Dock Tales

 

You might come to this blog for many reasons.  The trains.  The photos.  My witty repartee.  If you come here to admire the scenic beauty of England, then I'm afraid this post is not for you.  Outside Birkenhead North station is a vast hinterland of abandoned docks and industrial units.  This is the back streets, the abandoned parts, the leftovers of Britain.  And here I was walking through it.

For once, I was in familiar territory.  This bit of the Wirral is familiar to me because it's the location of the Bidston Recycling Centre, the peninsula's number one spot for getting rid of rubbish, and as the owner of an awful lot of rubbish, I've been here a fair few times.  Many's the afternoon I've trudged back and forth with arms full of wood or broken tiles or, on one particularly sad day, boxes of VHS video tapes that nobody else wanted.  

It lends a certain piquant aroma to the surrounding area, particularly on a hot day in June, and there's no real way to disguise it.  Still, it could be worse; for many decades, the tip was simply the Bidston Dock, and rubbish was poured into it without any consideration to separating your paper from your food waste.  The pile has now been grassed over to form a hillock and nature reserve - one that has carefully placed stink pipes scattered around to let out the methane.  

Crossing a bridge that wasn't really necessary any more, I reached a building site.  Piles of rubble and metal were being shifted from side to side.  This will soon be a David Lloyd Health Club, boasting the largest padel facility on the Wirral, indoor sports courts and a cafe.  It'll also boast an open air swimming pool, with the CGI images showing sun loungers scattered around the edge like a Benidorm getaway.  Remember a few sentences back when I was talking about the smell coming from the tip?  Yeah.

I managed to get over the busy dual carriageway - one gentleman stopped his car and waved me across, which was good of him.  The flowers here are a tribute to PC Dave Phillips, who was killed here by a car thief as he tried to deploy a stinger in 2015.   I went up the steep hill, towards the district of Poulton, past a working men's club and a church with an open door inviting you into their cafe.

For decades there was another railway station in a cutting here: Liscard and Poulton.  Opened in 1895, it was the only interim stop on a branch line to the ferry terminal at Seacombe, and as such had an important role getting Liverpool commuters across the river.  It was never incredibly successful, however, and when the rest of the Wirral Railway was electrified in 1938, the branch was left powered by steam.  That decision hung a noose over the branch which wasn't finally tightened until 1960, when the whole route was closed and the tracks lifted.

The deep cutting was instead repurposed into a far more twentieth century route - the approach road for the brand new tunnel under the Mersey, the Kingsway.  Nothing remains of the station as a result.  There would've been an island platform where the central reservation is now, and the booking hall has been replaced with an electrical substation.  If you squint you can just about see the slope on the right hand side of the road that was where access was, but you have to use your imagination.

The only indication that there was ever a railway here is in the street running alongside, which is still called Station Road.

I crossed back over Mill Lane and followed a bendy avenue that paralleled the tunnel approach.  A woman in a pink tracksuit unplugged her electric car from the public charger built into a lamppost; across the way, a group stood on the doorstep of a house, laughing and gossiping.  A small side road had the unusual name of Paula's Way - I've not been able to find out exactly who Paula was - and then there was a wide road with stores that seemed to have escaped from another era.  The credit union was alongside a sewing store and a supplier of fruit machines; even the paper shop still had a sign for the Daily Post, which hasn't been published since 2013.

A footbridge takes you back over the motorway here, and I've always been fascinated by it when I passed underneath because someone has decided to paint it in the Merseytravel colours.  There's absolutely no need for it to be in grey and yellow, but there it is, and I enjoy it.  I walked over, keeping my eyes averted from the speeding vehicles below, instead taking in the many black stickers plugging a men's hairdresser in town.  Their use of the phrase English Barber had a vague dogwhistle to it.

A row of Victorian terraces now descended back towards the dock, with huge storage tanks providing the full stop at the bottom.  Most of the houses had venetian blinds or a thin film stuck to the glass to stop prying eyes, though a couple were old school with net curtains.  On the corner, an abandoned toilet sat alongside the wheely bins, vaguely hoping a kind dustman would cart it off for them.

I turned to the side, where a pub had been converted into a pair of houses, and down a one way road augmented with a chicane of kerbs to slow joyriders.  The pedestrian entrance to a recreation park was crowned with piles of fly tipped rubbish; bits of plywood, black bags, an upside-down pushchair.  I'll remind you that ten paragraphs ago I was talking about a massive recycling centre that would've happily accepted all that, but I guess it's simply too difficult for some people to give a shit.

I was on the Dock Road now, an unlovely stretch of tarmac between yards and garages.  Anonymous business units surrounded by parking sit opposite tyre centres and scaffolding.  Some of that has been swept away for a new grey building, angled in the middle to follow the dock, which will form the new HQ for an MDF manufacturing plant.  It's still unfinished and looks far too clean and pristine amongst the rest of the grimy units.

Round another corner, and I was confronted with the new face of the docks.  It's been nearly twenty years since Wirral Waters was unveiled to the public, an ambitious plan by Peel to fill the land round here with skyscrapers and businesses and turn it into a glistening Dubai on the Mersey.  You'll be unsurprised to learn that literally none of that ambitious plan has actually happened; in fact, Peel's complete lack of activity has been the cause of raised eyebrows, with some accusing them of land banking.  Where the Dock Road meets Duke Street, however, there is an actual sign of progress.

Miller's Quay is a development of six brightly coloured apartment blocks that wouldn't look out of place on a dockside in Frankfurt or Amsterdam.  They're a bright, bold statement of intent, a big show of investment, and even better they've been completely occupied since almost the first moment they opened.  There have been a few teething problems - parking was a problem for a while, with many residents preferring to leave their cars on the street rather than pay the fees, until double yellow lines were laid down - but it's a remarkable success.  They're even getting their own Sainsbury's, a little grey and orange blob now under construction, which is a canary in a coal mine of gentrification.

I wasn't sure whether the public realm around the towers was public after all.  The signage was vague, and in 2026, you kind of expect anywhere nice to be patrolled by stern-faced security men intent on kicking you out.  I walked between two of the buildings boldly, as if I had a right to be there, and found a lovely little promenade on the waterside with plenty of benches and planting.

I'm not one hundred percent certain I was meant to be there, but I had a nice little stroll and nobody leapt out to demand to see my papers.  Next to Miller's Quay, however, there's a large plot of undeveloped land; it was marked for an apartment block for over 55s, but the delivery partner pulled out.  I wouldn't want to be a pensioner round here - as I said, it was only just getting a supermarket, and there are no buses along the Dock Road except for, bafflingly, the N1 night bus when it passes through the new tunnel on the way to Birkenhead Bus Station.  I can't imagine there being many old dears who've much need for a bus at four in the morning.

The footpath has been upgraded along this side of the road to full luxurious dockside living, though on the other, its's still a strip of grey tarmac beside factories.  It was a strange, schizophrenic place, working and living coinciding; I doubted that many of the people on the fourth floor of Miller's Quay finished their cappuccinos on the balcony then wandered over for a shift at the skip hire place across the road.  

The East Float apartments were the first to be redeveloped into residential in the docks and for years they've stood on their own, isolated, the home of pioneers who gambled that they were buying into the new Albert Dock or Canary Wharf.  Beside them are some interesting red modular homes built by Urban Splash; there was meant to be an apartment block behind, but the division that built houses went into liquidation.  Only now is there work going on to build the block, a pile driver relentlessly banging into my thoughts as I passed, although its design is not quite as interesting as the first phase.

I'd walked the whole length of the float now, right down to where a lifting bridge allows ships to pass through from the Mersey.  The docks still see a lot of maritime use, even today; there's frequently a naval ship moored up for restocking or refurbishment.  It's nothing like it used to be of course, and with all the actual freight handled across the river in Liverpool, it's no wonder Peel are scrabbling around for new uses for all that land.

The problem is, they don't really seem to know what to do with it.  As I crossed the bridge, I approached the derelict Central Hydraulic Tower.  It once supplied power to the whole dock complex, and it's designed to resemble the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence.  It's a beautiful building that's fallen into disrepair.

The first plan for the tower was that it'd be a bar and restaurant, with a rooftop lantern giving you views across the river to Liverpool.  There would also be a new hotel.  That fell through, and instead it was proposed to be something called a "Maritime Knowledge Hub", linked to the Wirral Met College next door.  That's also fallen through, and in the meantime, the Grade II-listed building is quietly collapsing.

It's really hard to know what Wirral Waters is, or will be.  The feast of glowing glass skyscrapers was never going to happen - everyone knew that - but it doesn't feel like there's any kind of purpose here now.  It's as though Peel will simply allow anyone who turns up to build on their land.  A new factory?  Sure!  Apartment blocks?  Why not?  Down here, on the edge of the docks, there was the college, plus an office development, with a scheme called Egerton Village ("a dockside restaurant and bistro, small independent retail units, artists’ studios, managed workspace and even a central public events space") meant to occupy the space in between.  If you've got the money to build, you can.  It doesn't seem like a place. 

It's a development in search of an identity.  To me, the obvious solution is to fill it with apartments; the one thing this country needs is homes, and a vibrant new waterside village based around the docks couldn't miss.  I stood at the side of the road; behind me was the Liverpool waterfront, while in front of me acres of open water stretched away.  Surely someone could do something with it all.

The grey sky that had been amassing above my head finally broke.  I'd planned on walking back along the Corporation Road to Birkenhead North, closing the loop, but I didn't have a coat and I'd already walked a fair few miles.  Instead I headed to Hamilton Square and bought myself a cup of tea.  

Today actually marks the anniversary of this blog; the very first post was on the 17th June 2007.  Somehow I've managed to push through it for nineteen years, despite the general trend of the internet and increasingly vitriolic calls for me to stop, and I have you, the readers, to thank for that.  Your readership - and generosity - has always been appreciated.  Thank you again.  Here's hoping we'll all still be around for the twentieth.

6. Birkenhead North

Opened: 2nd January 1888, though its name was Birkenhead Docks back then.  It was renamed to Birkenhead North in 1926.

Line electrified: 1938.

Number of platforms: Three.  One platform serves Liverpool trains, the second New Brighton and West Kirby trains.  The third is technically a through platform but is mainly used for stabling and turnbacks these days.  

Points of interest: A planter commemorates Philip Rodney Perkins, 08.09.1955 - 05.12.2025 - Goodnight God Bless.

On the outside wall is a mural dedicated to Charlie Landsborough, a folk singer who grew up nearby.  I have a close personal connection with Charlie because I'd never heard of him until I started work in the music department (or "Sounds" as we called it, because we were very cool) at Birkenhead's WH Smith.  I quickly learned that not only does Charlie have a dedicated fanbase on the Wirral, but also that they'll turn up on the day his new album is released demanding a copy at nine in the morning.  We used to regularly have arguments with head office that yes, we definitely should have thirty copies of a CD by this man they've never heard of because they will sell in about eight minutes, and their reticence is yet another reason why WH Smith went down the dumper.  

Birkenhead North also has a massive and very popular car park attached to it.  After about eleven am you'll find yourself cruising the aisle for a spot for a good while.  There used to be electric chargers here too but a while back they disappeared.  

As the point where the Wirral Line splits in two, and in close proximity to the Birkenhead North depot, this is also a spot where the train crews will swap over, meaning there's a mess room for them.  Look closely and you can see the fenced off yard where they can have a fag.

Attractive Local Feature sign: None.  In fact I'm starting to wonder if I'll ever find one of these because every station so far seems to have managed without one.

Original blog post: 9th September 2007

What's changed since then?  The lift-accessible bridge opened in 2014, and there's a now-faded sign to commemorate the occasion at the foot of the steps.  A vending machine has appeared in the waiting area, plus a toilet.  There's a sign on the footbridge that points to trains to West Kirkby and it's been there for years now and nobody seems to be in a rush to correct it.  

The local area has also been extensively redeveloped since then.  New houses have been built all around the station, replacing the Ilchester Square social housing with small well-kept semis and a stretch of parkland.  This also meant that the notorious New Dock Hotel was demolished.  I always like to mention it, because it was nicknamed "The Blood Tub"; there were lots of reasons given for this nickname but my favourite is that there were so many fights on a Saturday night that the landlord used to use a broom to brush the blood out the front door.

Proof of visit:

I would never permit a full-length photograph today because you'd see my beer gut and nothing else.

Tickets Please

Nostalgia is a terrible disease that runs right through the railways.  "Oooh, it was better in the old days!" is a curse.  There is always someone to point at steam trains, or third class tickets, or British Rail, or train doors you have to hang out the window to open, and say "that's so much better than what we have now".  You can sit on an air-conditioned, electric train, almost silent as it glides along, with power sockets and tables, and there will still be a railway fan who will say "I used to like it when you could open the window to hear the screech of the rails and choke on the diesel fumes.  Bring that back!"

This post is going to come with a tinge of nostalgia, and I apologise in advance.  But I'm using that nostalgia as a way of asking a question about Merseyrail's future.  My question is: what happened to all the ticket collectors?

When I first moved to the north - bloody hell - thirty odd years ago, I lived in Ormskirk.  Every time a train pulled onto the platform there, a man would appear at the exit and politely collect your ticket.  

When I first started visiting the BF via Birkenhead Park - bloody hell - twenty-nine years ago, a man would appear at the top of the ramp and collect your ticket as you passed.  

It was a simple and effective way of enforcing ticket sales.  I remember distinctly seeing scallies turn round and get on the next train out of Birkenhead Park because they couldn't produce a little orange card.  

Last Bank Holiday Monday, I went to New Brighton, and at the exit there were some ticket enforcement officers who stopped everyone as we went through.  And they were managing to collect a fair few dodgers in the process.  So it is still possible to do it.  There seems to be no appetite, however.

You can, basically, ride Merseyrail for free.  You're gambling on there not being inspectors on the train but I very rarely get my ticket checked.  I'd guess about once every ten journeys.  If you're not going to Liverpool, Birkenhead (Conway Park and Hamilton Square) or Southport - where there are barriers - you can get away with not paying.  How is this still a thing?  Why aren't there barriers everywhere?

I get that they're expensive, of course, and some stations would need a major reconfigure to be able to accommodate them.  There's also the issue of having a member of staff there to assist.  Other railway companies across the world have managed it.  San Francisco's Bart has recently finished installing them, and they've discovered that not only has revenue been protected, but also vandalism and anti-social behaviour at the stations and on the trains has gone down.  The network has become a sealed unit only for people with a ticket.  

And if you're not going to put barriers in, well, how about bringing back the bloke at the exit? It was actually a good idea.  It actually worked.  It might also stop me and other law-abiding citizens feeling like a mug when we pay for our ticket and never get checked. 

(Yes the bloke at Birkenhead Park was a bit fit and it was always a pleasure to see him but that's not what this is about ok?  Besides he'll be pushing sixty by now).

Notes On Camp

With the new stations of the Wolverhampton-Walsall line behind me (the WolWal Line?  Wolvall?) I shifted from one side of New Street to the other.  It was in a state of low-level chaos; a problem with the lines going south had caused a huge backlog of delays and cancellations.  Dejected passengers lined the platforms waiting for trains that wouldn't come.  My own, tiny, local train was delayed by twenty minutes, and as it passed the losers standing by I sank down in my seat so it wouldn't look like I was revelling in my good fortune.

We rose up out of the tunnel, giving us a great view of the HS2 station slowly coming together at Curzon Street.  That exact same day Heidi Alexander had stood up and announced that everything would be late and expensive and also, not as good as it was meant to be, and I looked at that vast swathe of concrete and workmen and trucks and diggers and wondered exactly when I'd be able to stand outside it and take a sign selfie.  If, indeed, I could still stand at that point.  Perhaps my carer will take the picture for me.

The train pulled onto the Camp Hill Line, Birmingham's newest suburban route.  I wondered how the people in the houses lining the track felt about this sudden uptick in noise; a rarely used freight line transformed into a commuter line.  I bet there's a lot less nude sunbathing in the back gardens now.

The most distinctive part of Moseley Village station isn't anything to do with what's been built; that's all distinctly perfunctory.  Metal walls, orange lampposts, all the same playbook.  The thing that draws your eye is the entrance to the tunnel beyond the platforms.

Is it just me or is there something vaguely... vulva-like about that?  It's the keystone at the top, poking over the splayed curves of the tunnel.  It's a little bit dirty.  Obviously I'm no expert in this matter but you don't have to be Sigmund Freud to see the symbolism of a train sliding into that.  

I politely averted my eyes and went up the stairs to the newly laid out plaza on top.  It's a large, bare stretch of block paving that's been clearly designed as an event space.  I could see the shadows of artisan soap makers, organic candle stalls and expensive streetfood yet to come scattered across the pavement.  It's certainly a cut above Willenhall's cycle lane and zebra crossing.

It quickly became obvious why Moseley Village got the full town square treatment.  It turned out this place was posh.  Right outside the station was an M&S Food Hall, and it very much continued on that theme.  Restaurants and beauty salons cascaded down the hill towards the main road.  Estate agents with expensive listings.  An old church high on a mound above us.  At the junction, a dual carriageway had a vague air of boulevard with tall trees and benches to relax on.  The original station here, closed during the war, had been called simply Moseley; you could hear the letters from the residents' associations demanding that Village suffix to show they were a cut above.

This sounds like reverse snobbery, and it is a bit, but it didn't stop me finding Moseley charming.  It was certainly an improvement on the grim industrial backstreets of Darleston.  I turned up a hill, where a pub poster advertised a forthcoming appearance from drag queen Harley La Rue.  Where Class Meets Sass it promised, which I puzzled over for a while until I realised my Southern accent was standing in the way of the rhyme (Where Clarse Meets Sass).  I wonder where the dividing line is for that long A.  Perhaps the Watford Gap.

The road gently rose up the hill and I realised once again that I should really check out the gradient lines on the OS Map before I plan these journeys.  It went up and up, past lines of neat villas and new shiny cars parked close to the kerb.  The Moseley Dovecot, a remnant of a great house that was once in the area, stood behind a fence on a patch of green.

I passed a Jewish primary school and a cul de sac of identical terraced homes that was choked with cars.  A builder's yard and then, on a whitewashed wall, a picture of an eggman raising his hat to passers by; beneath him, the road sign had been adorned with the Prince symbol.  I couldn't decide which was more incongruous.

Blocks of flats now intruded on the street, new and old, while the big mansions had multiple buzzers and concreted fronts.  A funeral home had a large stained glass window presiding over passers by, and I found myself humming Slumber Inc without even thinking about it.  I am nothing if not predictable.

At a curve in the road my second station appeared, Kings Heath (no, there isn't an apostrophe; yes, it is annoying).  There are only three new stations on the Camp Hill line; it terminates at Kings Norton, an already existing station that lacks an apostrophe.  It's amazing that this new, exciting transport link in England's second largest city is three stations and two trains an hour in each direction but there it is; we settle for what we can get.  

At some point, the trains will go into Moor Street, where there is more capacity than the ridiculously overcrowded New Street, but before that happens Bordesley station needs to close so that new chords can be built.  The proposal to close it is already out there, though there isn't a suggestion of a replacement on the Camp Hill route once the new lines are built (the Metro's newest extension will take over the slack).  When this will happen is, as always, entirely guesswork.  

Kings Heath also has a small pedestrian space outside, though it's more of an infill between the curve and the road and the straight front of the footbridge; I can't see anyone holding a craft fair there.  

I took a seat on the platform.  There was another man there who also carried a camera.  I imagine Men Who Like Railway Stations have been swarming all over the line for the last couple of months; there are probably dozens of YouTube videos about it all in deep detail.  This is probably all old news to you.  But you get it when I write it, so tough.

The final station is the jewel, the one that everyone likes: Pineapple Road.  What a lovely, evocative, fun name.  It's the kind of whimsical station name you wouldn't think would pass muster in the boring old 21st century; after all, for most of the 20th century it was called Hazelwell.  Pineapple Road is a great fun name, one that calls to you.

It is, of course, nothing special on the ground.  If a kidnapper dumped me on a platform on the Camp Hill line and ran off with my glasses so I couldn't read the sign I wouldn't be able to tell them apart.  Two platforms, metal awnings and stairs, lifts and footbridge.  

Still, I hoped Pineapple Road, of all the stations, would offer a little bit of artistic licence.  A moment of character.  I was excited to spot some metal fretwork and I stopped for a good look.

I'm afraid to say it depicted random wild flowers.  There wasn't a single pineapple to be seen, which simply isn't on.  It's called Pineapple Road.  It's on the Camp Hill line.  It's begging for a level of flamboyant extravagance hitherto unseen in the West Midlands.  There should be small pineapples on top of every pillar, lamp post and help sign.  There should be pineapple murals and pineapple brickwork.  You shouldn't be able to move for the pineapples.  

When I win the EuroMillions on Friday (£137 million, watch this space) I will personally pay for a two metre high golden pineapple statue to be erected outside the station.  I will give the station the campery, the whimsy, the sheer delightful personality it deserves.  I will make it the destination it should be.