Rock Ferry

Rock Ferry is an area of Birkenhead on the Wirral Peninsula, England. Administratively it is a ward of the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral. Before local government reorganisation on 1 April 1974, it was part of the county of Cheshire. At the 2011 Census, the population was 14,298.

History

There are references to a ferry as early as 1357. Ferry services were extended at the start of the 19th century, with steam ferries providing a faster, cheaper and more reliable service than had previously been allowed. By 1800 there was already an inn known as the Rock Ferry House, which was reputed to have been used by William IV as Duke of Clarence, hence the use of the term "Royal" for establishments such as the Royal Rock Hotel (the original inn, much enlarged in 1836) and the Royal Rock Beagles, set up in 1845. From the 1560s onwards Derby House, an occasional seat of the Minshull family, covered most of the grounds covered by present-day Rock Ferry. It was enlarged in 1834 to a design by Decimus Burton, who also laid out the first plans for the development of Rock Ferry. Thomas Oakshott, Mayor of Liverpool, lived there in the 19th century. The house, located on Rock Lane West close to the New Chester Road, was demolished in the 1930s.

In 1836 the Royal Rock Hotel was extended and a bath house was built. In the following years the area received an influx of luxurious villa housing, the villas of Rock Park and many other large houses around the Old Chester Road making Rock Ferry one of the most desirable addresses in the North West. In the later part of the 19th century, Rock Ferry expanded due to the need to house the increasing population of workers, especially at Birkenhead's Cammell Laird shipyard. By 1901, the population stood at 2,971.

In 1910, the Olympian Gardens were opened adjacent to the Royal Rock Hotel. These pleasure gardens were considered a great attraction and customers travelled from the whole of Wirral and, using the nearby ferry terminal, from Liverpool. The gardens hosted classical piano concerts and also slapstick comedy shows, with performers including Arthur Askey and Tommy Handley. At times the gardens held a prestige similar to the more famous Vauxhall Gardens in London. Shows were held in a large tent set amongst the trees and shrubs of land owned by Charles Boult. The gardens closed in the late 1920s after Mr Boult's death.

The decline of local industries in the 1950s took its toll. Rock Ferry's original wealthy inhabitants had for a long time been moving away from the area to areas such as Caldy or West Kirby. Many of the splendid buildings were turned into flats, or simply abandoned. This decline was reflected in the loss of the Royal Rock Hotel, as well as many of the shops in the Old Chester Road and Bedford Road; whereas before Bedford Road had supported a wine merchant, a jeweller, two tailors, three banks, and two bookshops, most shops stood vacant. Large-scale regeneration work in the 1990s, which involved the demolition or restoration of many derelict properties, and the building of new housing, means that the area has improved considerably, although many buildings of considerable character have been lost.

As of 2022, a new £13 million park is being constructed which will link Rock Ferry with Bidston Dock. Known as Dock Branch Park, it will provide a mile–long pedestrian and cycle corridor between the two locations, as well as providing land for 1,000 homes and a new venue for Wirral Transport Museum.

Geography

Rock Ferry is situated on the eastern side of the Wirral Peninsula, at the western side of the River Mersey. The area is approximately south-south-east of the Irish Sea at New Brighton and about east-north-east of the Dee Estuary at Heswall. Rock Ferry is at an elevation of between above sea level.

Architecture and famous residents

The best-known part of Rock Ferry is Rock Park, on the banks of the River Mersey, an area of large Victorian villas of sandstone from Storeton quarry. In what was one of the first residential park developments in Britain, the houses were built between 1837 and 1850, and were the first early Victorian properties to be designated listed buildings. Despite the efforts of campaigners, including the Victorian Society, nine of the houses were demolished in the 1970s to make way for the New Ferry By-Pass ( A41), including Hawthorne House, number 26, the former house of Nathaniel Hawthorne when he was consul to Liverpool in the 1850s. The property was subsequently owned by astronomer Isaac Roberts, who installed a seven-inch refracter in a revolving dome on the top floor. Immediately after the building of the bypass, the remainder of Rock Park was quickly designated a conservation area in 1979, although that year also saw the demolition of the Lodge, which had become derelict. Further losses came in the 1990s with the demolition of the original 1830s bathhouse on the Esplanade.

Other areas of architectural significance include Egerton Park, an oasis of late nineteenth-century villas in a leafy setting, and the Byrne Avenue Baths, a 1930s swimming pool with plenty of Art Deco features, which closed in February 2009. The row of semi-detached houses on Rockville Street, built in 1837, is one of the earliest rows of private houses in Britain to use Gothic detailing on their exteriors, while St Anne's Catholic Church on Highfield Road was designed by E. W. Pugin. The writer May Sinclair was a Rock Park resident. F. E. Smith, later Earl of Birkenhead, also briefly lived in a house on Green Lawn. Former Australian Premier Sir Charles Gavan Duffy lived at Rose Cottage, which still stands on Rockville Street, where his son, Irish politician George Gavan Duffy, was born in 1882.

Highfield United Reformed Church, completed in 1871, is a sizeable place of worship within Rock Ferry and a Grade II Listed building.

Ferry service and shipping

There are records of a ferry service from Rock Ferry pier to Liverpool from 1709 onwards, until being discontinued on 30 June 1939. The ferry landing stage was removed in 1957 and the terminal building demolished. The pier became part of Tranmere Oil Terminal and modified for use as a berth for tanker cleaning and degreasing. It has since fallen into disuse and become very dilapidated.
A stone slipway originally used by the ferry service also remains.

The Royal Mersey Yacht Club was founded at a meeting held in the Mersey Hotel, Old Church Yard, Liverpool on 26 July 1844. The club opened the doors of its present premises in Bedford Road, Rock Ferry, on 31 May 1901.

Rock Ferry was home to a number of boat builders including the famous yard of Samuel Bond and the lesser known Enterprise Small Craft Company. Between 1906 and 1935 both yards built Royal Mersey Restricted Class boats, including Mefanwy and Phyllis.

Bonds built many fine boats including Mersey Canoes.

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