What’s in a name? Help reveal Marrabone history

RUSSELL Homes is due to start work on a new residential development on a derelict piece of wasteland in Widnes later this year.

At the bottom of Page Lane on Warrington Road, near what was known as Marrabone, is an area steeped in the town’s industrial past and continues the area’s ongoing renaissance from mainly commercial occupation into a vibrant residential area.

Now Halton Borough Council wants any information on the origin of the name ‘Marrabone.’

During the mid-19th century, the farmlands and rural area on the banks of the Mersey underwent a radical transformation and the town of Widnes, as known today, began to emerge.

When John Hutchinson opened his first Alkali factory on Spike Island, large amounts of Irish workers descended into Widnes.

Newton, Lugsdale and Moss Bank took the highest numbers of settlers and developed rapidly, so much so that the Newtown area was known locally as Little Ireland.

In about 1867 the Moss Bank district came into being. Houses and facto- ries intermingled haphazardly with pubs and industrial refuse dumps.

With no formal planning, streets emerged where they were most needed. The houses were small, back-to-back properties packed together, densely populated and with poor sanitation.

It was the industrialist and factory owner John Hutchinson who provided the town with its first piped water supply.

In 1873 the Adelphi Hotel was constructed on land at Warrington Road at the foot of Page Lane. New housing for factory workers on Grove Street and Bedford Street was nearing completion in an area called Marrabone.

The pub was, for many years, referred to as ‘Irelands’ due to the large Irish community who frequented it and later ‘Planties’ after popular landlord John Plant took over in 1945.

Marrabone had a rich history and a great sense of community. It even had its own Amateur Rugby League team – Marrabone Shamrocks – which competed in the Widnes & District Amateur Rugby League after World War II.

Marrabone and its neighbouring district Moss Bank, were legendary for their carnivals.

In recent years, part of this former community have already been brought back onto the landscape with the reintroduction of Lea Street, Ellis Street and Pleasant Street on the site of their former locations.

Today the Warrington Road site is derelict.

With planning permission granted for a small residential development, street names have been chosen to reflect the history, with Bedford Street and Grove Street – roads that originally occupied this site – being revived.

Executive board member for transportation, Cllr Stan Hill, said: “When the newest residents take possession of their homes in 2019 a small yet significant chapter of Widnes’s Industrial history will have returned and hopefully, with it, a strong sense of community.

“The development is due to begin construction in autumn 2018.

“If anyone has any information in regard to the name ‘Marrabone’ then we would like to hear from you.”

Anyone with more information can contact Iain Dignall at Iain.dignall@halton.gov.uk