good and bad bits.

As for the Great Eastern. What a fine building it was. It "could" have been saved if the will was there. HOWEVER, there is that evil, septic, putrifying stench of the that lowest form of bottom-dwelling life, the property developer behind most sketches like this. If profit is on the distant horizon (usually in the form of building little overpriced boxes for people to live in) then any reason to flatten a place is oiked out of the Book of Excuses Vol.34.

Sorry for the rant, I'm off my medication !

You rant away Pinz

Wikipedia if you haven't seen it.

One of New Ferry's links with its historic past as a tourist resort between the 1860s and 1920s was the Great Eastern Pub. The building dated from 1862 when Liverpool day-trippers began crossing the River Mersey by ferry to New Ferry Pier when it became known as "The Great Eastern Picnic Hotel". By coincidence, in 1888, Isambard Kingdom Brunel's famous ship the SS Great Eastern was broken up on the nearby shoreline, and many artefacts from the ship were auctioned off as it was being dismantled. The pub's owner bought a number of these including the ship's bar to install into the building, wood panelling for the walls, the ship's wheel and a beautiful stained glass window. Unfortunately, these were all removed by the last owners of the building in the mid 2000s, whilst the pub closed down in 2007. In November 2009 the site was sold to a housing developer, Worksharp Ecohomes Ltd of Southport, who, in February 2010, submitted a planning application to Wirral Borough Council to demolish the building, described as being "in a state of serious disrepair" and replace it with ten two-storey semi-detached houses. On 5 March 2010, the security screens were ripped off the doors and windows, the contents of the pub removed and the building left unsecured. Many members of the community had been concerned that the motive behind this was to accelerate the pub's derelict state and ensure its future demolition. This process began in June 2010, ahead of a site meeting by Wirral Council’s planning committee and despite an online petition by New Ferry Regeneration Action Group to save the building.[7] Over 400 people had signed the petition demanding that it be saved from the bulldozer and instead converted to housing. Worksharp EcoHomes obtained planning permission to replace the building with ten semi-detached homes, but conditions attached to that permission mean they must provide a permanent memorial to explain the significance of the area and its connection with the SS Great Eastern.[citation needed] By February 2011 no plan for the memorial has been seen by the community, no work has therefore started on the houses, and the site is currently an eyesore of weeds, brick rubble mounds, and ugly steel fencing.

How can I see these photos?
Thanks, Ken

Ken, you need to subscribe to view all the pictures in the history section.
It is well worth it if you like Wirral history, because there is a plethora of content to view.
https://www.wikiwirral.co.uk/forums/ubbthreads.php/ubb/subscriptions.html

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