I've been wondering where this was.
I've noticed on early directories that Mersey Street and Ivy Street house numbers seem to start from the river rather from
where the town hall was or would be.
I wonder if Palatine Hotel 72 Church Street and1, 3 & 5 Ivy street Birkenhead 1878 might have been it.

The Monks' ferry hotel is the largest hotel in Birkenhead, and is advantageously situated on the verge of the river.


1843 mortimer and harwood
John P., Lieut R.N., Monks' Ferry Hotel
Robinson John, "Monks Ferry Hotel" tap,
Monks ferry
The Monks Ferry Company was formed in 1837 by members of the Bryans family. They built a stone slip and hotel at Ivy Rock about 400 yards (366 metres) south of Woodside on the Wirral. Ferry sailings at Monks Ferry started in April 1838 and the Monks Ferry Company stopped operating in 1840. The ferry service from Monks Ferry to Liverpool continued until 1878, when it closed.
It seems to me that some use would have been made of it rather than it was demolished.

The Hotel on the right I think

I think that one may be the Adelphi Hotel in Rose Brae.
Is there a description to that picture?
Looking at your picture again I think you're right looking at the church spire.

There's a mention here of the Monks Ferry Hotel...

https://www.wikiwirral.co.uk/forums...Birkenhead_Paradise_Lost.html#Post665675

Description of the Monk's Ferry Hotel on it's opening day in June 1839. Henry Hilliar was the proprietor until about 1858, when he left to run the Royal Crescent Hotel in Brighton.

The description of the location "Between Woodside and Birkenhead" is interesting. It seems to indicate that Birkenhead was originally the area which is now around the tunnel entrance. This figures because that's where the market was built and where "Town" station was.

The description of the hotel in marty's newspaper report, with its Ionic columns and an attic storey, seems to match the building in bert1's picture.

I agree in principle, yoller, but the artist has taken some liberties: in the picture there are eight columns and no bow windows in the wings.
I see that over the attic storey is a board with the word "HOTEL".

I knew we had touched on this before and I just couldn't find it till now.


https://www.wikiwirral.co.uk/forums...43/Sketch_of_Lairds_1860.html#Post394943

Thanks for the link Bert; I was going to post it, but couldn't be bothered looking for it at one o'clock in the morning.

Incidentally, in my post there I notice I recorded that "The Hotel was built by James Bryans in 1837". It seems that that info is not entirely accurate, as the newscutting above proves; serves me right for copying something straight from a book without checking original sources. Whilst work on building the Hotel may have begun in 1837, it clearly didn't open until 4th June 1839. I'm not sure if James Bryans was the owner of the building and Henry Hilliar just the tenant; I'll have to check the surviving Rate Books for the period when I'm next down at the Archives.

The Monk's Ferry Hotel lasted until 1872, when it was badly damaged by a serious fire that broke out in Laird's sawmill which was virtually next to it. It appears that shortly afterwards Laird's purchased the shell of the building and demolished it to build a new sawmill and engine house to replace the ones destroyed by the fire.

The 1851 census for Monks Ferry Hotel has Henry Hilliar, born, Wiltshire, Innkeeper, Mary Ann, wife, 3 children and about 15 staff.

Just to add,

In 1861, Henry Hilliar was Innkeeper at the Marine Parade Hotel, Brighton, Sussex.

In 1881, he was Hotel Proprietor of the Marine Parade Royal Crescent Hotel, it seems the Marine parade had expanded to the building next door, The Royal Crescent.

The 1843 UK and County Directory has the Monks Ferry Hotel as Church Street.

I'd say the location of the old Monk's Ferry Hotel was approximately at the junction of Alabama Way and the side road called Monk's Ferry. There's a building there called Yanco House, which is just about in the right place.

Bert weren't you a joiner at Lairds and did you ever use the sawmills about that time? hmmm?
Just asking

No, I'd left by then

It's interesting to note that the Monk's Ferry Hotel opened about the time that the original Grange Lane railway terminus commenced operations. But over time as the line was extended, and the terminus moved, it must have increasingly cut off the coastal areas of Birkenhead and shifted the focus of the town centre. What with that and then the Queensway Tunnel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birkenhead_Town_railway_station

There's a photo of the old Birkenhead Town Station on this link:

http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/b/birkenhead_town/index.shtml

I think the reference to "Between Woodside and Birkenhead" is talking about the different ferries meaning that Monks Ferry was between Woodside Ferry and Birkenhead Ferry which was operated by the Willoughby brothers at the end of Mersey Street. They also operated the Tranmere Ferry.

Not really - as it was underground in a tunnel.

The thing that did start to isolate that part of town was the flyover scheme @1970 - which also cut off the Jackson Street/Hind and Blackpool St areas from the rest of town.

The description "between Woodside and Birkenhead" doesn't necessarily refer to the Ferries. Maps from the 1830s and 1840s show that there were several discrete (ie separate) built-up areas at that time, which only later merged to became Birkenhead. The area first designated as Birkenhead was bounded roughly by the river, Ivy Street, Old Chester Road (later Tunnel Road) and Tranmere Pool. The area around Woodside was always referred to as Woodside, not Birkenhead. There was a small built-up area at the west end of Bridge Street referred to as Bridge End, whilst the area in the vicinity of Laird's Boilerworks was called North Birkenhead. It was only really from the 1850s onwards that these areas began to join together to form one town to which the name Birkenhead was applied.

Thanks for that, Marty. It's interesting too to note that until the 1931 census, Tranmere had a larger population than Birkenhead, but that after that, the population of Birkenhead grew very rapidly.

Extract from the book "Sidelights on Tranmere" by J.E. Allison.

picture enlarged