The Wirral*

I recently mentioned that a conversation with my brothers sparked an interest in a particular part of the Wirral Peninsula, which is where we were born and brought up. Here is the result of my research, which has been a perfect antidote to my current lack of energy. 

On the south bank of the River Mersey is Job’s Ferry, in Eastham Country Park and lying just a mile to the north of the better-known Eastham Ferry.
 
While Eastham Ferry has a comparatively large wharf, Job’s Ferry is a simple affair consisting of steps cut into the sandstone cliff down to a big remnant platform of substantial sandstone slabs, which I remember being submerged on a high tide; although that presumably wasn’t the case when it was an active ferry quay in Medieval times.
 
We frequented the place regularly in our childhood: it being a short hop from where we lived in nearby Bromborough. In the 60s and 70s we scampered up and down the well-worn steps and over the slabs of the Ferry. It is fenced off these days. This video shows what it looks like now.

It was only a few weeks ago, following a conversation with my brothers that I first wondered about the origins of the place. Why was there a ferry quay there; when was it operating; and who was the Job after whom it is named? These questions buzzed around my brain with some persistence.
 
So began a surprisingly quick chase around the internet. There isn’t much information available online.
 
Job’s Ferry dates from the early 13th Century when Benedictine monks from the Abbey of St. Werburgh in Chester ran a ferry across the Mersey to Liverpool (although the exact destination on the north bank of the river remains a mystery). Incidentally it was one of several ferries dating from this time: the closest alternative was a little way downstream where Birkenhead Priory monks also ran a ferry – they too were Benedictines, but independent of St Werburgh’s Abbey.
 
Why would monks from Chester would be running a ferry across the Mersey, so far from their Abbey? It turns out that St. Werburgh’s Abbey, which was dedicated in AD975, had substantial manorial and religious land all over Cheshire (and beyond) including much of the Wirral:
 
“…Poulton Lancelyn and the bailiwick of Sutton (including lands and rents in Little Sutton, Great Sutton, Overpool, Hooton, Childer Thornton). In the Wirral peninsula there were the manors of Sutton in Wirral (including lands in the parish of Bromborough), of Bromborough (including lands and rents in Bromborough, Bebington, Eastham, and Plymyard) and of Irby (including lands and rents in Irby, Thurstaston, Greasby, Frankby, West Kirby, Noctorum, Woodchurch, and Wallasey)… The spiritual possessions of the abbey consisted of the appropriated churches of… Shotwick, Bromborough, West Kirby, Neston, Ince…and pensions from the churches and chapels of … Bebington, Eastham, West Kirby, Thurstaston, Wallasey.”
-       Extract from https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/ches/vol3/pp132-146
 
In the absence of any records it is reasonable to conclude that Job’s Ferry was an enterprise which brought income to the Abbey, and that the monks may have been based at a monastery in Bromborough.
 
Monasticism flourished in Saxon England and there is a local tradition that a Saxon monastery existed at Bromborough from 912AD on the site of the current St. Barnabas Church, and that it was granted to the Abbey of St. Werburgh in 1152; just before Job’s Ferry is first recorded. Perhaps there is a direct link. However it may have started operating at this time only because the area was too dangerous to reach much earlier.
 
The 14th Century chivalric romance “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” describes the Wirral thus:
“His way was wild and strange, by banks where none had been... into the wilderness of Wirral, where few dwelled who granted any good to God or man.”
As a result of petitions from the citizens of Chester, the whole Peninsula was deforested during that century by order of Edward III.
 
Job’s Ferry fell out of use in 1509 when the more substantial Eastham Ferry was constructed a mile upstream. The Abbey was dissolved during Henry VIII’s rule in 1538 (when it became Chester Cathedral) at which time it is safe to assume the ownership and operation of the ferries – along with all other enterprises - passed from the Abbey into secular hands.
 
As to who Job was; that remains a complete mystery. I haven’t found a single record about the origin of the name: not even any speculation. None of the Abbotts of St. Werburgh’s Abbey bore the name. Perhaps he was a more local senior monk? Or perhaps Job had owned the land at the ferry before the Abbey acquired it and he had run a service across the Mersey in earlier times? Maybe Job was the stonemason who created the ferry steps and quay?
 
The answer may be out there. Or maybe not…


* The map is an extract from the 1952 Ordnance Survey of North Wales and Manchester, which I inherited from Dad.