Hidden Wirral Myths & Legends Tours

Can you remember Slices in Birkenhead?

Rings starr as a young lad in New Brighton

The launching of Ark Royal IV on 3rd May 1950 at Cammell Laird.

What a great day it was in New Brighton, did you have a good day?

The Coach and Horses has long been the centre of Moreton. More of the estate’s romances, friendships and disputes are settled there than in any other single place.
The “big ‘ouse”, as it is better known to locals, is also the most imposing building on Moreton Cross. Its sandstone walls, ornate turrets and timbered exterior are a pleasant reminder of the days when breweries still spent money and imagination on their pubs and architects could think in terms other than squares. ...
The “big ‘ouse” and “cathedral” nicknames were attached to the pub because it was the biggest, grandest building for miles around when it replaced the original Coach and Horses in 1928.
The original building was a tiny stone house which had served ale for centuries. It was first referred to by a reporter who visited a race meeting on Moreton shore in the late 1600s and wrote to a friend about the way the villagers would rush up to the Plough, the Coach and Horses and the Farmers Arms to spend the money won from the bookies.
Mr J. Tarrant was the first licensee when the pub opened in 1857. However, one man inextricably linked with the history of the pub is former manager Sam Morris. Sam took the place over a few years before the First World War. At this time it was running into problems, as it was only a “six-day” house – Sam’s predecessor, Jack Critchley, had lost the right to open on Sunday because the police caught him selling ale after hours.
“Old Sam”, as he was known, did a lot to put the old pub on the map. A man of stern principles, he spent his spare time as a church warden. With a full, dark beard he is said to have looked much more of a church warden than a publican. There was no cellar in the old pub and he would walk quietly from table to table with a big jug full of old ale, sternly pouring and collecting.
In the early 1920’s Sam gave up his freehouse status and went in with the Birkenhead Brewery Company. They soon decided a rapidly expanding community like Moreton needed a bigger pub, so plans were drawn up for the present structure. It opened in February 1928 after the brewery had closed their Red Lion in Willaston so as to transfer their precious seven-day licence to the new pub.
When it first opened the pub changed its name from Ye old Coach and Horses to the modern Coach and Horses. It had a bath where customers could douse themselves for a few coppers and a special room where unaccompanied men or women were not allowed.
“Old Sam” Morris moved into the new pub as soon as it opened and survived to put it on its feet before dying about 10 years later. By that time he had been selling ale to Moreton folk for 30 years and had grown from the quiet fellow who served ale from a jug to local village folk to the proprietor of a huge hotel in a mushrooming estate.
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The Seacombe Ferry Hotel in Victoria Place was originally mentioned in the Alehouse Register of 1561. Between 1819 - 1839 Mr. Thomas Parry was the owner of the hotel. Thomas modernised the hotel. There were gardens, bowling green, a summer house and even an American-style bowling alley. Thomas also ran a ferry service between Seacombe and Liverpool.
By February 1853 John Stokes had become the new licensee. Elizabeth Stokes became the new licensee in 1877 and a year later in 1878 the hotel was rebuilt on reclaimed land which included a new Seacombe Ferry terminal building.
By 1970 the Hotel part had closed and by 1976 the old Hotel was demolished and replaced with a new smaller pub. In 2011 the pub lost its licensee after a serious brawl involving more than 40 people. The pub was demolished soon after.

The original Plough was a solid, stone structure. Smaller than its successor, it served West Cheshire and later Chesters’ ales until a later building replaced it in 1931. The history of the old pub is hazy but definitely long.
As with the rest of Moreton, the pub’s past is steeped in flood-water. It was not until the 1950's that extensive flooding had stopped being a common feature of Moreton life.
One name linked inseparably with the pub is Joe Wharton. For many years the ol...d building was known as “Joe Wharton’s Plough Inn", while he sold pints and cockles inside its doors. In his day there was no big brewery politics. He owned and ran just how he wanted and sold whatever beer he wanted.
After Wharton retired, passing the Plough on to a Mr. Henry Gordon, Threlfalls took it over. With the new brewery came the big brick building which replaced Joe Wharton’s old grey stone house.
On 30th May, 2010 the pub closed and was shortly afterwards demolished.
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The Egremont Ferry Hotel is one of three ferry hotels which sprang up with the growth of a shuttle-boat service between Wallasey and Liverpool.
The other two have either been demolished or converted to flats. The original Seacombe Ferry was demolished to make way for a smaller pub, which in turn was demolished. The New Brighton Ferry had become the Chelsea Reach, then later converted to flats. However, the Egremont Ferry continues.
Situated exactly half-way between Liscard an...d Seacombe, the house was built by Captain John Askew in the early 1820’s as a dwelling house and store. Askew, a ferryman, called it Egremont after his birthplace in Cumberland. In time the surrounding area took the name.
Askew was, by all accounts, a dynamic man. He had made his fortune slave-trading and settled down in Egremont, plying passengers and cargo from a slipway outside his door, across the Mersey to Liverpool.
Ale first flowed in the Egremont when the Coulbourn brothers bought the house and boats around 1850. The new pub took the name Egremont Tap (because there was already a Ferry Hotel at number 12 Tobin Street). For the first 50 years the pub was a free-house until Bents took it over in 1900. The following year it was bought by Higsons and the name was finally changed to the Egremont Ferry in 1925 after the Tobin Street pub had closed.
The first licensee was recorded in 1850 as William Halliday. The owners of the hotel were Birkenhead Brewery who kept changing its name (known as Egremont Tap at one point) until eventually being called the Ferry Hotel when a pub of that name at number 12 Tobin Street had closed in 1925.
In earlier days, particularly the turn of the last century, streams of day-trippers and holidaymakers provided good business for the pub, particularly in summer. Hundreds of families used to gather to enjoy the particularly fine stretch of sand outside its doors.
The Ferry Hotel at 12 Tobin Street opened in 1887. Charles Brindley held the first licence. By 1925 the pub had closed and converted to a private house. Askew Close now occupies the site.
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The Twenty Row Inn was in Leasowe Road. There has been a pub on this site from the early 1800's. It was so named as it was the last and twentieth house in a row of cottages. Due to spring tides sweeping over the marshes and causing flooding, which was a major problem at the time, the original pub was built on bales of straw which prevented it from slipping into the earth. The pub was small and had a tiny bar.

The old Black Horse was one of the oldest hostelries in Wallasey, dating back to 1722 and is believed to have taken its name from a horse entered in a race at Leasowe by a Lord Molyneux in the 1700’s. The pub was probably named after 'Black Slave', a horse which won a 200 guineas bet in a race held on the sands between Harrison Drive and Leasowe shore in 1778. Black Slave was one of the most famous horses of the day.

With the Boot Inn it is difficult to sift the fact from the fiction. Legends surround the place. The old Inn, taken down over seventy years ago to make room for the present premises, was known to have existed in Elizabethan times, but the house had been so altered and reconstructed over the years that few, if any, of the old features remained.
Up to about 1900 it was still a quaint, irregular building. The legend attached to its name ran roughly as follows ...
One wild night ...in the reign of Good Queen Bess a fierce horseman galloped to its door. Upon being admitted, he produced a great horse pistol and a big jack boot. The licensee and his wife overpowered him.
Then in bounded three gentlemen, one of whom had just been robbed of his jackboot by the horseman. The boot contained gold.
The licensee and his wife were given ten guineas apiece. The robber was given to the gibbet. “And the boot to be a sign untoe the inn while it doth stand.”
The legend is preserved in a glass case at the new ‘Boot’. So is the remarkable boot.
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The Perch Rock Hotel.
The building was built in the 1820’s and was originally an Officer’s Mess attached to the recently built Perch Rock fort. The property was also a meeting place for the Lifeboat crew. By 1870 the property became a pub with Mr. Joseph Maddock as the first publican

In the 1750's the Corporation of Liverpool decided to move the Powder Magazines, used to store explosive and shot from ships in port, from their site in Clarence Street and find a more isolated site for them on the Cheshire side of the River Mersey. Accordingly, a suitable plot was purchased on the south bank of the Mersey at Wallasey and the new magazine constructed. They were renovated and enlarged in 1838-39, and were still in use until 1851, when it was decided that in fu...ture explosives would be stored in hulks further up the river at the Bight of Sloyne. The move was probably prompted by safety concerns, the land around the Magazines having become much more built up.
In 1858 a battery was built on the site, and the imposing gateway with its crenulated towers, survives to this day as does the perimeter wall which now encircles several houses. Facing the south wall of the battery, on the other side of the road (Magazine Brow) are several cottages, perhaps dating from the 17th Century. These were probably first inhabited by fishermen, but it is thought that they were later occupied by offices from the battery. The Magazines were often referred to as Liscard Magazines and the fort as Liscard Battery, but the name Liscard later became attached to an area about a mile away where Wallasey's main shopping area is situated. A quaint circular dwelling may be seen about fifty yards from the fort's gateway, this being known as the Round House.
Now forming part of a private residence, this was once occupied by the battery's watchman. Further along Magazine Brow are situated two public houses, the Pilot Boat and The Magazines, the latter having been built in 1759 and once used by sailors who were having their outward bound ships reloaded with munitions at the Liscard Magazines.
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The Perch Rock Battery, often referred to locally as Fort Perch Rock, is situated near Wallasey on the northern corner of the Wirral Peninsula. It was one of many defence's erected around the English coast in case Napoleon should try to invade the country or plunder coastal towns and was completed in 1829 from plans made by Captain Kitson. Red sandstone used in the construction of the fort came largely from the Runcorn Quarries, and was floated down the river in sort of flats... and unloaded when the tide was out. Other stone came from Claughton Quarries. The stone was so soft and had to be left to be weathered. The Battery covers about 4.000 yards. Accommodation was provided for one hundred men, and the fort was equipped with eighteen guns, these being positioned to cover Rock Channel, the entrance to the Mersey from the Irish Sea. The fort has never been involved in any fighting and in 1958 the War Office put it up for auction. It now contains a museum, one of the exhibits being the remains of a Heinkel bomber which was shot down near Chester in August 14th, 1940 after a battle with three Spitfires training instructors from RAF Hawarden.
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New Brighton Circus in 1948

The giants visit New Brighton

The Caernarvon Castle pub in Oxton