Wednesday 15 August 2012

Liverpool Victoria Rowing Club, Wallasey



At the beginning of the nineteenth century Wallasey Pool was a natural inlet, running from the Mersey estuary some two miles into Wirral, initially between the coastal townships of Wallasey and Birkenhead. The first dock was opened in 1847 and over the following half century most of the Pool was converted into docks. The open central waterway became the Great Float and only the upper end retained its original rural character and the name Wallasey Pool. Liverpool Victoria Rowing Club was founded in 1884 building their own boathouse on Wallasey Pool in 1892.

Up to1914-18 War, membership rose considerably, the boathouse was enlarged. In 1919 the Club was restarted. In 1930 the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board commenced excavations for the conversion of the last part of Wallasey Pool into Bidston Dock and the Club was required to move to a new site on the Birkenhead side of the Pool. Read more 

Lowry refers to rowers in his novel Ultramarine; "And there had been nothing that mattered, save only themselves and the blue sky as they scampered like children past the Hall Line shed to the harbour wall just in time to see the Norwegian tramp steamer Oxenstjerna pass through the gate of the inner dock, while a scratch four paused on their oars watching her entrance steadfastly, their striped singlets dancing in the afternoon sunlight. (Pg. 28). This reference has to be to rowers from the Liverpool Victoria Rowing Club.

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