Bank Quay in Warrington

[Gathursty]

The Bank Quay in Warrington Bank Quay I presume refers to some structure along the Mersey near the station. Are there any visible and accessible remains of Bank Quay to have a look at?

 

[Bevan Price]

The Bank Quay in Warrington Bank Quay I presume refers to some structure along the Mersey near the station. Are there any visible and accessible remains of Bank Quay to have a look at?

Old maps show a Bank Quay Wharf, south of the "Low Level" line near the Crosfields Crossing signal box. It must be 10 years since I was last there, and was not looking specifically for a wharf. From what I remember, there were just some "industrial type" premises adjacent to the river bank.

If you want to explore, cross the WCML heading west on the A57 bridge. Turn left at the traffic lights, and when that road turns right at a sharp bend, you will see a path heading left towards the railway. Follow that path across the railway and you will soon reach the area where the wharf was. Note - no easy nearby public car parking.

 

[stuving]

The original Bank Quay station (see Disused Stations) was a bit to the north of the present one, near Bank Quay Bridge.

This NLS large scale plan is one of a set from around 1850, showing the first station. On the next one to the west you can see that Bank Quay is the name of an area of the town. So Bank Quay Wharf might be named after that, like all the factories, and the school, which also have Bank Quay in their name.

Alternatively, there is a Bank Hall, next to a Bank House, shown on the same map sheet as the station and a little further away from the river. Bank Hall dates from before 1800. But both of those might have been built for "new money" mill owners and named for Bank Quay Road.

Either way, by the time of the first station (1837) a lot of rapid development and redevelopment had already happened, so you can't really see what came first.

 

[Gathursty]

The original Bank Quay station (see Disused Stations) was a bit to the north of the present one, near Bank Quay Bridge.

This NLS large scale plan is one of a set from around 1850, showing the first station. On the next one to the west you can see that Bank Quay is the name of an area of the town. So Bank Quay Wharf might be named after that, like all the factories, and the school, which also have Bank Quay in their name.

Alternatively, there is a Bank Hall, next to a Bank House, shown on the same map sheet as the station and a little further away from the river. Bank Hall dates from before 1800. But both of those might have been built for "new money" mill owners and named for Bank Quay Road.

Either way, by the time of the first station (1837) a lot of rapid development and redevelopment had already happened, so you can't really see what came first.

Thanks for the link to that NLS map. Fascinating!

 

[oldman]

The MyWarrington site has a page on Bank Quay with interesting information about the various industries that have been located there, going back to around 1700.

The area was called “Bank Key” (‘key’ is an older form of ‘quay’) on a 1712 map

There is also reference to a 'substantial wharf' from the 18th century, but it looks like this was not the original quay.

 

[Rescars]

Given the antiquity of the use of the name, presumably the "Bank" in question refers to a topographical feature rather than a financial institution (unlike Bank on the Central Line!) - as I now see oldman's link explains (sorry folks! )

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Most of Warrington's early industry was in the Bank Quay area, as it was reachable on the Mersey.
There were even ship-building* sites there, later there were iron foundries, paper mills, tool-making, breweries, tanneries and and the soda industries.
The low level line provided the rail access to most of this industry.
The iron/wire industry largely migrated east of Warrington when the CLC line was built through the town in the 1870s.
The River Mersey also lost much of its trade when the Manchester Ship Canal was built through the southern part of the town in 1894.

This link is to a 1772 painting of the Bank Quay area by Daniel Donbavand (in Warrington Art Gallery).

Is this painting by the mapmaker Daniel Donbavand? Can more information be found on the artist? - Discussions - Art Detective

www.artuk.org

It shows a busy river scene and also Bank Hall behind, built by Thomas Patten (who owned much of the early industry) - which is now the Town Hall.
This and more old photos can be found in Alan Crosby's comprehensive History of Warrington (Philimore, 2002), where the Donbavand picture forms the cover.

* Example of a ship built at Bank Quay, Warrington

RMS Tayleur - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[BeijingDave]

Being from there, it's remarkable how familiar people are with this name from railway announcements.

When I was living in London, and people asked me where I was from, people who had never been there would adopt a railway announcers voice and say "Warrington Bank Quay". This happened to me about three times. I had never thought the name was unusual or memorable until then, having grown up with it as the local station, and it also lending its name to the surrounding area and amateur rugby team (Bank Quay Bulls).

 

[Rescars]

Interesting to see from oldman's link that BQ was the home of Charles Tayleur, which became the Vulcan Foundry, a long-time manufacturer of locomotives amongst many other significant engineering achievements.