Payne's Building (4-6 Birkenhead Avenue)

Highbury as a commercial centre did not take off immediately. One of its first successful promoters was a member of the Birkenhead Borough Council, William Henry Payne, who anticipated the future importance of the area to the Birkenhead community. The block of land north of Mokoia Road had been owned by W. F. Hammond’s in-laws, the Forghams, before being sold and subdivided by William and Eliza Taylor in 1911. Payne purchased the lot at the northwest corner of Birkenhead Avenue and Mokoia Road in May 1917.

In 1927, he commissioned the erection of a two-storey commercial building at the corner, a structure that remains today. This building, which opened in 1928, has remained the centre of the Highbury district of Birkenhead ever since. Around 1955, one of the building’s tenants, Mr. Oborn, who ran a shoe shop, appears to have purchased the building and renamed it after himself. In 1963, the structure was expanded along Mokoia Road with the addition of four more single-storey shops. An arcade was also installed in front of the stores.

The structure remains prominent in the town and is elevated above many of the surrounding businesses due to its strategic location. Today it serves as an important connection between Birkenhead’s earliest days and the present.

Turn right along Mokoia Road and look across the road.