Eastham
Eastham Village lies on the far south-eastern point of the current Wirral local authority, adjacent to the River Mersey, at the start of the Manchester Ship Canal. The village centre is characterised by a mix of buildings, with small terraces of cottages interspersed among larger and more opulent villas. The medieval street pattern, with roads winding around the 11th century church of St. Mary, makes this one of the most attractive Wirral villages and one which was designated a Conservation Area in 1974.
The manor of Eastham is mentioned in the Domesday Survey of 1086 and has been inhabited since Saxon times. An ancient yew tree in the churchyard, reputed to be over 1700 years old, is one of the oldest trees in England. Planted at the time the Roman legions were leaving Chester the original north wall of the 1152 chapel may have been built adjacent to it. The village itself and much of the surrounding land was once owned by the powerful Stanley family of Hooton Hall.
Until the 19th century, Eastham was a predominantly agricultural settlement with some fishing supplementing this from the River Mersey. A sailing packet ferry service operated for hundreds of years, bringing travellers from Liverpool to the Cheshire shores of the Mersey at Eastham from where there was the advantage of good road and coaching links to Chester. The landing stage evolved as trade increased from a simple jetty to a zigzag stone pier, to a floating landing stage joined to the pier by means of a hinged section. The 19th century newspapers carried reports of thousands of trippers coming to Eastham at busy bank holidays. An enigmatic sandstone jetty reached by extant steps carved in the cliff face, known as Job’s Ferry, is located about 800 yards north of the current Eastham pier. It was thought to be the point from which locally quarried sandstone was sent to Liverpool – required for the extensive construction work as the city rapidly developed.
The introduction of steam packets in the early 1800’s, consolidated Eastham’s growing reputation as fashionable resort and coaching centre. In 1816, the steam packet ‘Princess Charlotte’ started a twice daily return Liverpool to Eastham service. She was the first of 28 paddle steamers which operated the route over the next 115 years. Up to 20 coaches a day connected Eastham to other places such as Chester, Shrewsbury and Holyhead, with Eastham’s inns busy with people resting during their journeys. An advertisement of 1816 stated that “a new elegant light post coach called the Princess Charlotte” left the White Lion in Chester every morning for Eastham Ferry. By his means passengers could arrive at Pier Head in two and a half hours from Chester.
Following the opening of the Chester to Birkenhead Railway in the 1840s, demand for the ferry service declined, but Eastham remained popular as a day resort. In 1843, the owners of the ferry, the Stanley family of nearby Hooton Hall, built the Eastham Ferry Hotel and shortly afterwards, under the supervision of the tenants, the pleasure gardens were laid out. These eventually came to include an open-air stage, a zoo, tea rooms, bandstand, ball rooms, boating lake, water chute and a roller coaster.
The opening of the Manchester Ship Canal by Queen Victoria in 1894, brought increased prosperity to the area and a Jubilee Arch based on London’s Marble Arch was built at the entrance to the pleasure gardens in 1887 to commemorate her Diamond jubilee. Demolished in the 1930s only the steps remain.
Eastham’s popularity lasted until the inter-war period, when it gained a reputation for over commercialisation and rowdiness. The ferry services stopped in 1929, the pleasure gardens fell into repair and the ferry landing stage was demolished in 1935.
The opening of the Manchester Ship Canal inevitably led to increased industrialisation around Eastham and more dramatic changes came in the late 1940s, when the great oil-dock project revived industrial activity. Eastham oil dock was the largest in Britain with great oil tankers berthing there to unload their cargo of crude, via a pipe work, to the refineries at Stanlow. At this time new housing estates were built and there were fears that Eastham and its surrounding woods and fields would be lost. Woodlands to the north of the village were designated a Country Park in 1970 and the historic village core a Conservation Area four years later.
Eastham has benefitted from the surrounding Green Belt and open spaces. These have acted as a buffer against encroaching suburbanisation and have helped the village to retain a character which has evolved gradually over many centuries. The focal point is the Grade II Listed Church of St Mary. Established in 1852 by the Third Earl of Chester, Randal of Gernons, it was extensively added to between the 13th and 15th centuries and restored in the 1870s.
The village sundial (dated 1798) and village cross (dated 1891) are both Grade II Listed. The Stanley Arms, although unlisted, has a carved stone stag’s head, the heraldic emblem of the Stanleys, set in the wall. This came from the original Stanley family seat at Hooton Hall. In 1854, the influential American novelist Nathaniel Hawthorn stayed here (the inn has since been rebuilt) during his time as United States consul in Liverpool. He wrote:
“Eastham is the finest old English village I have seen, with many antique houses, and with altogether a rural and picturesque aspect….There were thatched stone cottages intermixed with houses of a better kind…It was not merely one long street, as in most New England villages, but there were several crooked ways, gathering the whole settlement into a pretty small compass”. Eastham Village, Ferry and woods are well worth a visit. The sandstone cliffs are one of the few places on the Mersey where the original shoreline remains unaltered; the woods are a tranquil delight and the village and church of St Mary’s offer some delightful exploration opportunities. To view a map of the Conservation Area click here.
