The Wirral Peninsula and New York City

Birkenhead Park –

Designed by renowned landscape gardener Joseph Paxton and opened in April 1847, Birkenhead Park is widely considered to be the World’s first publicly funded municipal park and was the impetus for the creation and development of public parks across the World.

In 1850, the splendour of Birkenhead Park was experienced first hand by American landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, who travelled to Liverpool and visited the Wirral. Olmsted wrote that Birkenhead was a “model town built in all accordance with the advanced science, taste and enterprising spirits that are supposed to distinguish the nineteenth century.”

Of Birkenhead Park in particular, Olmsted wrote how “five minutes of admiration and a few more spent studying the manner in which art had been employed to obtain from nature so much beauty” left him “ready to admit that, in democratic America, there was nothing to be thought of as comparable with this People’s Garden.”

The design of Central Park in New York was laid out by Frederick Law Olmsted who was inspired by his 1850 visit to Birkenhead Park, meaning that links between the two urban parks have been there since the beginning. Today Central Park in New York City is the most visited urban park in the United States of America, with an estimated 42 million visitors annually, and is the most filmed location in the world.

Storeton Woods –

Storeton Woods close to Bebington may be best known today for picturesque walks and mysterious paranormal sightings, however for thousands of years it has been a hub of activity. The area covers roughly 31 acres and is home to a quarry that was present during the time of Britain’s Roman occupation.

Before the Wirral quarry was filled in, stone was extracted and exported to New York to help build the world famous Empire State Building. At the time, the 443 metres high Empire State Building was one of the world’s largest structures. Today New York is arguably one of the most iconic cities on earth. Home to over eight million people, it’s a melting pot of culture, identity, taste and personality. The famous skyline is a symbol of American ambition, and no structure captures that essence better than the Empire State Building.

America’s industrial heartland, Pittsburgh supplied the Steel. Marble was sourced from Italy and France. However the most intriguing fact is that sandstone to clad the building was quarried right here on The Wirral.

Many local properties are built from the stone quarried on Storeton Ridge, which was once a Viking hub. Stone from Storeton was also used in the construction of several significant buildings throughout Merseyside. Birkenhead Town Hall, Liverpool Lime Street station, and Lever House at Port Sunlight to name a few. However, the production of stone for the Empire State Building is one of the quarry’s biggest claim to fame.

The building which is a prominent feature to the New York City skyline was once dubbed as one of the ‘Eight Wonders of the World’ and while the Wirral quarry may no longer be in use today, the Wirral played a small however significant role in completing what is one of the world’s most important buildings.