Round the Coast - Newnes 1895 - Pages



New Brighton - Showing the fort and the lighthouse c1895

New Brighton - Showing the fort and the lighthouse
From a Photo. by Frith & Co. Search for similar at Francis Frith

If the truth must be told, we fancy that few readers would care to be recommended to New Brighton, except Liverpool people, who already know enough about a place lying so close at hand; but in order not to wholly pass over the coast of Cheshire, we may mention that this is the chief Mersey bathing-place, which at once gains and loses by its proximity to the great commercial city. There are here a commodious pier, and a sandy beach well supplied with bathing machines, donkeys, nigger minstrels, and the like attractions for the amusement of the Bank Holiday crowds, who are naturally New Brighton's most numerous patrons. New Brighton is built on rising ground, five miles to the north-west of Birkenhead, and on the Cheshire side of the Mersey. A few miles along the beach and its sand-hills will be found Hoylake, another seaside resort of the locality, which is to New Brighton what Broadstairs is to Margate. The pier at New Brighton is 560ft. long, and affords fine views of the shipping and docks of Liverpool, the Irish Sea, and the mountains of Wales. Near the end of the Promenade is the strongly fortified Rock Battery. The railway line from Liverpool to New Brighton passes under the river by the Mersey Tunnel, an engineering feat resembling the Thames Tunnel in London; it was begun in 1880, and opened for traffic in 1886. New Brighton's little neighbour, Hoylake, is a small watering-place on the estuary of the Dee, and is much frequented by golfers, its links being amongst the best in England. Another way of reaching New Brighton from Liverpool - a distance of four miles - is by steamer, and, as one may imagine, there is a first-rate service between the great city and its gay little resort.