local walks
Exploring Parkgate
1. The Donkey Stand - Parkgate's first Assembly Room once stood here, later becoming a sea-water bathing house. From the 1870s it was a place for donkey rides.
2. Balcony House - built in the late 1700s, though the balcony was added 1870. The large rear extension was Parkgate's next Assembly Room, where dances were held and cards and billiards played.
3. The Sea Wall - built in 3 phases in early 1800s. It was never intended for ships to moor against, just a fashionable place to walk.
4. Mostyn Square & St. Thomas' Church - the Square is named after the Welsh family which owned much of Parkgate until 1849. The 'Fisherman's Church' was built in 1843.
5. Middle Slip - once much used by fishermen, and donkey carts collecting shellfish. The Old Watch Houseopposite was used by H.M. Customs until 1828.
6. The Boat House - built in 1926 on the site of an inn that was standing here almost 400 years ago, serving an important anchorage offshore called Beerhouse Hole.
7. The Old Baths - the grey walls are the remains of the seawater swimming baths opened in 1923. The larger one was 100 metres long.
8. The Wirral Way - line of the old Hooton - West Kirby railway line, closed in 1962, which became Britain's first Country Park in 1969, opening to the public in 1973.
9. Parkgate Station - Originally the railway line ended here and the station was on the south side of the road,. Later, the line was extended to West Kirby, a bridge was built over the road, and a second station was built on the north side of the road.
10. The Anti-Invasion Pillbox - built by the Home Guard as a gun emplacement in 1940 in case German paratroops landed on the Dee estuary. It has now been converted into a bat house.
11. Nelson Cottage - the pebbles spell the name of the 1822 owner's nine year old son who drowned in a storm on the Mersey.
12. Dover Cottage - believed to be where Emma Hart (nee Lyon), later Lady Hamilton, the mistress of Admiral Nelson, stayed whilst on a sea-bathing trip.
13. Mostyn House - was a school run by the Grenfell family from 1862 to 2010; the black and white facade was built in 1932. This building now houses more than 40 apartments.
14. The double hedge - marks the line of the railway that once ran to the coal mine at Little Neston.
15. The Old Quay - once the site of a large shipping quay projecting into the estuary, used from roughly 1560 to 1690. Thousands of passengers passed through here in some years.
16. Moorside Lane - the original entrance to Neston deer park is thought to have been near here. Later, as the port of Parkgate grew, and before the building of the turnpike at the end of the 18th century, traffic between Neston and Parkgate went via Moorside Lane, continuing from here along the shore.
The English Coastal Path
BIRKENHEAD TO NORTH WALES COASTAL PATH
This long-distance path runs along the west coast of the Wirral, passing through Parkgate. Not all sections of the walk have been completed, but it is possible to walk along large sections of this coastal path.
The Wirral Way on a sunny spring morning © Brenda Marple
Last Updated April 2022