River Mersey

“ Richly-wooded country lies on either side the road now, and occasionally peeping through the trees, the masts of vessels passing on the Mersey may be observed. The Mersey Viaduct is next traversed. This, though far less grand in appearance than the Dutton Viaduct, is a fine erection of 200 yards in length, consisting of twelve arches, nine being small, and three of larger span, beneath which the river Mersey, and the Mersey and Irwell Canal pass. ”

“ With the exception of the Thames—which it rivals, and with which for a number of years past it has run a neck-to-neck race—the Mersey is, so far as its volume of business is concerned, the most important river in the world. ”

“ The Mersey is to Liverpool what the Thames is to London—the grand channel of mercantile prosperity—the main artery that carries health and vigour into the heart of the city, and thence distributes them by a thousand ramifications through all classes of the community. The navigation of this river has long been an object of primary import to the prosperity of our national trade; and therefore every suggestion which promised to obviate and remove those impediments which nature had thrown in the way, has been met with the greatest promptness and liberality. ”

“ It involves a trip of a few miles out of Dublin harbor and bay, across St. George's channel, and four miles up the River Mersey at the other end. It is an English custom to put the name of the river last, while Americans put it first. It would sound very odd to an American to hear the remark River Ohio or River Mississippi; and so it would to an Englishman, to hear the expression Thames River.
Every wise tourist, on visiting New York for the first time, is on deck early to see the approaches to the harbor, and the scenery below the city. One visiting Liverpool will do likewise ”

“ The north shore of the Mersey consists of flat sands, bounded on the land side by barren sand hills, where, driven by necessity, and tempted by a price something lower than land usually bears near Liverpool, some persons have courageously built houses and reclaimed gardens. On this shore are the two watering-place villages of Waterloo and Crosby, less populous, but as pleasant as Margate, with salt river instead of salt sea bathing, in shade and plenty of dust. The hard flat sands, when the tide is down, afford room for pleasant gallops. ”

“ He was crossing the river to Liverpool, leaning [Pg 6] over the side of the ferry steamboat lest anybody should see and recognize him, and in his own mind passing in review the advantages and disadvantages of all the ships he passed. The Mersey was very full and very bright, the sun shining, a brisk breeze blowing, the sky blue, the great estuary throwing up white edges of spray and leaping here and there against the bows of an out-going boat, in a manner which boded little comfort to unaccustomed sailors outside the shelter of its banks. ”

“ At Warburton the roadway has been carried over a high level bridge, on the cantilever principle. The town, which lies to the south of the canal, is of some antiquity, and was the site of a Premonstratensian Priory. Some little distance down, the river Bollin, coming northwards from the neighbourhood of Macclesfield, falls into the canal on one side; on the other, the Mersey is liberated, being now at the same level as the canal itself. Here the Mersey begins to assume its most tortuous course. ”

“ The Tyne is a brighter and clearer stream than the Mersey, is immeasurably purer than the Thames, is only occasionally muddied like the Humber, and is at no time discoloured by coal. When there are floods in the upper reaches, so much brown soil is carried down by the impetuous water that the current of the river can be traced far out to sea ”

“ The myriads that come in nowadays to England by the Mersey have no opportunity for judging the estuary, the meaning of the opposing shores, nor that character of south Lancashire which lies before their eyes in the mist and is so singular a factor in the makeup of England. ”

“ The Mersey, like the Thames, is only an insignificant stream, unworthy the name of river, although it empties into the sea. It is an immense depression of the land filled with water, in fact nothing more than a hole, the depth of which allows it to receive ships of the heaviest tonnage, such as the Great Eastern, to which almost every other port in the world is closed. Thanks to this natural condition, the streams of the Thames and the Mersey have seen two immense commercial cities, London and Liverpool, built almost at their mouths, and from a similar cause has Glasgow arisen on the Clyde. ”

“ Perhaps the two most important professional cases submitted to him were those in 1884 on the estuary and bar of the Mersey River and on Galveston Harbor. In the case of the Mersey he was called in, at the solicitation of the Mersey Docks and Harbor Board of Liverpool, to settle a dispute. Appearing before a committee of the House of Lords, he gave his testimony as to the effect which the proposed terminal works of the Manchester ship canal would have upon the estuary of the Mersey and the bar at Liverpool. ”

“ These canals are important factors in assisting the growth of the trade of the Mersey. The Leeds and Liverpool is, however, the only canal that has a direct connection with the Liverpool Docks.
By this canal Liverpool has water communication with the important town of Leeds, and thence, by the Aire and Calder Canal, with Hull and the other ports on the Humber. By the Shropshire Union Canals the Mersey is connected with the network of canals in the Midland Counties and with the River Severn. ”

“ THE MERSEY. A Modern River—Derivations—The Tame, the Goyt, and the Etherow—Stockport—Northenden-The Irwell and its Feeders—Manchester and Salford—The Ship Canal—Bridges over the Irwell—Ordsall—Eccles—Barton—Warburton—Irlam—Warrington— Latchford—Runcorn and Widnes—The Weaver—Eastham Locks—Liverpool and its Growth—Its Docks and Quays—Birkenhead and its Shipbuilding Yards—New Brighton—Perch Rock Lighthouse.
MERSEY may be described as the most modern of our rivers. ”

“ Wallasey, Southport, and Formby sand-hills." The Cheshire locality is included on the strength of specimens which were shown to Mr. Greening by the late C.S. Gregson, who stated that he had obtained them at Wallasey. The sand-hills between West Kirby and New Brighton were of the same character as those extending along the Lancashire coast from Liverpool to the mouth of the Ribble, and it is a generally accepted theory that the river Mersey, within geologically recent times, used to empty itself into the sea considerably to the west of its present mouth ”

“ By means of its docks Liverpool is able to meet any demand upon its shipping powers. The vessels that are at times housed within its protecting river chambers, if ranged side by side, would cover the banks of the Mersey along all its navigable length.
It is, of course, only a part, although the major part, of the tonnage of Liverpool that finds treatment in this way. There is a constantly moving flotilla. The goods and passenger traffic from one side of the Mersey to the other is scarcely ever at a standstill ”

“ The history of the navigation of the river Weaver, which adjoins the Mersey in Cheshire, supplies a notable example of what may be made of an originally insignificant and tortuous stream in order to adapt it for the requirements of commerce. The river has been canalised between Northwich and Chester, twenty miles of the navigation being artificial navigation, and the other thirty miles being river proper. ”

“ On passing through the Eastham lock, vessels bound for Manchester find themselves in a channel about one hundred and seventy-two feet wide and twenty-six feet deep, separated from the broader Mersey by a long embankment thirty feet wide at the top, and following the curves of the river for nine miles. But in that nine miles there are several sights to see, for Eastham is not left very far behind when, on the right, the river Weaver is reached. This is a broad river flowing into the Mersey, and its ancient rights could not be taken away, though it was absolutely necessary to control them. ”

“ Everybody had to run to the braces, tacks, and sheets, and sharp work we had to slew the yards round in time; and when we looked again for the old woman, she was nowhere to be seen. I never before or since have met in the Mersey a squall so sudden, or so violent, and in a minute it was over, and the wind blew as it had done before. What was also strange was, that not one of the other ships in the river had felt it. The old pilot who was taking us clear of the sands shook his head and said he did not at all like the look of things, that no good ever came of such strange doings ”

“ In another of its great bends the Mersey comes down to the canal again at the point where Warrington is brought into touch with the new waterway.
Lying almost wholly to the north of the river, Warrington was anciently approached by the south, by way of Latchford, and this route still affords a principal means of access to the town, both by road and by rail. The Mersey touches no part possessing a more remote history. It has been claimed for Warrington that it is the oldest town in Lancashire. ”

“ Below Overton it debouches upon its plain track. Below Chester it follows a straight artificial channel to the estuary, and this is the only navigable portion. The estuary, which is 14 m. long, and 51/4 m. wide at its mouth, between Hilbre Point on the English and Point of Air on the Welsh side, is not a commercial highway like the neighbouring mouth of the Mersey, for though in appearance a fine natural harbour at high tide, it becomes at low tide a vast expanse of sand, through which the river meanders in a narrow channel. ”

“ They are as vital to our commerce and industry as any matter now dealt with by the State, affecting our material well-being, and they are every year increasing in extent and importance. As regards the principal rivers—the Mersey, the Tyne, the Tees, the Clyde, and the Wear especially—they are now controlled in accordance with the recommendation made by the Duke of Richmond’s Select Committee, that “each catchment area should be placed under a single body of conservators, who should be responsible for maintaining the river, from its source to its outfall, in an efficient state.” ”

“ This, of course, is merely idle romance. Some writers contend [25] that the name was originally Chumber, that Northumberland means North Cumri-land, of which the present Cumberland is a relic. It is not improbable that the Mersey derived its name from Mercia, or the territory from the boundary river. It, in conjunction with the Humber, divided Northumbria from Mercia during the heptarchy. The Mersey is still called the Cheshire Waters by some of the inhabitants on the south-west of Manchester.
It is somewhat singular that no Roman writer or Itinerary mentions the Humber. ”

“ Here it reaches what is now the estuary of the Mersey, but the embankments are continued along the southern shore to Eastham, where the terminal locks are placed. In this part of the canal, the engineer had difficulties to overcome of a different nature from those encountered in the upper part, where it was chiefly a matter of cutting across the ground intervening between the bends of the river, so as to form for its waters a new and direct channel everywhere of the requisite breadth and depth. ”

“ Mersey, river rising in NW. Derbyshire, flows westward 70 m. between Lancashire and Cheshire to the Irish Sea; is of great commercial importance, having Liverpool on its estuary; its chief tributary is the Irwell, on which stands Manchester.
Merthyr-Tydvil (58) , industrial town in Glamorganshire, on the Taff, 15 m. NW. of Cardiff; is the centre of great coal-fields and of enormous iron and steel works, which constitute the only industry.
Merv (500) , an oasis in Turkestan, belonging to Russia, being conquered in 1883, 60 m. long by 40 broad, producing cereals, cotton, silk, &c. ”

“ A strong tidal flow raised sand barriers at their entrances, and for some considerable distance upwards, that meant danger to shipping. The same cause gave the Mersey its opportunity and its individuality; and once the bar at its mouth was crossed, there were found not only capacious and safe anchorage, but possibilities for commercial enterprise that have gone on increasing from the moment at which men began to take advantage of them.
THE MERSEY.
The Mersey has its origin in three other streams that come down to it from Yorkshire and Derbyshire uplands ”

“ A range of sand banks run parallel with the coast for many miles, but several channels intervene, giving sufficient depth for vessels of the heaviest draught at high water, at which time the Mersey presents the most interesting and striking scene,—particularly when a westerly wind favours the arrival of the numerous fleets destined to this port, bearing the flags and freighted with the produce of all nations that have found a place in the chart of commercial enterprise. ”

“ The Mersea channel gleamed like a belt of silver, not a ripple was on the water on the west side of the causeway, and but slight flapping wavelets, driven by the north-east wind, played with the tangles on the piles on the other side of the Strood.
She reached the island of Mersea by the causeway, now dry, and began to ascend the hill. Once she turned and looked back. She could see the Ray rising above the marshes, bathed in moonlight, patched with coal black shadows cast by the ancient thorn trees, and the farm buildings. ”