Morpeth Dock is a

dock A dock (from Dutch ''dok'') is the area of water between or next to one or a group of human-made structures that are involved in the handling of boats or ships (usually on or near a shore) or such structures themselves. The exact meaning vari ...

Birkenhead Birkenhead (; cy, Penbedw) is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, Merseyside, England; historically, it was part of Cheshire until 1974. The town is on the Wirral Peninsula, along the south bank of the River Mersey, opposite Liv ...

Wirral Peninsula Wirral (; ), known locally as The Wirral, is a peninsula in North West England. The roughly rectangular peninsula is about long and wide and is bounded by the River Dee to the west (forming the boundary with Wales), the River Mersey to ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

. The dock is situated between the

River Mersey The River Mersey () is in North West England. Its name derives from Old English and means "boundary river", possibly referring to its having been a border between the ancient kingdoms of Mercia and Northumbria. For centuries it has formed par ...

and Egerton Dock.

History

Built between 1844 and 1847, it is named after Lord Morpeth, the 7th Earl of Carlisle, who was the

First Commissioner of Woods and Forests The Commissioners of Woods, Forests and Land Revenues were established in the United Kingdom in 1810 by merging the former offices of Surveyor General of Woods, Forests, Parks, and Chases and Surveyor General of the Land Revenues of the Crown i ...

. The dock was opened in 1847, and the branch dock was built between 1866 and 1868. By 1872, the dock had been significantly remodelled with the branch dock and a canal basin for the GWR's goods station. Morpeth Dock Goods station was used by the GWR as the Birkenhead end of cross-river traffic to the Manchester Dock. Morpeth Dock provided berths for the Bibby Line, the

Brocklebank Line The Brocklebank Line (formally named Thos. and Jno. Brocklebank) was an English shipping line that operated in the 19th and 20th centuries. Daniel Brocklebank founded a shipyard in Whitehaven in 1785, and expanded in the following years into op ...

, Holt and the

Pacific Steam Navigation Company The Pacific Steam Navigation Company ( es, Compañía de Vapores del Pacífico, links=no) was a British commercial shipping company that operated along the Pacific coast of South America, and was the first to use steam ships for commercial traffi ...

, all of which worked to the

Far East The ''Far East'' was a European term to refer to the geographical regions that includes East and Southeast Asia as well as the Russian Far East to a lesser extent. South Asia is sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons. The t ...

. The branch dock was too small for ships, and was used to site one of the Queensway Tunnel ventilation towers in 1934, along with a water pumping station in 1955. The pumping station later became a

water treatment Water treatment is any process that improves the quality of water to make it appropriate for a specific end-use. The end use may be drinking, industrial water supply, irrigation, river flow maintenance, water recreation or many other uses, inc ...

plant, now replacing the entire basin of the branch dock. Originally, the dock connected directly to the

via the locks of the Morpeth River Entrance, although the entrance channel has since been partially infilled and the locks removed after being disused for some years. Access to the Great Float via Egerton Dock has also been removed, making both docks effectively

landlocked A landlocked country is a country that does not have territory connected to an ocean or whose coastlines lie on endorheic basins. There are currently 44 landlocked countries and 4 landlocked de facto states. Kazakhstan is the world's largest ...

. The dockside sheds of the former Morpeth Branch Dock were restored around 1992, and contain the Pacific Road Business Centre.

One O'Clock Gun

Situated close to the dock and overlooking the river, the One O'Clock Gun provided a time signal to shipping on the Mersey. It was fired electrically from Bidston Observatory for the first time on 21 September 1867 and the original cannon was a relic of the

Crimean War The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included the ...

. Due to the advent of

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a tr ...

and increasing maintenance costs, by 1932 it was proposed to discontinue the One O'Clock Gun. Although this did not occur, firing was suspended during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

. The tradition ceased altogether on 18 July 1969. A One O'Clock Gun is still fired at

Edinburgh Castle Edinburgh Castle is a historic castle in Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland. It stands on Castle Rock (Edinburgh), Castle Rock, which has been occupied by humans since at least the Iron Age, although the nature of the early settlement is unclear. ...

Bomb discovery

Birkenhead docks, as well as the surrounding area, were heavily bombed by the

Luftwaffe The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German '' Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the '' Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabt ...

during the

. In May 2006, a 60-year-old, 500kg (1,102lb) bomb was discovered by the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against Fr ...

's Northern Diving Group and disposed of by the

minesweeper A minesweeper is a small warship designed to remove or detonate naval mines. Using various mechanisms intended to counter the threat posed by naval mines, minesweepers keep waterways clear for safe shipping. History The earliest known usage of ...

HMS ''Atherstone''. It was found embedded in mud in the river, near to the former entrance to Morpeth Dock and may have been disturbed during

dredging Dredging is the excavation of material from a water environment. Possible reasons for dredging include improving existing water features; reshaping land and water features to alter drainage, navigability, and commercial use; constructing d ...

work at the Twelve Quays ferry terminal. The bomb was later detonated in Liverpool Bay.

References

Sources

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External links