Explore West Bank, Widnes
- The Ethelfleda Railway Bridge
- The Transporter Bridge, Mersey Road
- The Beach and the Prom
- The Accident Hospital
- Victoria Gardens and the Bandstand
- St Mary’s Church, St Mary’s Road
- Zion Chapel, Oakland Street
- West Bank School, Oakland
- Rooftops and Terraces
- Hartland Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, Oakland St
- Corner of Irwell Street and Viaduct Street
- West Bank Dock
- Mersey Road Shops
- The River Mersey
- Gossage's Soap Works, Mersey Road
- St Patrick’s School, Dock Street
- St Patrick’s Church, Dock Street
- The National School, Waterloo Road
- St Helen’s Canal
- Widnes Dock and Spike Island
- Pitt Street Field
- Nelson Street during Festival of Britain
- Thomas Bolton and Sons Ltd, Hutchinson Street
The Ethelfleda Railway Bridge was the first permanent structure to span the Mersey at this crossing point and was opened in 1868. Prior to the bridge being built, a ferry was used to transport people across the water, but the ferry crossings were very hazardous. Pedestrians used to be able to cross the Railway Bridge too, they could walk along the footpath after buying a ticket.
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In operation from 1905 to 1961, this incredible structure suspended a ‘Transporter Car’ above the water which was drawn from shore to shore, carrying people, bikes, cars and buses across the Mersey in minutes (although in bad weather the journey took longer). The Transporter Bridge brought many people into the centre of West Bank, in its later years cars queued right up Mersey Road to use it. The new road bridge was built to meet the demands of this increasing traffic and opened in 1961, which is when the Transporter was closed and dismantled.
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The beach and prom provided great spaces for leisure, they were popular places for women to meet and chat whilst watching their children play. Every year in August a fete was held with sandcastle building competitions and other games. And throughout the summer when the tide was out people really made the most of the beach. As one West Banker explained though, you had to be aware of the Mersey tides. “You had to watch carefully for the change in the tide. We would see the first wave come up and splash and dance about in it but when the second wave came up you started to move off the sands.” Linda Kilshaw, West Banker, 1920s.
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The hospital opened in 1878 and was situated by the prom. “In the summer the Accident Hospital nurses used to put children, in their beds, out on a patio kind of area near the grassy slope so that they could get fresh air. We’d walk around there sometimes and see them.” Josie Carney, West Banker, c. 1938/39
In later years the Matron who worked there developed quite a reputation for being stern but excellent at her work. When children were brought into the hospital injured the Matron used to send their mothers away so that she could concentrate on treating the children without fuss.
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Victoria Gardens were added during an extension to the promenade in 1903 in commemoration of Queen Victoria. It was a frequently used space for meeting, chatting and enjoying the sunshine and people talk of running around the band stand as children.
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This was the second St Mary’s Church in West Bank. The first was built in 1858 but on chemical waste, so by 1901 the walls had become unstable and the floor uneven. Over £11,000 was raised to build a new church on a site near the prom, which Mrs.Gossage (wife of local Industrialist Sir William Gossage) laid the foundation stone for in 1908, after Mr.Gossage had donated significant funds to the new building.
The new church had an outdoor pulpit built into the boundary wall. Mr T Sutton Timmis, one of the major donors to the project, envisaged that it would be used, “on warm evenings and for open air services.”
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This United Methodist Chapel opened in 1874, just a year after Hartland opened also on Oakland Street. Like Hartland, the Zion Chapel was not only used for church services but also as a place for people to meet. There are images in the collection from the late 1970s of people playing badminton on Wednesday evenings in the chapel.
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West Bank School opened in 1877 in Oakland Street where it still operates in 2005. Both boys and girls were educated there. One pupil remembers of her time there in the 1930’s, “Our headmistress was quite plump with a podgy face which included a double chin. This chin wobbled a lot when she was angry and she wasn’t afraid to give anyone the cane if she thought they deserved it, and she often did. It hung behind her desk in a very prominent position for all to see.” Linda Kilshaw, West Bank School, 1930s.
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This aerial view of West Bank was taken from the top of St Mary’s Church before the redevelopment in the 1960s. It shows clearly the density of the housing and the proximity of the community to the industrial buildings where many West Bankers worked. “At certain times of the day, they used to let the gas out [of the factories] and it did smell. It was mostly in a morning and it used to be like fog…. It used to get into our throats and make us cough… but we lived through it, well, we had to, or else have no money.” Marjorie Fallon, West Banker, 1920s.
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The Hartland Wesleyan Chapel was opened in 1873. It was not just a place to go for worship but also for recreation.
“On the very top floor, at Hartland, there was a full sized billiard table which had been used to encourage young men to go there and play, meet and drink tea rather than go to the pub. It was very much a temperance chapel. The room was still fully rigged out with cue rests and score boards when I was young.” Roy Hayes, West Banker, 1950.
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Housing in West Bank before the redevelopment comprised of a dense network of terraced streets. As this image shows people were house-proud and the streets well kept. Margaret Wilkinson can be seen here washing the pavement outside her home.
One West Banker spoke of the 1930s, “The square patch of pavement in front of the door was washed and whitened every day with donkey stone.” And it wasn’t only the outsides that were so well kept, “The fireplace had to be cleaned thoroughly and everyday the dust and cinders removed. I remember Nana kept a goose wing for cleaning the fire. The whole range was polished every week to make it shine.” Elsie Gleave, West Banker, 1930s.
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West Bank had two Docks, Widnes Dock (see number 20 on this map) and West Bank Dock pictured here. West Bank Dock was the later of the two constructed in 1864. Seen here is one of the locomotives that operated in West Bank Dock, it was one of four named after the daughters of the owner, Mr. Hutchinson. ‘Mary’ is pictured here, and the other three were called Gertrude, Lucy and Margaret.
Like the Cut and Canal, the Docks were not safe places for children to play and so children were often forbidden by their parents to venture down there. However, children being children, they often did sneak to the Docks to explore and play games without their parents knowing.
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West Bank was a thriving trading centre, people often talk about how you could buy everything you would need in West Bank and that there was no need to go shopping elsewhere. Mersey Road, in particular, was lined with shops and one of its most well remembered is pictured here. ‘The Maypole Dairy Company’ sold dairy products and other items like sugar and tea. The shop was renowned for its beautiful interior. One lady who worked there during the 1950’s recalls, “As I was the ‘last in’ I had to scrub the floor at the end of the day. It was a beautiful floor of green and brown tiles, with a maypole pattern in the middle.” Maureen Taylor, Shop assistant in Maypole, 1950s.
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“The river was a very busy river with all the yachts and shrimp boats, as West Bank was known for its shrimps. As the shrimp boats came in people were queuing to get the shrimps to take them all over the town and outside it. After that the village would go quiet, as everybody was schulling shrimps to pot and sell and go out with their wares.” Marjorie Fallon, West Banker, 1930s.
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Sir William Gossage was a highly successful Industrialist and his Soapworks were based in West Bank. This image shows women workers from around the 1900s wearing clogs and work attire. Women were employed at Gossage’s mostly for packing soap and one worker recalls, “Women had to wash their own overalls at home and so often let a few shavings fall into their pockets to help with the weekly wash.” Bessie O'brien, West Banker, 1920s. Part of the original Gossage’s office building still stands in 2005.
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This photograph pictures St Patrick's School and its immediate surroundings from c.1970. There are much earlier images in the West Bank Heritage Collection, some dating back to the 1910s. A female teacher at the school during the 1920s recalls that, “Each child would be given a sewing needle to last for the whole year. The teacher had to supply replacement needles for those lost down the dusty worn floorboards. Each piece of tacking thread had to be carefully removed and placed over pegs that held the slate board. These pieces of thread were used over and over again.” Kathleen Graham, Teacher, St Patrick's School, 1922.
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St Patrick’s Church was consecrated in the 1880’s and stood until 1997. This image shows a May Queen procession passing by the church building.
The interior was described by one member of the congregation, “St Patrick’s church was an institution dear to the hearts of many. It had fine sandstone pillars, statues and lots of marble. At the entrance and alter were beautiful stained glass windows of St Patrick with snakes at his feet.”
Eric Hunt, West Banker, 1990s.
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This image of the school building was sent by the headmaster, Mr John William Hufton as a Christmas card to all the ex-pupils of the school serving in France during the First World War. Mr Hufton was appointed at the school in 1899 for a salary of £80 per annum.
Notes in the school log book from 14th October 1867 record attendance as “somewhat smaller in afternoon as a consequence of there being a circus in the neighbourhood”. Epidemics of whooping cough, scarlet fever and measles also had an impact on attendance in the later part of the 19th and early 20th Century.
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The canal was a busy trading route for many cargoes. Before the 1950s these gates would have been in constant use. It was a dangerous place for children to play down by canal, also known as ‘the cut’ but also a place of adventure.
The cargo travelling along the canal and the River Mersey often helped West Bank families make ends meet. Old West Bankers talk of visiting the locks at night when sugar barges were left awaiting the tides the next day; “nobody in West Bank was short of sugar!” Alf Burgess, West Banker. Other stories include a bounty of corned beef which was washed up on the shore after a cargo boat overturned during the 1940s. Also, pieces of coal could be collected from the sands that had been tossed aside by passing boats; “you could pick a bucket full in about an hour” Alf Burgess, West Banker.
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Widnes Docks opened in 1862. The men pictured in this image worked hard loading and unloading cargoes and carrying out general labouring. Widnes Dock sat on Spike Island, where in the early days of the chemical industry most of the housing development and work was.
One of the theories as to how Spike Island got its name relates to the fact that a ‘spike’ was a cheap boarding house, the kind that would have been plentiful around the factories.
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Here a group have gathered on some spare land near Pitt Street. West Bank had several open spaces in amongst the housing such as this one. Others included, ‘Summer Meadow’, ‘The Black’ and ‘The Birdcage’. This photograph was taken during the 1950s and shows a group of friends. Two of the ladies pictured are sisters, Marie and Pat McGloin.
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Here a Festival of Britain procession makes its way down Nelson Street as part of the 1951 celebrations. The terraced streets of West Bank were often paraded around on many occasions and the streets would be decorated with bunting as can also be seen here. Nelson Street, like others on West Bank, had a Rose Queen for the 1951 celebrations and Cath Connoughton had this honour. The picture shows her before her crowning ceremony.
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The Mersey Copper Works were established in the 1880s for smelting and rolling copper. Laurence Greenwood, pictured on the front row, first left, was furnace man from 1947 to 1953, shovelling coal into the furnace. Works like these employed many West Bankers. People frequently got jobs or apprentiships through family or friends and as a result it often meant that two or more generations of the same family could be employed at the same place of work.
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