Paddle steamers were introduced in 1816 to replace the sailing boats, but the demand for a service declined in the 1840s with the opening of a railway link between Chester and Birkenhead Woodside Ferry.

Attractions included a zoo, with bears, lions, monkeys and antelope, an open-air stage, tea rooms, bandstand, ballroom, boating lake, water chute.

[6] Entertainers performed in the gardens during summer, and included Blondin, the famous tight-rope walker who once wheeled a local boy across a high wire in a wheelbarrow.

In 1854 the American novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne, whilst in the position of United States consul in Liverpool, visited Eastham and declared it to be: "the finest old English village I have seen, with many antique houses, and with altogether a rural and picturesque aspect, unlike anything in America, and yet possessing a familiar look, as if it were something I had dreamed about.

[6] In 1970, to commemorate European Conservation Year, the area was designated a Woodland & Country Park and today, it is once more a popular place of recreation.

It is also close to the city of Chester and shares a proximity to the village of Port Sunlight, an historic centre for the British soap industry.

In order to provide berthing facilities for large tankers that could not be accommodated on the canal due to size, the Queen Elizabeth II Dock was constructed, with vehicular access from Ferry Road.