The Parkgate Society

Shipbuilding and the Parkgate Ferries

Shipbuilding

With all the post-war development in Parkgate it is hard to imagine now that the area close to this point was once a place of great shipping activity in the days before the building of this slipway and the completion of this section of the sea wall in about 1840.  We’ll deal with shipbuilding first.

With the growth of Parkgate as the port for Chester, the number of ships using the anchorage here during the late 17th and 18th centuries became quite considerable and it is not surprising, therefore, that the village also became a centre for ship repairing and ship building.  The Royal Yachts ‘Portsmouth’ and ‘Monmouth’ were brought ashore here in the 1680s for their hulls to be cleaned, a very important task, necessary for prolonging the life of wooden vessels. During this period there were believed to be at least two small shipyards at Parkgate, where ships were built for coastal and overseas trade, latterly also for the new Irish packet service, started in 1785. 

In those days ships were constructed in cradles on the beach, as shown in these illustrations.  One of these yards is believed to have been close to this spot, another at the other end of the village, probably in the vicinity of the Old Quay public house.

Today there is little concrete evidence to show for the existence of this former industry at Parkgate – its former presence can be deduced, however, from other indicators, particularly the written records.  The first known evidence of boat construction at Parkgate was a record of the building of the ‘Exchange’ (90 tons) in 1701; thereafter, further ships were built at Parkgate in every decade of the 18th century, until 1790 – at least twenty-four in total, but probably more.  In 1755 12 men were said to have been working on the Royal Yacht ‘Dorset’, which for the next 30 years, before the packet boats, was the only purely passenger vessel sailing from here.  Living locally and working in this business at this time were men of all the trades associated with this industry: shipwrights, ship-carpenters, ship-painters, rope-makers, sail-makers and anchor-smiths.  Place names can also indicate the nature of a former activity, and in Parkgate we have a path known as The Ropewalk, which has many of the characteristics which suggest that rope-making was probably carried out at this place.  We know that ships were also built at other settlements on the Dee estuary, particularly at Connah’s Quay, where there were several dockyards.

One of the earlier Parkgate shipbuilders was Samuel Ansdell; he owned land and property locally and was also described as a timber merchant, when he was declared bankrupt in 1742.  Clearly, even then, this industry had its ups and downs.  The period of greatest shipbuilding activity at Parkgate was probably towards the end of the 18th century, when ten ships were built at this boatyard in the years 1785 to 1790 by Thomas Makin in partnership with John Washington, a Liverpool merchant.  Three of the ships built in Makin’s yard were illustrated on James Hunter’s map of about 1790: the ‘King’ (100 tons), the ‘Queen’ (100 tons) and the ‘Princess Royal’ (134 tons), all built for the Parkgate Packet Company, founded in 1785.  Unfortunately, Makin’s financial backer Washington died in 1789 and in the following year Makin himself was declared bankrupt, leading to the closure of this business and the end of the ship building industry at Parkgate.

The Parkgate Ferries & the Ferry House

The Dee estuary is relatively shallow; indeed, it is recorded that people from Flint used to wade across the channel at low tide to attend the market at Neston. Until relatively recent times, before the opening of the Grosvenor Bridge in Chester in 1833, the lowest fixed crossing of the river was the Old Dee Bridge, also in Chester. Further downstream were a number of ferries linking north Wales coastal settlements with England, most notably that at Queensferry, but also at Saltney and Gayton.

There was once a ferry here too at Parkgate, where an early local ferry service to Flint is believed to have been established by 1740. In his book ‘Neston & Parkgate Remembered’, Jeffrey Pearson relates that in 1786 there was a complaint that the service did not make provision for the carriage of animals, so that riders were obliged to leave their horses behind before crossing and hire fresh horses from the ferry stables for the next stage of the journey.  Three years later, he says, the public were informed that Thomas Spencer of the George Inn, Parkgate, and Daniel Jones of the Ship Inn, Flint, had ‘fitted up a large, commodious two mast and row boat for the conveyance of passengers, horses, cattle, etc, well manned with sober and experienced boatmen’.  Prospective passengers were advised to enquire either at the inn or of Margaret Totty of Parkgate.  The Parkgate ferry service formed part of a transport link for travellers between north Wales and Liverpool.

At the north end of The Parade, stood the Pengwern Arms, an inn which for years provided accommodation for those travellers requiring it and stabling for the coaches and horses that conveyed them onward to or from the Mersey ferry.  There is a drawing dated 1791 in the Williamson Gallery collection by an unknown artist, showing this inn with, presumably, the ferry, a small single-masted sailing vessel, grounded in the channel.  The sketch below appears to be the only other picture indicating what this building looked like.

Almost two centuries previously a will of 1609 alludes to the existence here of an inn, the building then referred to simply as Beerhouse; its position is confirmed by Greenvile Collins’ naval chart of 1686.  For a time this building was also known as the Ferry House.  It was from here, in 1817, that a steam ferry ‘The Ancient Briton’ briefly plied between Parkgate and Bagillt during the two hours of high water – in good conditions it was said that this short-lived service was capable of making three return trips in this relatively short period of time.  This early experiment in the use of steam power came to an end, however, when the boat was transferred away for use elsewhere (on the Mersey), and the Parkgate service reverted to sail power for the remainder of its existence.

It was said that the passage could be ‘far from pleasant’ and, indeed, there were occasions when accidents occurred, or lives were lost; it seems that there was competition between the different boats for the speediest crossing.  For example, in 1799 the Chester Chronicle, commenting on the capsize of a boat ‘The Friends’, leading to the death of two women, states that “The Flint and Parkgate boats have been used to carry too much sail in trying to out-sail each other to the great danger and terror of the passengers”.

Later, in 1849, when the Mostyn family estates in Cheshire were disposed of at a public auction at the Mostyn Arms Hotel, the ferry service and the inn were sold in separate lots, but the two businesses continued to work together under their new owners.  However, the regular ferry service came to an end in June 1863 following the death of the current proprietor Joseph Railton.

The following year the landlord of the Pengwern Arms Thomas Johnson appears to have been considering restoring the service himself.  On 20 May 1864 he and his brother Joseph reconnoitred the channel with three companions, but both lost their lives, when their tender boat (a punt) capsized in a heavy swell as they attempted to come into the landing stage at around midnight. 

So finally ended the Parkgate ferry service; in fact, it was no longer needed, as the safer turnpike road via Queensferry had already made it redundant.  Thomas Johnson’s widow Ann and their son Thomas, continued to run the Pengwern Arms for some years, until about 1878.  As to the inn itself, its time was now limited, for the building was demolished in 1885 following severe storm damage suffered in November 1881.

Last Updated December 2022