From Ferries, a Fever Hospital and Open-air Bath to Ducks and Waders

by Mathilde Baker-Schommer with thanks to Simon Petris for the notes provided.


2012 is a double-jubilee year for Nature conservation in Wirral and Cheshire: it is 50 years since the Cheshire Conservation (now Wildlife) Trust was created, and 40 years of the Trust’s Wirral group being in existence.


The first event to celebrate this jubilee took place on 15th February. 15 people, including two children, braved the cold wind and assembled on the Shorefield grassland in New Ferry, to be welcomed by Hilary Ash.

There was no champagne, instead the event started with a fascinating talk about the past of the area by Simon Petris from New Ferry Local History Group. Simon illustrated his narrative with contemporary photographs, providing a glimpse into the life of previous generations in the area as well as how busy the Mersey was, now lying quietly before us.

The earliest reference to a boat service at New Ferry seems to be an advert in a Liverpool newspaper in 1774, stating that a coach would run from ‘The ferry’ by the shortest route to Chester every day, and return the same day. However, reference to a ferry was already made in 1379 in the court rolls of Lower Bebington, mentioning one Adam Del Fere (= of the ferry) without stating to which ferry he was connected.

The Quarantine Station for Liverpool in the early 18th century consisted of Lazarettos (old sailing hospital ships) moored in the Sloyne at Rock ferry. All ships arriving to Liverpool from foreign ports were compelled to drop anchor soon after entering the river. If any sickness had been observed on the ship, the captain had to hoist a yellow flag and sail as near as possible to the Lazarettos and drop anchor so that the port medical officer could inspect everybody on board.

In 1721 the Quarantine Station moved to Hoyle Lake but this soon became too small and silted for the numbers of ships coming to Liverpool, so the Lazarettos were eventually moved to the site at New Ferry. After many deaths on the hospital ships, the Port authorities decided to build a land-based Port Sanitary Isolation Hospital in 1875 at what is now known as ‘Shorefields’ in New ferry.  Access from the ships in the Mersey to the hospital was via a long low wooden jetty. Over 1,200 cases of tropical diseases were treated there, including cholera, smallpox, chickenpox and leprosy.  The hospital stood there for 88 years and was burned down in 1963 by the fire department with a controlled exercise to make sure none of the deadly pathogens would persist.

Following Simon’s explanations, the group went to view the hospital site and the plaque erected in remembrance of all who passed through the hospital, many only to leave after they had died.

Although more benign, the public open-air baths (of which there once were 11 in Wirral) also succumbed to the passing time, leaving hardly any traces. ‘New Ferry Open Air Swimming Baths’ was built by Bebington & Bromborough U.D.C. in 1932 at a cost of £12,000 as one of the most up-to-date baths in the Country. It was rectangular in shape and 330 feet long, 90 feet wide. The baths had a water capacity of 1,000,000 gallons of sea water drawn from the River Mersey. When it first opened, it had 80,000 visitors in the first two months. The baths closed in the 1970s.

After this journey into local history, attention switched to the non-human users of the area - the waterfowl that feed and roost in the sheltered bay at New Ferry. Often numerous duck can be seen on the water or, at low tide, loafing on the sand, pebbles and mud. Waders (also called Shore birds) do not swim and gather on the exposed sand and mud to feed or roost. The visit proved a little disappointing in this respect as bird numbers were small on that day. Although numerous Shelduck were seen feeding on tiny marine snails living in the mud, there were only few other birds present, among them some Curlew, Redshank and noisy Oystercatchers besides four species of Gull and two Pintail duck that flew past. The flock of Black-tailed godwit that had flown in earlier on had sadly left, leaving just 4 stragglers behind.

Ed Samuels explained that, until recently, large numbers of these northern visitors would spend the winter in Britain’s west-coast estuaries such as the Mersey and the Dee. However, with the generally milder winters, more of the birds appear now to stay on the eastern side of Britain.

Despite the small numbers, we all had good views of the birds present, through field glasses and telescopes. Bird behaviour is somewhat unpredictable, and a visit at low tide on another day could be more rewarding, presenting good numbers of Teal, Wigeon, Knot, Turnstone and of some of the 60,000 Dunlin that have still been counted on the Mersey’s intertidal mudflats.

The next guided visit will be on

Saturday 21st April at 2pm

Woodland management the traditional way - Thornton Common and Thornton Wood

See what hedge laying, coppicing, pollarding look like,

done by Wirral Countryside Volunteers.

Thornton Common is flat,

but Thornton Wood has steep slopes.

BOOKING ESSENTIAL ring 0151 327 5923.

Meet: Thornton Common, Thornton Common Road, Clatterbridge.

Grid ref: SJ323814 (adjacent to Wirral Rugby Club).

Some car parking by bridge over motorway.

Leaders: Paul Loughnane and

members of Wirral Countryside Volunteers.