The Parkgate Society

River Dee

Over the years the fortune of Parkgate as a community has been determined to a great extent by changes in the river, both natural and man-made. The gradual silting of the River Dee eventually prevented sea-going ships from sailing further upstream to the ancient port of Chester, and the place for the trans-shipment of goods and passengers was moved progressively further downstream along the English side of the estuary (where the channel then was). 

A substantial quay already existed in Elizabethan times at Neston at the mouth of the Neston Brook, but it is recorded in the first decade of the 17th century that shipping was also being handled at ‘the park gate’. In those early days, before a new turnpike road was laid out between Chester and Parkgate in 1797, the route from Neston to Parkgate was via Moorside Lane to the shore. Cargo would have been off-loaded from here into smaller vessels for onward transit to Chester. This practice may have been started by ship-owners whose motive was to avoid the heavy charges imposed by the Chester port authorities for the use of their quay at Neston.

Around the same time similar developments were going on elsewhere. At the coastal end of Boathouse Lane, in the township of Leighton, an inn, first shown simply as a Beerhouse, is recorded from 1613, and the stretch of water at this point is recorded as ‘Beerhouse hole’, implying an anchorage with deeper water than elsewhere; this natural feature may well have been the catalyst for the first settlement here. The first descriptive reference to Parkgate may have come from a traveller who in the late 1660s described ‘the little village of Birhouse…(with) some large storehouses for the keeping of mercandize to be embarked for Ireland…’ (Place 1994, p 20) – this note appears to refer to the old buildings which some still remember as occupying the present site of the Boathouse car park. The first mapped evidence of a settlement known as Parkgate is shown on Greenvile Collins’ survey of 1686 (Place 1994, p 2); this shows Parkgate (in Neston township) and Beerhouse (in Leighton) apparently as separate developments.

Further information can be viewed at the National Tides and Sea Levels website.

Last Updated May 2022