Earliest meeting: January 1840
Final meeting: Wednesday 24th January 1849
The Merseyside town of Birkenhead lies on the Mersey, on the Wirral Peninsula, and can trace its history back to its Priory built in 1150 when ferries ran between Birkenhead and Liverpool. Nearby is the Cheshire hamlet of Stourton, which was unusual in the 19th century because it contained no public houses. However, in the mid 1800s racing took place on a course which had a circumference of 3 miles with the Storeton windmill in one corner of the course, extending south west toward the village of Barnston. Today the two villages are divided by the M53 which almost certainly stands on some of the ground previously occupied by the racecourse. The races catered for steeplechase enthusiasts only and the fences were large, challenging and guarded by big ditches. The meeting was organised by the Lord of the Manor of Hooton, Sir William Stanley, and in order to improve the view he had of the racing he built a lodge where, from the first floor, he and his family gained an excellent view of the races. Stourton’s main claim to fame as a racecourse was that Louis Napoleon was rumoured to have ridden at the course between 1846 and 1848. The final meeting took place on Wednesday 24th January 1849, with a nail in the coffin hammered in by the Birkenhead Magistrates who ruled that no booths or tents could be erected to serve alcohol, ‘thus the treasury of the steeplechase committee was unexpectedly defrauded of a considerable amount of revenue’. The Hooton Park Steeplechase over 3 miles was won by Mr Tempest’s The Rover, while the feature race, the Stourton Chase, went to Peter Simple owned by Mr S Mason. |
Wednesday 24th January 1849
Stourton Steeplechase over 4 miles
1. Peter Simple, bay gelding owned by Mr Ralph
2. La Sylphide, bay mare owned by Mr J Murphy
3. The Knight of Gwynne, bay gelding owned by Captain D’Arcy |
Much of the information about this course has been found using internet research and is in the public domain. However, useful research sources have been:-
London Illustrated News
Racing Illustrated 1895-1899
The Sporting & Dramatic Illustrated
Northern Turf History Volumes 1-4 by J.Fairfax-Blakeborough
The Sporting Magazine
A Long Time Gone by Chris Pitt first published in 1996 ISBN 0 900599 89 8
Racing Calendars which were first published in 1727 |
