New Brighton - From Contraband To Sun and Sand

In Blome's Map of 1670, the name given to the rocks at the mouth of the Mersey was Black Rock, marked with a wooden perch, a length of timber with a lantern affixed to the top. This type of make-shift beacon was placed there in 1683 and on some maps the location is called either Perch Rock or Black Rock. Until the end of the eighteenth century, the north-east corner of Wirral was a wild and desolate waste of wind swept sand-hills and before New Brighton was called 'New Brighton' it was nothing more than beaches and rocks. At around 1750 it is reported that the only trees that existed grew close to the mouth of the river near the shore. A line drawn from Magazine Lane to the north end of Wallasey Village, showed there was not a single house, and sand-hills stretched from the site of the Liverpool Yacht Club, originally Liscard Battery, right round the coast to the mouth of the River Dee.  Wallasey was more isolated than most and it gained a notorious reputation as a haunt of smugglers and pirates who frequented the area for personal gain, taking advantage of the busy shipping lane of the River Mersey, a fact hardly covered by historians throughout modern history.
An extract from the Report of the Royal Commission on the need of a Police Force in 1837 reads, "On the Cheshire coast not far from Liverpool, they will rob those who have escaped the perils of the sea and come safe on shore, and mutilate dead bodies for the sake of rings and personal ornaments." A grave or pit was discovered during the building of  the Palace Arcade that yielded a presumption it had been used by smugglers and wreckers for the purpose of concealing their goods, and that it was not improbably the scene of even graver crimes, as the workmen were overcome by the stench from it, and it required great quantities of disinfectants before the removal of the contents.
A verse at the time was: - 

Wallasey for wreckers, 

Poulton for trees, 

Liscard for honest men, and 

Seacombe for thieves ! ( Although place names could be changed depending on your persuasion. )

The headquarters of local smuggling was a house that once stood on the river front between Lincoln Drive and Caithness Drive on what is now Egremont Promenade. There weren't many houses in the parish and, until the inclosure of the commons in 1814, large areas of waste land existed. On the edge of one of these called Liscard Moor, close to the river, a small two-storied house of red sandstone, with walls in some places nearly three feet thick, was built by one of the Mainwaring family in 1595 on the high water mark of the River Mersey. Until the Promenade was made and the Drives cut, there was no actual road to it. When a Mr. Kitchingman bought it in 1888, it was used as a fisherman's cottage, but for many years it had gone through a number of different names including the Half Way House, The Whitehouse and Seabank Nook. Next to it were 3 houses, some of which remain, called Seabank Cottages. The house became a tavern during the American War of Independence, when American and English privateers roamed the ocean, a time when John Paul Jones raided Whitehaven in Cumbria. The tavern gained the 'nick name' Mother Redcap's after the elderly lady proprietor, Poll Jones, who always wore a red cap or bonnet, but its normal title was The Half Way House and it was officially this until late into the 19th century.

The house was a great rendezvous of sailors, who, when the Press gang were active in Liverpool, would desert their ships after a voyage, 'jumping ship' at the other side of the Black Rock, so they could swim ashore and conceal themselves in Cheshire, with many vessels then having to be brought into port by riggers and carpenters sent by the owners for that purpose. Mother Redcap was a great favourite with the sailors and she had their entire confidence as, on returning from their voyages, they used to deposit with her their pay and prize money until they wanted it. She had hiding-places for contraband in the walls and ceilings of the lower rooms and also for any number of men, using 'Hannah Mutche's Farm', situated at the east end of the Moss as a place where sailors could lie in safety from the unwelcome attention of the Press gang, before returning to Mother Redcap's, and vice versa. There was a trapdoor just inside the front door for unsuspecting visitors who would be deposited into the cellar eight or nine feet below. In front of the house, across the strand, was a wooden seat made from old ships' timbers, the end of which was a short pole topped by a weather vane, supposed to indicate the direction of the wind, but it was only a dummy. It was securely fastened to a flagstaff which would be rotated in accordance with pre-arranged signals. When the vane pointed to the house, it indicated to all concerned that the way was clear and those in the boats on the river knew it was safe to land; but when pointing away from the house it meant, 'Keep Away'. Maybe this is were the saying, 'See which way the wind blows' may have arisen. At the other end of this seat was a suspended signboard, bearing a portrait of Old Mother Redcap busily engaged with a frying pan over a fire, and the words, "All ye that are weary come in and take rest, Our eggs and our ham they are of the best, Our ale and our porter are likewise the same, Step in if you please and give 'em a name." Another port of call of smugglers transferring contraband across Bidston Moss was the Ring 'o Bells, now Stone Farm, in Bidston, which became as notorious as Mother Redcap's.
Mother Redcap's was demolished in October 1974 and it is said that during the demolition a bulldozer fell through a hole in the ground revealing a large well with an entrance door part of the way down. The workers recognised this as the famous 'smugglers' well' and one man suggested his mates lower him down to the door and that they inform the museum authorities. The foreman, however, insisted that the well be filled in, and threatened instant dismissal to anyone contacting the museum. Mother Redcap's secrets were finally buried. Soon after, a nursing home was built on the site, and it still stands today.

There are a myriad of tunnels in the area which have been dated as being in use since the 1600s being part of a natural cave system. In 1880 when the Palace Amusement Arcade was built, it used the caves as an attraction and had small boats manned by staff to take visitors beneath and slowly pass through the waterways illuminated by torches. One tunnel ran towards Mother Redcap's and another towards the sea in the direction of Fort Perch Rock. There is also a larger passage which lead to the Red Noses on the shore line. At the out break of World War 2 these tunnels were used as a munitions factory employing over 200 workers and the subterranean rooms were also used as air raid shelters. After the war the rooms were converted into a night club known as 'The Creep Inn'.

The Red and White Noses

The tunnels or caves at the Red and White Noses ran for great distances with many tunnels believed to lead to Bidston, Mother Redcap’s (from which another tunnel is supposed to lead to Birkenhead Priory), St Hilary’s Church and Fort Perch Rock. The existence of the Fort Perch Rock tunnel itself was confirmed by a geo-physical survey carried out in the mid-seventies by Ezekiel Palmer of the Proudman Institute, at the same time as the one at Mother Redcap's, and it has been suggested that it was built as an escape route for the Fort in case of attack. Adding to the folklore of the tunnels and their useage is the claim that tunnels had been blocked up as soon as they were discovered and the publication of Joseph Ruiz's book on the subject apparently resulted in the blocking of all the Red Noses tunnel entrances. It also appeared that documents mysteriously vanished from the reference sections of libraries with all information on the subject allegedly suppressed by the local authority. 

Perch Rock Fort has its origins from the Napoleonic wars at which time Liverpool was a thriving and wealthy port but it wasn't until 1826 that construction started. Although peace had been made with France, Liverpool's merchants remained committed to the project as the fort's presence eliminated the use of the site as a wrecking ground where locals attempted to lure ships onto the hazardous rocks in order to steal the cargo and they also wanted a lighthouse to mark the adjacent reef. Work on the fort was completed in 1829.

In 1830, a Liverpool merchant, James Atherton, purchased 170 acres of land at Rock Point, which enjoyed views out to sea and across the Mersey and had a good beach. He had already built his own house in Liverpool on the high ground near to the old Everton Beacon and from this lofty position he could see over the river and the stretch of sand. Having lost three sons, James Junior, Charles and Henry Regent. within just a few years of each other, at the ages of nineteen, twenty-one and twenty respectively, perhaps Everton then held too many painful memories for the family. His aim at Rock Point was to develop a fashionable watering place and posh residential dormitory for the mercantile elite of Liverpool society in a similar way to its royal Sussex counterpart, Brighton, hence 'New Brighton'. On the 24th of January 1832, William Rowson advanced a deposit of £200 to John Penkett on account of the purchase of the 'New Brighton Estate',  the sum representing £100 each for both himself and James Atherton. James had built an Albion Crescent in Everton, and he would reproduce the name in one of New Brighton's first streets, Albion Street. Rowson decided to build his house, Cliff Villa, just above the Red and Yellow Noses, near the shore in what is now Wellington Road. Atherton chose a piece of land upon the higher ground, almost overlooking Rowson's site, and built a house in Montpelier Crescent. One of the early maps of New Brighton, circa 1835, only highlights two street names, Montpelier Crescent and Albion Street. James Atherton's dream of every house having interrupted views of the sea began to take shape when a number of villas were built on Wellington Road.

 

A start had been made on New Brighton and substantial development began soon afterwards with housing beginning to spread up the hillside overlooking the estuary, with a former gunpowder magazine being closed down in 1851. Sadly, James Atherton died in 1838 and was unable to see the completion of his vision which grew rapidly throughout the 19th Century. New Brighton developed as a very popular seaside resort serving Liverpool and the Lancashire industrial towns, and many of the large houses were converted to inexpensive hotels. 

The first, wooden pier was built by William Rowson in the 1830s to improve the embarkation point to Liverpool but was replaced by a 600 foot iron structure designed by Eugenius Birch that opened in September 1867 to visitors and for the ferries. It had both a passenger and promenade pier and was 550 feet long and 70 feet wide. The promenade pier was claimed to be the one of the finest in the country and had a saloon, refreshment rooms, bazaars and a raised platform for bands to play. The only entrance was by a flight of steps from the gangway of the Ferry Pier and cost 2d to enter.  Above the saloon was a further, smaller promenade area, which cost a further one penny admission, probably used by the more affluent, and above this on a third level was a central observation tower area with fixed telescopes to view the shipping on the River Mersey.

Up to 1891 the river frontage was largely open to the shore, with the exception of small areas adjoining the Seacombe and Egremont ferries and the notorious 'Ham and Egg Parade', at New Brighton.
In 1891, after treaty arbitration and litigation with private owners over land and shore properties, the first length of promenade was built between Egremont and Holland Road.
The year 1897 saw its extension to a point just beyond New Brighton Pier. This served both as a recreational amenity in its own right, and to link up the developments along the estuary, and was later extended westwards towards Leasowe.

At the turn of the century there was something in the air, literally, which would enhance tourism. 

Go To Part 2 - http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2021/03/new-brighton-beach-ice-creams-beatles.html