Wednesday 15 August 2012
Cathcart Street, Birkenhead
A street in Birkenhead named after the family home of the Laird family of shipbuilders who lived originally on the south bank of Wallasey Pool before the street was built.
The street runs from the East Float, the location of the Blue Funnel Line wharf, to Conway Street and is part of the grid-iron pattern of the original Birkenhead streets laid out in the mid to late 1800's.
Lowry refers to the street in his novel Ultramarine; "....in Cathcart Street, near the berth of the ship, a street dreary in the grainy rain, and loud with the clatter of shunting dockside engines and the shouts of floury stevedores..."(Pg. 20).
Lowry would have accessed the Blue Funnel Line wharf from the street on his 1927 voyage to the Far East, he refers to the Dolphin Hotel, Anchor Hotel and the Mutual Aid Society Booth all located in the street.
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