35 miles, Grade C: Wirral Lighthouses from Ellesmere Port to West Kirby

This grade C ride is 35 miles long and starts outside Ellesmere Port Railway Station.  The ride is mostly flat with just two proper hills at Bidston and West Kirby. 

The route goes past all the lighthouses, past and present, on the Wirral peninsular and finishes at West Kirby Railway Station

  1. Whitby Docks Lighthouse (marks the entrance to the Ellesmere Canal from the Mersey
  2. Woodside Lighthouse (by the North side of the Ferry terminal) to guide ferries from Liverpool
  3. The One o’Clock Gun (not a lighthouse) but a time signal fired until 1968
  4. New Brighton Lighthouse also known as Perch Rock Lighthouse
  5. The Lighthouse in Wallasey Village (not a real lighthouse, just a pub)
  6. Bidston Lighthouse, next to the observatory on Bidston Hill
  7. Upper Mockbeggar Lighthouse (used to be one of two to show the line into the Rock Channel); now known as Leasowe Lighthouse
  8. Lower Mockbeggar Lighthouse (built right on the coast, but destroyed in a storm ad then replaced by the building of Bidston Lighthouse)
  9. Lower Lake Lighthouse (one of two marking the Channel into the Hoyle Lake).  Now demolished but the site was on the pedestal just behind the old lifeboat station.
  10. Upper Lake Lighthouse (now a private house on Valentina Road)
  11. The Lighthouse at Red Rocks (looks exactly like, but is not and never was a lighthouse)
  12. The Mariners’ Beacon at West Kirby (built to replace a mill that burned down and but was used a sa guide for sailors getting past Hilbre Island and into Parkgate)

… plus three bonus lighthouses at Hale Point, Point of Ayr and Hilbre Island (if it is a clear day and you bring binoculars)

Lunch is at Popsy’s Cafe in Hoylake, or by the Model Boating Lake if you bring your own lunch.

You can download the planned route on GPX from Komoot: Wirral Lighthouses


35 miles, Grade C
Created by John Hampson