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Raby
Raby maps
Historic maps of Raby and the local area, hand-drawn by Ordnance Survey and Samuel Lewis. View all Raby maps
Raby area books
Displaying 1 of 5 books about Raby and the local area. View all books for this area
You can read extracts and browse photos from these books.
Memories of Raby
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Merseyside memories
Rocklands
I was born at Rocklands December 1954. It was sold shortly after and later demolished for a new build home.
Mere Memories
My memory is not so much of the Wheatsheaf although I did visit a few times during my youth, a nice place to take a new girlfriend for a drive.
But nearby is the mere, a huge lake in the middle of an agricultural area.When I was a kid there were rowing boats that could be hired for a trip up the river. I can remember there was a small penny arcade near an old garage with flip ball machines and even a "what the butler saw" for a penny. The area was always clean and the air smelled of freshly cut hay except maybe when one of the local farmers was "muck spreading", the process of enriching the soil by spreading pig or cow manure across the paddock by tractor and machine.
Swing Boats
I spent a few summer holidays with my auntie who lived in Bromborough. I used to go to Raby Mere with my cousins, Gerrard and Chris. I remember some swing boats there, we used to love going on them.
Bike Rides From Ellesmere Port
I remember bike rides first with my dad and then with my brothers Glyn and Paul and cousins David and Neil to Raby Mere. The lake was so calm and peacfull and we hired the lovely clinker built skiffs for a row. My dad taught us to row there without 'catching crabs'! I remember the penny machines well and ice cream from the garage shop.
The mere seems so small now compared to our Lake Taupo in New Zealand but the memories are so sweet, another age! Small was certainly beautiful then.
P.S. The year was probably 1950-1955.
Learning to Row A Boat
A Sunday day out from New Brighton with my family, playing French cricket on the field above the mere, I watched the rowing boats. In 1958 I went a ride there on my bike one day. I wanted a row on the boat. The gentleman in charge said it was a shilling (5p), I could not afford that. He told me to come back on a Saturday morning and I could row all I wanted to for sixpence (2 1/2p), so I did. The kind man showed me the basics of rowing and off I went. I dropped many an oar and caught many a crab but after a few weeks I got the hang of it. Needless to say the water took over my life and I joined the Royal Navy. Couldn't row their boats though - too big!
Escavating Eastham Dock
Lived in Eastham in late 40s and early 50s at Carlett Park (in the old army camp) during the digging of the dock and went to the village school. Had a lot of fun riding on the machinery when they were doing it. That was before they made a park down by the old ferry, while playing in Eastham wood was the norm. Used to go swimming in the canal and over the banks into the mud in the Mersey and collect baskets of blackberry's along the walkway beside the canal in the old Hooton aerodrome. Lots of good memories.
thanx
Wartime in Eastham
I was growing up in Eastham during the 1930s, attending the village school when war was declared. We had occasional day visits by the Lufwaffe and a couple of bombs were dropped. Then, after Dunkirk, the Merseyside blitz started with a vengeance, we in Eastham took some hard hits, Masons farm, opposite the Stanley Arms, took a direct hit and lost all its cattle when the shippons collapsed, also the park had some unexploded bombs which had to be defused by the army. In 1942 Carlett Hall was requisitioned as a transit camp for the US Army, there were thousands of G.Is there in tents and huts waiting to be sent to different parts of Britain. Eastham was full of foreign armed forces, and as kids we got on well with them. After the war, Eastham changed forever, the local accent was replaced by a Birkonean one when the Mill Park estate was built by Birkenhead council, and filled by Birkenhead people, if you were an Eastham resident you were... Read more
