The spray of the salt from the river,
The sway of the boat on the tide,
The feel of the wind as it blows on your face,
as you go for a ferryboat ride.
I used to head off to New Brighton,
for an afternoon spent in the sun.
Back to Seacombe and then
on the ferry again, and back home
on the Liverpool run.
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| Egremont Ferry |
People have been crossing the River Mersey by ferry between
the Wirral and Liverpool for almost 800 years; it is thought that a group of
Benedictine Monks who established a priory at Birkenhead in about 1150 were the
first to start a regular service. The monks used to offer food and shelter to
travellers making their way across the Mersey. As this practice caused the monks
some expense, they petitioned King Edward III for the royal approval to run the
ferry service, asking to charge reasonable tolls. Most of the passengers came
from Chester, they were either taking the quickest route to south west
Lancashire, or travelling to the weekly Saturday market in the fishing village
of Liverpool. At this time much of the Wirral and south Lancashire was forest,
inhabited by wolves, bears, wild boar and eagles. For 200 years the monks ran
the ferry, until the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII. The right of
ferry passage change hands several times over the next 300 years, thus a number
of different services began, none of them being reliable.
Some of the main ferries to Liverpool operated from New
Brighton, Egremont, Seacombe, Woodside, Monks Ferry, and Runcorn. Early
ferryboats would have been rowing boats, and were replaced by wooden sailing
vessels. These were then replaced by steam vessels and later on by
diesel-electric powered vessels. Even though many of these ferries no longer
operate, the places where they used to come and go from are still known. Place
names such as Monks Ferry, Job's Ferry, New Ferry and Rock Ferry show where
ferries used to run between the Wirral and Liverpool. At Woodside, land between the Woodside Hotel and the end of
the old pier was reclaimed, and in 1861 the floating landing stage was opened.
The pontoons were towed into position, moored by chains, originally made for
the SS. Great Eastern, and linked to the mainland by two double bridges. The ferry
Cheshire was the first passenger ferry steamer to have a saloon, operated from
Woodside in 1864. The iron pier at Eastham was built in 1874. On 26 November
1878, the ferry Gem, a paddle steamer operated from Seacombe by the Wallasey
Local Board, collided with the Bowfell, a wooden sailing ship at anchor on the
River Mersey, five people died as a result. This was not the only accident to
disrupt the Ferry service, the ship the Empire Commander embedded herself in
the Egremont Ferry Landing Stage on 21st May 1932 causing £7,340 worth of damage.
The Corporation Years
Until the establishment of the Mersey Railway in 1886, the
ferries were the only means of crossing the river, and so all of the routes
were heavily used. All of
the ferry routes were owned by private interests before coming under municipal
ownership in the mid 19th century. The Woodside ferry was taken over by the
Birkenhead Commissioners in 1858, in
1861, the Wallasey Local Board took over the ferry services at Seacombe,
Egremont and New Brighton. In 1934 a challenge to the ferry service came from
what was then the largest underwater tunnel in the world – The Queensway Road
Tunnel. Now vehicles could cross beneath the Mersey without the need to queue
for the luggage boats. The ferry service suffered, Woodside’s luggage service
closed in 1941, and Seacombe in 1947.
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| An Early Birkenhead Ferry |
The Royal Family
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| Royal Iris |
The "Royal" prefix was granted to the ferries Iris and
Daffodil, for their service during the First World War at Zeebrugge. Both
ferries were badly damaged but returned home to a triumphant greeting. Since
the original duo's withdrawal, there have been other Royals. The Royal Daffodil
2 was arguably the most luxurious ferry ever built. She was hit by a bomb and
sunk at her berth in the Second World War, but later raised and returned to
service, with little of her pre-war splendour. Perhaps the most famous Royal is
the Royal Iris of 1951. She was the best loved of all the Mersey ferries. She
was the first diesel powered vessel of the Wallasey fleet. She had four diesel
generators connected to two Metrovick marine propulsion units. She differed to
all the other ferries as she had super smooth lines and a dummy funnel in place.
She played host to hundreds of party cruises and bands such as Gerry and The
Pacemakers, The Searchers, The Beatles and also Elvis Costello. She received a
major refit in the 1970's and her popular fish and chip cafe - which earned her
the name "the fish and chip boat" was removed and replaced with a steak bar. The
Royal Iris remained in service for nearly 40 years before being sold in 1993,
two years after withdrawal, for use as a floating nightclub.
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| Birkenhead Ferries – luggage boat ‘Churton’ 1925 |
In 1967
a second Mersey road tunnel was opened. As a result passenger numbers on the ferries
declined. Following the Transport Act of 1968, both Wallasey and Birkenhead
Corporations merged under the single control of the Merseyside Passenger
Transport Executive (MPTE) on 1 December 1969. By this time, New Brighton had
declined as a tourist destination and coupled with silting problems near the
landing stage, the ferry service was withdrawn in 1971, with the stage and pier
subsequently demolished. In spite of the close proximity of Wallasey and Birkenhead
and their respective ferry landing stages, both Corporations had used different
gangway spacing on their vessels. This meant that a Wallasey ferry could not
utilise both gangways at Birkenhead's terminal at Woodside, and that a
Birkenhead boat would be similarly disadvantaged at Seacombe and New Brighton.
The Pier Head at Liverpool was obliged to have gangways to suit both sets of
ships. When the combined ferry fleet was rationalised, Seacombe Ferry landing
stage required the construction of an additional gangway to cater for the
Birkenhead vessels. The ferries’ darkest hour came in 1977 when a bill was
presented in the Houses of Parliament to close ferry services altogether. the
ferries survived this attempt and survive to this day offering not only the
normal cross river service but also river cruise.
The
river and the ferry boats are a symbol of our great city and known throughout
the world not least because of the song “Ferry Cross the Mersey” (sometimes
written Ferry ‘Cross the Mersey) written by Gerry Marsden. It was first
recorded by his band Gerry and the Pacemakers and released in late 1964 in the
UK and in 1965 in the United States. It was a hit on both sides of the
Atlantic, reaching number six in the United States and number eight in the UK.
The song is from the film with the same name and was released on its soundtrack
album. In the mid 1990's a musical theatre production also titled Ferry Cross
the Mersey related Gerry Marsden’s Merseybeat days, it premiered in Liverpool
and played in the UK, Australia, and Canada.
The
author Helen Forrester also makes reference to the river and the ferries in her
book ,”Twopence to cross the Mersey”. 1974
“I knew
this part of town, because I had been
Shopping
in it on many occasions with my
Grandmother.
I pushed the Chariot
purposefully
up Lord Street to the top of the
hill,
where Queen Victoria in pigeon-dropped
grey
stone presided, down the hill, through a
district
of shipping offices with noble names
upon
their doors: Cunard, White Star, Union
Castle,
Pacific and Orient, the fine strands
which
tied Liverpool to the whole world. Past
the end
of the Goree Piazzas, an arcade of
tiny
shops and offices, where out of work
sailors
lounged and spat tobacco and called
hopefully
after me, under the overhead railway
which
served to take the dockers to work, and
a last
wild run across the Pier Head, dodging
trams
and taxis to the entrance to the floating
dock.
At last I had found it! The river
scintillated
in the sunshine; a tow of ships was
coming
in on the tide; a ferry-boat and a pilotboat
tethered
to the landing stage rocked
rhythmically;
screeching gulls circled
overhead
and swooped occasionally to snatch
food
from the river. A cold wind from the sea
tore at
my cardigan, jostling and buffeting my
skinny
frame. The shore hands were casting
off the
ferry boat, and I looked wistfully out
across
the water at the empty Cammell-Laird
shipyards
in Birkenhead”.
Helen
Forrester,”Twopence to cross the Mersey”. 1974
