The Camp, off Kemble STreet, Prescot

[stephen nulty]

In an earlier thread, Mile Molloy and I discussed an area in Prescot known as "The Camp". Not much appears to be known about this area, so I thought it might be useful to create a new thread in case anybody can add anything, but also it will hopefully give us a link from Google if anybody is researching the area. We have mentioned it once or twice in the past, but might be worth a new thread for new members.

 

Generally accepted to be located around the south-eastern side of Kemble Street, probably over the road from The Bath Springs, it appears to have been a shanty town type of area, mainly populated by irish migrants/tinkers. Dates for its existence seem to suggest the 1840's era but nothing much firmer than that.

 

The area was covered by the BI factory in the 1910's (my great grandfather worked on the building of the water tower there in 1911), but I assume that it had long disappeared before then.

 

Anything that can be added would be of real interest to me and any other old Prescotians.

[sthwales]

Can't remember where I saw it (can't remember last week these days!) but I'm sure it was near or in Station Road.

 

Check out http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,380494.0.html too

[potter]

I can add a little information about the area known as the Camp,and yes it was an area of shanty town boarding houses and beer houses.The tinkers came in for the fair and market trading, also journeyman potters travelled in from other areas to work in the Prescot potteries.Many of the Irish immigrants came to work as navvies working on st. Helens railway line to Manchester.Originally they worked the railway but then transferred to other industries. Before the B.I. was built there was a Prescot pottery close to the site, this was owned and run by the Twist family they later transferred work to sutton heath.Many of the workers moved to the sutton heath area with the work..In the 1840,s and 1850's Prescot was a hive of industrial activity, aswell as a market town, you had the coal,pottery,weaving and railway and chemical and glass all coming together in one area.The most important link between Liverpool growing as a port and the Manchester cotton trade. Potter.