Over the fields from Upton

That walk they had in the country, over the fields from Upton, "Public footpath to Thingwall". Some stupid boy (or was he, on the contrary, being profound) had turned the red signpost in the opposite direction, towards Wallasey, towards Leasowe, towards the sea. Warm fresh bread and butter with their tea. It was in Greasby they saw the horse in the stable - "dreaming and warm", she had read of someone calling a stable - and in Upton the slate-paved dairy, cold and clear: the primroses in Marples field under the yellow gorse. Ultramarine

The above walk is probably based on a real one undertaken in the Spring of 1927 by Malc and Tess Evans the model for Janet in Ultramarine.

The walk described by Lowry is closely related to the one already discussed in the post Day Out In Saughall Massie. The walk in that excerpt in the novel mentions Saughall Massie Road which runs from Upton to Saughall Massie.

Upton was the home of his brother Stuart and his wife Margot where Lowry felt more at home during the mid-20s than his parent's home in Caldy (see Bowker Pursued By Furies Pg 39). Therefore, we can assume that Malc was familiar with the area and that the walk possibly commenced from Stuart's Corvally - his home in Upton. Or Malc and Tess may have got the bus from West Kirby to Arrowe Park or got off on route as there are several footpaths to Thingwall off Arrowe Brook Lane and Arrowe Brooke Road, which was once used by the West Kirby to Birkenhead bus. The immediate fields around Upton have been consumed by housing and the old road to Saughall Massie ends at a dead end truncated by a new by-pass. Below you can see the the beginning of Saughall Massie Road in Upton and the fields beyond which Malc and Tess walked over:





If they started their walk in Upton - their route could have been down Ford Road - Greasby Road via a footpath which still exists from Greasby Road to Arrowe Brooke Road - Arrowe Brook Lane( where Lowry would have seen the signs to Thingwall)- by footpath near Irby Mill or Mill Lane to Greasby - where they could have returned by Greasby Road to Upton or continued over the fields to Saughall Massie. (See map below for possible route).



Malc and Tess may have got their "warm fresh bread and butter with their tea" at Lumsden's (seen below) at Irby Mill Hill which was popular in the 1920's.



Greasby was still a small village in the 1920's. Malc must have been familiar with Greasby as he mentions the village in a letter to Carol Brown in which he relates a dream about finding a dog on his way to Greasby; the Coach and Horses pub (seen below) is referred to in 'Enter One In Sumptuous Armour'.



The possible location for "the horse in the stable" could have been Greasby Hall Farm:



The dairy in Upton remains unidentified - here are photos of the village in the mid-1920s:




The only reference to a Marple's Field that I have discovered to date is one in Caldy. A farmer named Joseph Henry Marples ran the farm in the centre of the village not far from Inglewood. This may be a case of Malc altering the topography to suit his own creativity which does occur elsewhere in his work.

Lowry may have known that the name Primrose is associated with first love - from the Latin 'primus' - meaning first, due to their early Spring flowering. The primrose is the sacred flower of Freya, the Norse goddess of love and was used in rituals giving honor to her which again may have had significance for Lowry. Lowry was later to use the name Primrose in his novel Dark as the Grave wherein my Friend is Laid and the short story 'Gin and Goldenrod'. By one of those Lowryan coincidences, there is a pub in Liscard called 'The Primrose' not far from where Tess lived and very near the first Lowry family home.

Day Out in Saughall Massie

That day it was, on the Saughall Massie Road with Janet, when he found the white campion on the windy hill, it was the only sound to break the stillness, the traction engine, and the sleep-shattering fall of white stones. Afterwards they had tea at Hubbard and Martin's, in Grange Road.....
Ultramarine

Lowry includes many scenes in his early novel Ultramarine, in which the main character Dana Hilliot recalls his youthful courting of Janet, including their walks around the Wirral. These walks probably reflect the same journeys made by Lowry and his young love Tess Evans.

In the 1920's, the urban sprawl was only just beginning its pervasive journey across Wirral reaching out to the ancient villages of the Wirral including Saughall Massie. Saughall Massie could have been reached by taking a bus from Birkenhead to Upton and then walking down Saughall Massie Road seen on the right in the photograph below. Saughall Massie Road originally ran from the what are now the crossroads in Upton to the village to Saughall Massie Village.



Saughall Massie Road was once a Turnpike, a privately owned road on which a toll is charged, the toll house was located on the land opposite Greenbank. The road was re-aligned in the 1960s, it originally followed the wall of Upton Convent round the corner into the village.

Or the young couple may have walked from West Kirby towards Upton crossing the many footpaths which still traverse the fields of the northern Wirral.



The name de Massie, de Massey or de Mascy has been connected to the Wirral since the time of the Norman Conquest. Baron Hamon de Mascey, whose family came from the settlement of Mascey near Avranches, Normandy, established Birkenhead Priory in 1150. His relations, the Masseys of Sale, settled on the Wirral during the reign of King John were supposed to have given their name to Saughall Massie. It is also supposed that the name Saughall Massie means "Willow-tree nook of land".

The land around Saughall Massie is flat and lies between a ridge to the east on which Upton sits and the hills to the west which run from West Kirby down to Heswall. The hill Lowry is referring to in the above passage is most likely the ridge on which Upton sits.



A clue to the exact position is perhaps given away by his reference to the campion flower. The white campion is also known as the Grave Flower or Flower of the Dead in parts of England as they are seen often growing on gravesites and around tombstones. The highest point on the ridge upon which Upton built is the ancient site of Overchurch Hill.



Overchurch was the site of a Saxon church and in turn a Norman church demolished in the 19th Century though the graveyard still exists. The hill on which the church once sat is overgrown with tall trees now but in the 20's was a much more open aspect and would have been attractive for courting couples to gaze out over the North Wirral coast.



The young couple could have taken a bus back to Birkenhead from Upton in order to visit Hubbard and Martin's, which was a popular meeting place in the central shopping area of Birkenhead in the 1920's. The cafe was near to the Hippodrome Theatre in Grange Road which Lowry frequented in the 1920's.