Category Archives: Bidston Hill

The Ballad of Wally the Woodpecker

Wally the Woodpecker gets his beak stuck while pecking on the ball vent at Bidston Lighthouse. Pencil sketch by Bob Hughes, 6 June 2021.

Wally the Woodpecker never watched
What it was he was working on.
He would peck here, he wood peck there,
He pecked like a woodpecker everywhere.

But boring holes in tree trunks was very boring work.
Too much head-banging made him go berserk.
Boldly he said “I must branch out!”
So from branch to branch he went
– no, not that sort of branch, oh no –
And then he twigged where he should go.

There was a windmill standing tall.
“That’s something different”, he did call,
“I’ll have a go, those sails look good”,
And so he drummed like a woodpecker should.
He did this many times and oft
But then declared, “This wood’s too soft!”

Now further down along the hill
Rose two white domes and if you will
They were the domes, believe you me,
the domes of an Observer Tree.
Now what the domes were made of,
Nobody really knew
And those who did, they must bave been
but very, very few.
But Wally went and had a go
(By now you’ll know I’m no real bard)
What Wally found and then declared
“My god, that stuff, it’s far too hard!”

He looked across and down the way
And there his eyes were led astray.
He saw another tower rise
Before his very ogling eyes.
And on this tower there was a ball,
Not too big and not too small,
Just the size for Wally to land
And perch and drum, and he did find
To his great pleasure and delight,
He shouted “This one, it’s just right!”

And so it was that every day
Wally came and pecked away.
He pecked and drummed with all his might.
What a noise and what a sight!

But what is this I see today?
Wally seems stuck, can’t get away.
His pecking beak, where has it gone?
I can’t see it, nor anyone.
But then I slowly realise
His beak is there, but in disguise,
In the dome of soft material
He’s broken through (it’s now a serial
I’m writing here about Wally’s beak;
the beak is tough, the metal weak).
The problem is, he’s got it stuck.
He broke in through but out of luck
When he tried to pull it out
All in vain though he did shout.
The problem for our Goldilocks:–
woodpeckers do not live in flocks
to rescue him when need it be.
He could be stuck for eternity.

To find a moral to my tale,
I must admit I fail, I fail.
But if you’re a woodpecker, remember well:
Stick to the woods – or there’ll be hell.

Bob Hughes, 3 Jun 2021 – after visiting Steve and Mandy at the Lighthouse.

Beware the roof!

The tragic death of John Hartnup Jr

A ghost story by Stephen Pickles, October 2016.

John rose early that fateful Thursday in April, 1892, just as he did every day.

The last few weeks had been unusually difficult. Firstly, the one o-clock gun had failed to fire on several occasions. He’d checked and re-checked the equipment at the Observatory end of the cable. He’d finally traced the problem to a bad batch of fuses at Morpeth Dock, but not before several important persons had filed angry complaints with the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board. He’d lost count of the endless letters and telegrams all demanding an immediate response, and he’d started to dread the sound of footsteps coming from the Lighthouse, which were invariably followed by the assistant telegrapher’s cheerful announcement “Telegram for Mr Hartnup”.

Then there was the horde of youths from the YMCA who’d come to visit on Saturday. He’d survived the ordeal, barely.

Despite his repeated insistence that no more than ten people could visit the Observatory at the same time, they’d arrived in their scores. They’d giggled and whispered to each other throughout his lecture on the important work done at the Observatory, and fidgeted disconcertingly as he warned them of the many dangers to life and limb, especially the low balustrade around the roof. He’d looked on anxiously as they climbed the stairs to the dome that housed the transit telescope, and panicked when one pock-faced lad forced the door at the top of the stairs and they all swarmed onto the roof. He’d run around like a headless chicken shouting “Beware the roof! Beware the roof!”, all dignity lost. Fortunately no-one was hurt.

John shuddered at the memory. He’d been having giddy spells ever since. Maybe he would see the doctor, after all. But not today. There was too much to do, starting with the anemometer readings. As he climbed the stairs, he heard the comforting sounds of breakfast being prepared in the kitchen below. He opened the door onto the roof and set about taking the readings. The wind was fresh, gusting a little, but nothing out of the ordinary for the season. That woodpecker was back again, beating a tattoo on the ball-vent of the Lighthouse next door.

He’d been doing this as long as he could remember, ever since he was a young boy helping his father, John Hartnup Senior, at the old Observatory back in Liverpool. It was better here, on Bidston Hill. The air was clearer, the seeing better, and the distractions fewer. He watched the sun rising over Liverpool in the East, remembering. It seemed to shimmer, strangely.


Kathleen Hammond couldn’t say what made her pause on the stairs as she came down to join her sister, Lucy, now Mrs Hartnup, at breakfast. She didn’t normally watch the sunrise, but today it shone ominously red. Then something large dropped from above, followed by a sickening crunch in the courtyard below.


The funeral of John Hartnup Jr took place the following Monday, at 3:30 pm. Mr Carr, the owner of Wirral Railways, arranged for the train from James Street to make an additional stop at Bidston before the funeral, and he laid on an extra train to take the many mourners home again afterwards.

Six bearers carried the coffin from the Observatory to St. Oswalds. They went out through the Lych gate, along Penny-a-day Dyke, past the horse’s head, and down into Bidston Village, accompanied all the way by the sound of the wind in the trees. “Ware-ooff, ware-ooff, ware-ooff”.


So now you know, that whenever the wind rustles the trees on Bidston Hill, it’s the ghost of John Hartnup Junior, warning us all:

Beware the roof! Beware the roof! Ware the roof! Ware-oof! Waaaarr-oooff! Waaaarr-oooofff!

The one o’clock gun, fifty years after

Liverpool’s One O’Clock Gun was fired for the last time on 18th July 1969. At one second before one o’clock, Sylvia Asquith flicked the switch at Bidston Observatory that caused the cannon to fire down at Morpeth Dock.

Firing the one-o-clock gun, 18 July 2019.

Fifty years later to the minute, Sylvia was present when the Royal Artillery (103 Regiment) fired a field gun, this time from the waterfront near Woodside Ferry Terminal.

Sylvia Asquith and the latest one o’clock gun, 18 July 2019.

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Turn Left for Liverpool

"Turn left for Liverpool", by Bob Hughes, October 2018. Original size: A3

“Turn Left for Liverpool”, © Bob Hughes, 2018.

Those who know their local maritime history may appreciate the significance of this picture. Before the present-day approach into Liverpool by the regularly dredged Queen’s Channel, ships had to navigate the dangerous Rock Channel along the Wirral coast.

The lighthouses at Bidston, Leasowe and Hoylake played a vital role in this manoeuvre. When the ships saw that the Bidston and Leasowe lights were in line and likewise the two lights at Hoylake, this marked the spot where the ships should change direction, hence “Turn Left for Liverpool”.

The picture is in a style which I called ‘Reverse Perspective’ when I devised it in 2016. But it all started a long time ago. From my primary school window in Poulton I could see the windmill upon Bidston Hill, only a mile or so to the west. My eyes focussed on the windmill; I wasn’t interested in the houses, docks and warehouses in between.

When in later life I wanted to paint a picture of this view, I realised it would be a boring job painting all those houses and docks with the windmill reduced to a tiny shape on the horizon.

Simple answer: ignore them. Or at least reduce them to near irrelevance.

The result: a complete reversal of normal perspective to “Reverse Perspective“.

I have also broken most of the rules of TIME, SPACE, and COLOUR.

Space: by moving buildings so that they are better positioned for the benefit of the composition as a whole. In the process – complete disregard for accuracy when depicting such buildings, nearly all drawn from memory.

Time: in my pictures buildings or scenes from different ages of history can appear together, simultaneously.

And Colour, of course: I want to paint bright, happy pictures, the more colour the better. People immediately recognise the places they depict. The contents of the pictures act as a stimulus to the real pictures, stories, knowledge of the places in your own head.

It’s meant to be fun. Enjoy it.

Bob Hughes, October 2018.

A new gate on an old theme

We have a new gate. We hope you like it.

New gate onto Bidston Hill

New gate onto Bidston Hill

The gate leads from the grounds of Bidston Lighthouse onto Bidston Hill, where it joins the path from Bidston Village to Bidston Windmill, alongside Penny-a-Day Dyke, the medieval wall. It replaces a derelict gate that had been disused for decades.

We have wanted to renew the gate for a long while. The derelict gate was an eyesore, and Bidston Hill deserved better. A functioning gate would benefit visitors to the lighthouse as well as the many thousands who walk past it every year. And wouldn’t it be nice if the gate could incorporate a motif reminiscent of the flag signals that used to run the length of Bidston Hill?

So we applied to the Burbo Bank Extension Community Fund for financial support, and we were awarded a small grant. See below for more information about DONG Energy and the Burbo Bank Extension, and Grantscape, who administer the Burbo Bank Extension Community Fund.

Next, we had to find a local blacksmith with the right skills for the project, and then work out the details of the design. When we found artist blacksmith Alex Price, we knew we had our man. What convinced me was some fine examples of his intricate metalwork, especially a fire-grate featuring a leaf motif – if anyone could work a flag motif into a bespoke gate, it was Alex.  I visited his forge at the National Waterways Museum at Ellesmere Port and briefed him on the project: the gate had to fit into the existing opening, had to feature a flag motif, and should incorporate a wooden panel (in keeping with the old gate as well as the nearby “lych gate” at Bidston Observatory), and be achievable within our limited budget. Alex came back with a series of designs, one of which stood out. There was no turning back. This gate just had to be made.

But before we could start work, we needed to obtain Listed Buildings Consent. You see, the wall in which the gate is located is a Grade-II listed building in its own right. The perimeter wall enclosing the site of Bidston Lighthouse and Bidston Observatory was remodelled in the 1860s by George Fosbery Lyster, Engineer-in-Chief to the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board, around the same time that the Observatory was built. The lower part of the wall is about a century older, probably dating back to when the Bidston Signals Station and Bidston Lighthouse were established. Apart from Listed Buildings Consent, we also had to obtain consent from everyone else who owned part of the building in question, namely Wirral Council, the Natural Environment Research Council, and the new owners of Bidston Observatory. We also discussed the project with the Friends of Bidston Hill. Needless to say, this process took several months, but finally the necessary consents were secured and we could give Alex the go-ahead.

Edward Clive agreed to fabricate the wooden panel.

The Friends of Bidston Hill helped out by clearing away some of the ivy which was encroaching on the wall.

At the forge. Gate ready to be galvanised.

At the forge. Gate ready to be galvanised.

The gate was installed on 15th September.

Blacksmith Alex Price by the newly installed gate to Bidston Lighthouse, on 15th September.

Blacksmith Alex Price by the newly installed gate to Bidston Lighthouse, on 15th September.

There were other complications along the way. At some point in the past, tarmac, about 8 inches deep, was laid on the inside of the gate. We had to excavate this, and remove the tree roots and soil that had built up underneath the old gate. Eventually I uncovered the original sandstone threshold beneath the gate. I also exposed a telephone cable, which does not appear on any utility survey, but probably serves the lighthouse cottages. So I still have some work to do: bury the telephone cable and make a step up from the threshold to the level of the tarmac – and paint the railings, of course.

Deciding on the colours for the flags and penants was a little tricky. We wanted to be historically accurate, only using flags that were known to be flown on Bidston Hill in the heyday of the flag signals. But there’s very little documentation on this subject. Salmon’s painting from 1825 shows a few flags in full colour; but in another painting by him of the same subject, he chose different colours for the same flagpoles. There is an 1807 engraving of the Bidston Signals in the collection of the Williamson Art Gallery, but the colours were added later, and may be fanciful. We don’t even know for sure whether the colours of flags shown on a flagpole were significant; the position of the flagpole was certainly important, and contemporary accounts describe people as counting the poles to determine if a certain shipowner’s flag is flying. There is some documentation on the house flags of shipping companies (such as Brown’s Book of Flags and Funnels) but this first appeared long after the Bidston Signals had ceased. So we compromised. We restricted the choice of colours to flags that were in one of several systems of flag codes for ships, viz. Marryat’s Flags, the Liverpool (or Watson’s) Code, the Commercial Code, and the International Code of Signals, even though these systems came along much later. If more information comes to light, we can always re-paint them!

More information

About DONG Energy

DONG Energy (NASDAQ OMX: DENERG) is one of Northern Europe’s leading energy groups and is headquartered in Denmark. Around 6,200 ambitious employees, including over 900 in the UK, develop, construct and operate offshore wind farms, generate power and heat from our power stations as well as supply and trade in energy to wholesale, business and residential customers. The continuing part of the Group has approximately 5,800 employees and generated a revenue in 2016 of DKK 61 billion (EUR 8.2 billion). For further information, see www.dongenergy.co.uk or follow @DONGEnergyUK on Twitter.

About GrantScape

GrantScape is a grant-making charity committed to enhancing the environment and strengthening local communities through its grant programmes. GrantScape’s experience stretches back to 1997 and it has awarded grants totalling over £80 million to deserving projects over this time.

GrantScape manages a range of community and environmental grant programmes on behalf of corporate and local authority clients. These are tailored to their individual requirements, which is the charity’s speciality. In addition, GrantScape offers a professional project management and grant process review service to groups requiring support with these activities.

For further information, please see www.grantscape.org.uk or follow @GrantScape1 on Twitter.

About Burbo Bank Extension

The Burbo Bank Extension offshore wind farm is located 7km off the coast of Liverpool Bay, at the entrance to the River Mersey. Onshore construction began in 2015, offshore construction started in 2016 and the project was officially opened in May 2017. The offshore wind farm has a total capacity of 258MW, enough to power over 230,000 homes. The project is owned by DONG Energy (50%), PKA (25%) and The Lego Group (KIRKBI A/S) (25%).

For further information, please see: www.burbobankextension.co.uk.

About Burbo Bank Extension Community Fund

The Fund supports community and environmental projects along the North Wales and English coast, off the Irish Sea, within a defined area. Approximately £225,000 is available each year. The Fund is split equally between two annual funding rounds. There are two levels of grants available:

  • Small grants between £500 and £5,000
  • Main grants between £5,001 and £25,000

Applications to the Fund are made using an online application system via the GrantScape website www.grantscape.org.uk.

Former Joseph Proudman Laboratory for sale

The site of the former “Joseph Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory” is for sale. The land – where the Joseph Proudman Building stood for a little while – is being marketed as a “development opportunity”.

If you are thinking about making a bid, read this first. It will help with your “due diligence”.

The vendor, the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), is only in a position to offer the leasehold. The freehold is retained by Wirral Council, who can veto a transfer of the lease. To do anything with the land, the purchaser will have to re-negotiate the lease or acquire the freehold.

The next few days will be critical for the future of Bidston Lighthouse, Bidston Observatory and Bidston Hill. It could go two ways.

In one possible future, the land is used for the amenity of visitors to Bidston Lighthouse, Observatory and Hill. Open-air events are held on the site. Bidston Observatory is re-invented as an artistic research centre, incorporating a permanent exhibition about its scientific heritage. Bidston Lighthouse becomes self-sustaining as a place to visit. This is the future we dream about. We have, of course, made our own bid to acquire the land for this very purpose.

In the other possible future,  a developer or property speculator succeeds in acquiring the land. A long, drawn-out battle with local pressure groups, including ourselves, ensues. The developer might eventually obtain planning permission and listed buildings consent for some kind of development on the site. Let’s say its a residential development (which would also require change-of-use). Wilding Way would probably need to be widened, creating a danger to wildlife and dog-walkers, who stop using the northern end of Bidston Hill. You can see where this leads: Bidston Hill is sacrificed to meet the government’s targets for new housing. The prospect of public-facing, sustainable uses for the Lighthouse and Observatory is compromised. Maybe the Lighthouse and Observatory struggle on, or maybe they don’t.

Of course, the developer might ultimately lose the battle for planning permission. Maybe they sit on the land for a few years, letting it go to seed. Fly-tippers take advantage. No-one visits the Lighthouse or Observatory. Everyone is out of pocket (except the lawyers). Everyone suffers.

More about the Proudman land

The land was once the kitchen gardens of Bidston Lighthouse. Its official postal address is 4 Lighthouse Cottages, CH43 7RA. An oceanographic research facility, latterly called the Joseph Proudman Building, stood on the site from the 1970s until its demolition in 2013.

Since the Joseph Proudman Building was demolished, the land has been used from time to time by picknickers, dog-walkers and mountain bike enthusiasts, as an exercise ground by local schools and fitness fanatics, not to mention fly-tippers. Hedgehogs, foxes, owls, kestrels, woodpeckers and other wildlife have been seen on the site.

Photograph of the Joseph Proudman Building, during its demolition

Demolition of the Joseph Proudman Building, 2013

The land is enclosed on two sides by a sandstone wall. The wall is a grade-II listed building in its own right, and the land is within its curtilage. The same wall encloses Bidston Lighthouse and Bidston Observatory, which are also grade-II listed. All three listed buildings were designed by George Fosbery Lyster, Engineer-in-Chief to the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board. Every stone on the site was locally quarried, and every stone is exactly where Lyster placed it a century-and-a-half ago. There is no conceivable development that would not diminish the group value of the site.

The land was originally part of the title of Bidston Lighthouse when the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board sold the Lighthouse to the Birkenhead Corporation in 1935. At the time, the minutes of the Corporation said: “By this purchase the land would be available for all future generations for recreational purposes”. This intention was reflected both in the price – a modest £1000 – and in a restrictive covenant prohibiting new buildings. This covenant still attaches to the freehold title of the land in question, but it is not mentioned in the leasehold title. The covenant has not been tested in the courts – yet.

The drains of Bidston Lighthouse and Cottages run beneath the Proudman land. The route of these drains is not known by Unitied Utilities.

The western boundary of the land is disputed. The owners of Bidston Lighthouse claim an easement over the land in order to access their outbuilding, originally a coal-store and toilet block, and later a hazardous waste store.

The single-track access road, Wilding Way, is owned by Wirral Council, but it is not adopted. It is not a public highway. It doubles as a public footpath for most of its length. It is crossed by dog-walkers, horse-riders and wildlife.

The land comes with no rights over that part of the access road that extends beyond its western boundary. So without the willing co-operation of the Lighthouse and Observatory, the developer’s vehicles would have to turn within the boundaries of the land being developed.

 

Women in the workplace

On International Women’s Day, we remember some of the important women in the history of Bidston Lighthouse and Observatory.

Elizabeth Wilding, Liverpool’s first female Lighthouse Keeper.

When Richard Wilding, keeper of Bidston Lighthouse, died in March 1797 at the ripe old age of 85, the Liverpool Dock Committee needed to appoint a successor. Richard’s widow, Elizabeth Wilding,  35 years his junior, had already been doing a lot of the work, so she was the natural choice but for one problem – she was a woman. Perhaps the Dock Committee were influenced by the fact that Mrs Cormes was doing a good job for the Chester trustees at Point of Ayr Lighthouse at Talacre, following her appointment as Lighthouse Keeper in 1791. Anyway, the Dock Committee did take the bold step of appointing Elizabeth in April 1797, albeit with some unusal conditions attached.

“Elizabeth Wilding Widow of the late Richard Wilding … is hereby appointed Keeper of the Bidston Lighthouse in Cheshire at the clear annual Salary of Fifty Pounds so long as she shall continue to behave herself properly and attentively and employ her Son in Law Captain William Urmson as her Assistant and shall not attempt to employ or use the said Building called the Bidston Lighthouse or any of its Appendages as a Publick House.”

Elizabeth died in service only three years later, and was succeeded by her son-in-law and assistant William Urmson, a former sea captain. She must have done a good job, because in later years the Dock Committee did not hesitate to appoint female keepers at other lighthouses – unlike Trinity House, who never appointed a woman as Principal Keeper in 500 years.

When John Jones was dismissed as keeper of Leasowe Lighthouse “for intoxication and insubordination” in 1854, his wife Ann was appointed as keeper in his place. Leasowe’s last lighthouse keeper was Mary Elizabeth Williams, who served from 1894 to 1908. And at Bidston, we had the Urmson sisters.

The Urmson sisters

William Urmson was assisted by his three daughers Ann, Jane and Catherine. This contemporary account by George Head in 1835 is delightful and illuminating.

Biddestone Hill, about three miles from Woodside, commands an extensive view of the country inland, while the forest of signal poles, with which the lighthouse is surrounded, give it, at a distance, an extraordinary appearance—that of a dock or harbour on the top of a hill. Hence the merchant vessels bound to Liverpool are signalled and telegraphed in the offing, the poles alluded to bearing the private signals of different individuals. And what must be remarked as rather singular is, that, notwithstanding the arduous duty which necessarily falls on the station, the whole is performed, almost exclusively, by young women, daughters of the veteran in charge. The old man, who is thus ably supported in the winter of life, is fourscore years old, and has held the office upward of forty years. Although boys are employed to run backward and forward, out of doors, with colours to the poles, and haul them up; and one of the three young women is married, and occasionally assisted by her husband; yet it is she who, being perfect in the whole code of signals, performs the responsible part of the duty. This couple were both at work together at the time I arrived, the young woman keeping the lookout, and calling the numbers, while the man, merely at her bidding, pulled the ropes. She not only kept him employed, but managed meanwhile to iron a shirt into the bargain.

The business of the youngest sister is to attend the light, consisting of eleven Argand lamps, with plated reflectors. Every four hours during the night the lamps are trimmed; these, the stove, copper, oil jars, and paved floor, are preserved in a state of cleanliness not to be exceeded; while no doubt, many a mariner, on a wintry and stormy night, both knows and feels that his life and safety are thus well confided to the never-failing care of — woman.

The old man in the story is William Urmson, who died later that very year. The three women were the surviving daughters of his second wife:  Ann (who was to succeed William as keeper), Catherine (the youngest, who attended the light), and Jane (who kept the lookout and called the numbers).

In their turn, Ann and Jane respectively held the offices of lighthouse and telegraph keeper in their own right. But you would glean a very different impression from the census records, which list Ann only as the wife of John Urmson, Lighthouse Keeper and Jane as the wife of Thomas Nichols, Telegraph Keeper. Urmson was both Ann’s maiden and married name; her husband John was a second cousin.

Doodson’s “Computers”

Arthur Doodson, the man behind the mechanical tide predicting machines at Bidston Observatory, exclusively employed young women to operate them. Their job title was “computer” and an essential qualification for the post was good handwriting. These young ladies computed tide tables around the world, including those that were used to plan the D-Day landings.

The ladies in this post-war photograph of the Observatory Staff by the One O’Clock gun are, proceeding clockwise from Valerie Doodson at the front left:
Valerie Doodson née Boyes, Jean Harman née MacFarlane, Dorothy Ainsworth, Eunice Murrell née Heath, Barbara Trueman-Jones, Margaret Lennon née Weston, Margaret Ireland née Wylie, Sylvia Asquith née Brooks, and Olwyn Branscombe.

Observatory staff by the one-o-clock gun

Observatory staff by the one-o-clock gun.

Mary Connell

For seventy-seven years, Mary Connell was a constant presence on the hill that she loved. She moved into the Lighthouse Cottages in 1937 with her parents Mick and Mary Connell and younger sister Patricia. She worked as a funeral director for many years, and walked her dogs on Bidston Hill twice a day. She fought the combined lawyers of Wirral Borough Council and the Natural Environment Research Council for the right to stay in the Lighthouse Cottages, and against all the odds, she won. She was in her seventies when ill health forced her to retire.

After the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory abandoned Bidston Hill in 2004, Mary was the only person living on the site (until guardians were eventually installed in the Joseph Proudman Building and the Observatory). Her only defenses against the disaffected youths who prowled the site at night were a walking stick, her sharp tongue, and the brambles she allowed to grow around the Lighthouse Cottages. Her sharp tongue was the most formidable of these. We miss her.

Mary Connell, 1934-2014

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A Pictorial Relic of Bidston Hill

In 1878, William Gawin Herdman’s “Pictorial Relics of Ancient Liverpool” was re-published in two oversized volumes. Plate 67 depicts the Lighthouse and flag signals on Bidston Hill. It is captioned, intriguingly, as “Bidston Hill Observatory 1830”.

Bidston Hill "Observatory" 1830 by W. G. Herdman

Bidston Hill “Observatory” 1830, from W.G. Herdman’s “Pictorial Relics of Ancient Liverpool”.

The astronomical observatory on Bidston Hill was not completed until 1866, when it replaced the earlier Liverpool Observatory at Waterlook Dock. So why did Herdman describe this engraving, based on a sketch he made in 1830, as the Bidston Hill Observatory?

When I first came across this engraving, in a postcard published much later, I assumed that the mistake was made in the twentieth century, after the flag signals, semaphore telegraph and lighthouse itself had become little more than footnotes in the history of Bidston Observatory. But Herdman was writing at a time when the Lighthouse and Observatory were both operating, and he chose to describe the 1830 scene as Bidston Hill Observatory.

Was Herdman merely using “Bidston Hill Observatory” to refer to the site as it would have been known to his readers in 1878?

Or was he using the word Observatory in a more general sense than the astronomical? It was not unknown for lookouts such as were attached to semaphore stations to be called observatories. They were equipped with telescopes and part of their function was to observe, not the sky, but the sea.

This is the full text of Herdman’s description of Bidston Hill Observatory, transcribed from pages 62-63 of “Pictorial Relics of Ancient Liverpool”, Volume 2, 1878.

Bidston Hill Observatory

Plate LXVII. (1)

This is from an original Drawing by the Author, dated 1830, and shows the ancient mode of telegraphy. The site is at present occupied by the new Observatory and Lighthouse, the old buildings, erected in 1771, having been taken down in 1872. At the time the sketch was made, Bidston was a quiet rustic  village, with its old-fashioned church, old hall, rural cottages, and country lanes, where on a summer’s day, one might discard the busy growing town of Liverpool, and enjoy balmy air, picturesque views, sandy walks, and if so inclined, good ham and eggs and good ale in the old-fashioned inn. The view from Bidston Hill during sunset on a fine summer’s evening is, even nowadays, worth journeying to see. The Lighthouse seen in the Plate would probably be rebuilt in 1771, for there is a very old drawing, once in the possession of the late H. Ecroyd Smith, Esq., of a lighthouse on the same spot, previous to this date, with a turret from its summit, which at the time the drawing was taken was evidently in a very dilapidated condition. For many years Bidston Hill was a general resort of picnic parties and pleasure seekers. During the first half of this century it was entirely open to the public, and was only enclosed by the proprietor, Mr. Vyner, when the visitors began to abuse the privileges accorded them. The Drawing is especially interesting in this progressive age, when electricity has given birth to such invaluable inventions as the telegraph, telephone, &c., as showing the old mode of telegraphy, even up to recent periods. The poles seen in the Drawing were of varying heights, and, with the assistance of flags, communication as to the arrival of vessels off Holyhead were conveyed to the Telegraph Station in Liverpool, and thence to the several shipowners, who had their own special pole and signal-flag. The proposition for this particular mode of telegraphy, the principle of which is the French semaphore, is said to have been made in 1803 by a Mr. Boaz, and was part of his system of telegraphs for communication between Liverpool, Holyhead and the principal seaports of the United Kingdom. Originally the Liverpool Station was on the top of a warehouse in Chapel Street. This was afterwards removed to the summit of the tower in the Old Church Yard. In the instance now under notice the first communication was with Bidston Hill, afterwards with Hilbre Island, then with Talacre, and eventually with Holyhead. This mode of telegraphy, simple though it was, was most useful in its day, but, like many other discoveries, has given way to the ever-increasing wonders of modern science.

Observations

There is much to intrigue the historian in Herdman’s engraving and description. The windmill in the distance is not Bidston Windmill, but Wallasey Mill, now disappeared.  We know that, for much of its length, the line of the flagpoles was closer to the ridge of Bidston Hill than to Penny-a-Day-Dyke , but perhaps the ones nearest the lighthouse were indeed located close by the medieval wall, as Herdman has drawn them.

And what of the “very old drawing, once in the possession of the late H. Ecroyd Smith” – could it be this one?

Herdman draws no clear distinction between the flag signals and the semaphore telegraph, and writes as though the flags were part of the method of communication between Liverpool and Holyhead. But the semaphore telegraph came much later than the flag signals, which date back to 1763. However, it is plausible that following the advent of the Liverpool-Holyhead Telegraph in 1826, news carried from Holyhead by the telegraph might cause the hoisting of a shipowner’s flag; certainly something similar happened in Tasmania in the 1830s, where messages carried by a semaphore telegraph from Low Head along the Tamar River to Launceston were converted to flag signals at the last stage for the convenience of the town.

The mention of Mr Boaz’s proposition in 1803 is one to follow up.

We know that in 1804, during the Napoleonic wars, the Admiralty established a number of signal stations between Liverpool and Holyhead. (The alarm beacon on Bidston Hill was set up at the same time.) We know very little about the coastal signals stations. They were located at Liverpool (St. Domingo), Bidston Hill, Point of Ayr, Cabe Hill, Great Orme’s Head, Point Lynas and Holyhead. They wouldn’t have been semaphore stations in the strict sense of the term – at the time, Britain’s telegraphs were based on a shutter system. The coastal signal stations probably used a flag and ball system. Part of their purpose was to observe and communicate with ships at sea – and they were often called observatories in contemporary writing. Whether they were intended to communicate with each other is not clear.

The locations of the telegraph stations of 1826, built by the Port of Liverpool under the direction of Barnard Lindsay Watson, are thought to have coincided roughly with the earlier Admiralty signal stations, which had fallen into disuse following the defeat of Napoleon.

Postscript

Confirmation of sorts for “Mr Boaz’s proposition” is provided by the following article, which appeared in the July 1804 issue of the Scots Magazine, in the Literary and Scientific Notices section.

A plan of a Telegraphic Establishment for Domestic and Commercial Purposes having been suggested some time since to Mr Boaz, the ingenious patentee of a Day and Night Telegraph, that gentleman has lately submitted proposals for a local experiment to the inhabitants of Liverpool. A line of Telegraphs is in consequence about to be established from Liverpool to Holyhead, for the purpose of announcing the arrival of ships bound for Liverpool, and of procuring pilots. Another line has been suggested, from Liverpool to Hull, through Manchester and Leeds; and another from Liverpool to London, thro’ Chester and Birmingham. These several lines would not cost more than £15,000, and on a moderate calculation of the messages which would be sent through them, at a rate of a guinea per eight words per 100 miles, there is no doubt, but the establishment would, on the average, net an annual profit of 2 or 300 per cent. The person with whom this plan originated, hoped to see it executed by government, and a telegraphic establishment extended from the metropolis to every market town in the kingdom ; but it is probable that its utility and profit must first be demonstrated by the experiment of private individuals, before the nation at large can be made to participate in the advantages of so wonderful a system of conveying intelligence — a system which would confer a sort of ubiquity on those who might choose to avail themselves of it, and which would render the whole of this busy and extended nation like one concentrated metropolis.

This, too, is intriguing. It seems absurd that Liverpool could have been setting up a genuine commercial telegraph at the same time that the Admiralty was installing coastal signals stations along the same route. Nor does it seem likely that the Admiralty would condone its signals stations to be used for the purposes described. But it does suggest that the stations under construction in 1804 may indeed have been intended to communicate with each other.

Bidston Observatory – 150 years new

Bidston Lighthouse and Observatory, panorama by Ray McBride

Bidston Lighthouse and Observatory, panorama by Raymond McBride, 2016

We have new neighbours. Edward Clive and his wife Fiona James are the new owners of Bidston Observatory.

On Saturday, 17th September, we hosted a tea party at the Lighthouse to commemorate the Observatory being 150 years old. When we started planning, we didn’t know whether the event would turn out to be a celebration or the launch of yet another campaign to save the Observatory from unsympathetic developers. It could have gone either way. But we couldn’t let 2016 pass without doing something to commemorate the Observatory’s sesquicentenary.

The day turned out to be a celebration. Former Observatory staff, outgoing guardians, representatives of local organisations (including the Friends of Bidston Hill, the Bidston Preservation Trust, Tam O’Shanter Urban Farm, the Wirral History and Heritage Association, and the Wirral Society), local councillors, artists, and many others, all had a chance to meet the new owners and hear about their plans.

Ed, Fi and friend Kym Ward plan to operate the Observatory as a not-for-profit artistic research centre. They also intend to incorporate an exhibition about the Observatory’s heritage, which will be accessible to the public on open days. But first they need to stabilise the building, which has suffered from neglect in recent years.

We are delighted with the outcome. The spectre of a housing development on Bidston Hill recedes (at least for the moment), and the prospect of a public-facing, sustainable and creative use of the Observatory, entirely compatible with our own ambitions for the world’s most inland lighthouse, comes into view.

Although we’ll miss some of the guardians (who have kept the building secure for nearly 12 years), Ed, Fi and Kym are already inspiring us with their energy and enthusiasm. They will need every ounce of it.

We pledge our whole-hearted support to their project.

Further listening

Further reading