Bromborough Dock

Bromborough Dock was situated on the River Mersey at Bromborough, on the Wirral Peninsula, England. Owned by the manufacturer Lever Brothers (and its successor Unilever), it served the company's factory at Port Sunlight. The facility was once the largest private dock in the world.

Consent for its construction was given by the Bromborough Dock Act 1923. Officially opened on 17 April 1931, it replaced a smaller dock and wharf built at Bromborough Pool in 1895. Located at the mouth of the Pool, the new dock allowed for larger ocean-going vessels to berth. The dock was provided with a link to the Birkenhead Railway as part of the Lever Brothers private railway network, which remained fully operational until 1969.

The dock handled a wide variety of cargoes during its lifetime, including: paper, timber, animal and plant oils and fats (resin, tallow, palm oil and copra). Lever Brothers used its own fleet of barges and coasters to transport goods to and from other docks on the River Mersey and to the company's other factory site at Warrington via the Manchester Ship Canal. Other tenants on the Lever industrial estate also made use of the dock's facilities.

Bromborough

Coordinates: 53°20′10″N 2°58′41″W / 53.336°N 2.978°W / 53.336; -2.978

Bromborough is a large village within the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the Wirral Peninsula, to the south of Bebington and to the north of Eastham. In the 2001 Census, the population of the township was 12,630 (6,050 males, 6,580 females), although the total number of people within the larger Bromborough Ward was 13,963. By the time of the 2011 Census the population of the township was no longer collected although that of the Ward was shown as having increased to 14,850. Before local government reorganisation on 1 April 1974, it was part of the urban district of Bebington, within the county of Cheshire.

History

Bromborough is a contender for the site of an epic battle in the year 937, the Battle of Brunanburh, which confirmed England as an Anglo-Saxon kingdom. Reconstructed from fragments, an Anglo Saxon cross is in the churchyard of local parish church St Barnabas.