A while ago, I bought this first-day cover. There are a couple of places on the route which I can't identify. They are Greenfield and Howey Lane. The final destination, Grave Lane is obviously a mistake and should be Grange Lane. Anyone any ideas?

Is this any good?

http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/b/birkenhead_grange_lane/

There's a timetable here with stations listed:

http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/u/upton_by_chester/

Howey Lane is mentioned here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/axisassortment/2%20-%20History%20%28redone%29/02%20-%201801-1900.htm

And looking on Wherethepath maps I think Moston became Mollington or Upton.

http://wtp2.appspot.com/wheresthepa...p;rov=None&lgrat=None&rgrat=None

Thanks,Gibbo; that solves Howey Lane. It still leaves Greenfield that I can't place. The timetable on the disused stations site is later. The station listed as Sutton became Ledsham. I knew where Moston was from Moston Hall, just before the canal at the bottom of Backford hill, but I didn't know there was ever a station there.

Could have Greenfields been what is now Bromborough and Bromborough what is now Bromborough Rake.
Greenfields Ave is close to Bromborough Station.

I've been wondering about that, Bert. In the sessional papers in 1837, in the Lords, there is mention of the cost of walling at Greenfields farm, which the railway passes near in a cutting; it's at Bromborough station. The only problem is that I'm assuming that the places listed on the first day cover are where there are stations, and Bromborough is mentioned and Greenfield is between there and Hooton. I'm pretty sure there was never a station at Bromborough Rake until very recently.

Incidentally, the sessional papers I mentioned are available free as an e-book here
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=..._r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

It's the bill authorising the building of the railway from Chester to Birkenhead and runs to nearly 500 pages: I haven't finished it yet but it gives a marvellous insight into the details involved. Here's a sample page discussing what effect the railway will have on the canal traffic via Ellesmere Port to Liverpool.

I think Bromborough station happens to be in the Greenfields area of Bromborough and that's why its mentioned. If it was a station in its own right, it would be mentioned in the rate ofinclinations.

Bromborough Rake, according to Wikipedia...

"The station was opened in 1985, to coincide with the electrification of the line between Rock Ferry and Hooton, which allowed through trains to Liverpool, via the Mersey Railway Tunnel."

And for Holt Hill Road, should we substitute 'Green Lane'?

That would just perpetuate the mistaken idea that there was a main line station there.
Bert, you're probably right.

There was argument from the beginning as to whether the line should go to Woodside. In the end, it didn't since that would have been favouring the Woodside ferry over the Birkenhead and Tranmere ferries It's all in the Bill, with complex arguments about distances and road gradients; fascinating.

Yes, the idea of a main line station is a common mistake, but in this respect it refers to a location between stations for the purpose of referencing the inclination of the track over certain sections.

What I don't know is exactly where it refers to. We have Holt Hill and Holt Road, neither of which cross Old Chester Road to reach the railway line. Perhaps the easterly end of Holt Hill was renamed after the survey, but Green Lane is on the maps from at least 1875...

The 1857 Post Office Directory, Streets, there was no Green Lane, Holt Hill or Road listed.

1861 directory, Streets.

Green Lane, Old Chester Rd
Holt Rd, Old Chester Rd
Holt Hill, Tranmere.
The Holt, Holt Hill, Tranmere.

Present day, Green Lane station frontage is in Old Chester Rd, not Green Lane.

Just going back to the Greenfield bit, and to confirm - I have a map of the 'proposed' Chester and Birkenhead Railway dated 1836 that I found a few years ago now in an antique shop near Lincoln.

Greenfield is shown, as suspected, between Bromborough Rake and where the present-day Bromborough station is.
...So perhaps it was a proposed station which never got built, the actual station being repositioned slightly more towards Chester in the later 1840 scheme?

1850s map, possibly later if the Post Office directory is correct. Is it possible, Holt Hill was more recognisable (Area) to train travellers than Green Lane at the time. Also what I think Norton is touching on, could Holt Hill originally have run down to the junction of Old Chester Rd and Green Lane.

Here's the relevant part of the 1836 map if it helps Bert, as the more important roads appear to be coloured an orangey-brown.

Thanks Billy,

I did a search in the newspapers 1800 to 1850 for mention of Holt Hill or Green Lane, not conclusive by any means. No mention of Green Lane, Birkenhead, for any reason. A snippet advertising land plots for Marine Villas, Liverpool Mercury, 1812, may suggest Holt Hill went closer to the river.

Thanks for the extra info. Billy's map of 1836 is interesting. It shows the original planned route terminating somewhere near Egerton dock. The parliamentary Bill of 1837 doesn't make any mention of that; it talks about the idea of extending the line to Woodside, but the operators of the Tranmere and Birkenhead ferries seem to have blocked that. Interestingly, I haven't seen in the Bill any mention of Monks' ferry, although that was later the terminus. The termini were: 1840, Grange Lane. 1844, Monks' ferry. 1878, Woodside.
So, bert, it looks now as if Holt Hill came down to Old Chester Rd.

A couple of years ago, in another post about Old Chester Road, derekdwc suggested that Green Lane was once Holt Hill Road and attached a section of map to prove it. The map has the tunnel to Woodside and the dock extension on it, but no Mersey Railway or Green Lane station as yet. This would date it fairly accurately, assuming that the person who drew it had the rest of the information correct, i.e., road names.

Old Chester Road thread.

That map shows the tunnel to Monks' Ferry, not Woodside, so the date must be between 1844, when Monks' Ferry was the terminus and 1878 when Woodside opened. At least it confirms that Green Lane was previously Holt Hill Rd. Anybody know when the dock extension was built?

You can narrow the date of the map down even further because of its bridge between Tranmere and Birkenhead ferries in dotted lines so its after 1851

It appears that the dock branch is almost as old as the Chester to Birkenhead line.

From a 2010 report on the Morpeth Branch Dock.
"In 1830 two separate proposals for a railway from Chester to connect with the Woodside to Liverpool ferry were made; however, due to lack of parliamentary approval and finances neither plan succeeded. Further plans were put forward in 1835 by the Woodside Ferry Co, and in 1838 work finally began on the Chester and Birkenhead Railway, with a single line being opened in 1840, which terminated at Grange Lane. The railway company then acquired most of the shares in the Woodside Ferry Co. and had already purchased the Monks Ferry Co, one of its main competitors in 1840. In 1842 the Birkenhead Improvement Commissioners took over the Woodside Ferry Co. and the railway was extended northwards from Grange Lane to the recently constructed Bridge End Dock (later known as Egerton Dock to the immediate west of Morpeth Dock). This line was then connected with the Shrewsbury and Chester Railway, and with Saltney, so that coal from the Wrexham area could be transported to Birkenhead".