Liverpool - St George's Basin - Old Engraving



Liverpool - St George's Basin, 1841

This engraving captures how the Pier Head in Liverpool orginally looked when it was St. George's Basin.

The ships masts in the distance are docked in Prince's Dock.  Off picture to the right would be George's Dock.   The basin and George's Dock were drained in 1899 and the Three Graces of Liverpool's Pier Head began to appear starting in 1903.  The Church depicted is St. Nicholas which still stands, but is obscured from view by modern buildings.

 Standing at this spot today you would be looking at the Pier Head with the Ferry Building on your left and the Liverpool Museum and the Royal Liver Building hiding St. Nicholas Church.

From a Steel Engraving By W.H. Barflett & J.C. Armytage

Published by Geo Virtue, 26 Ivy Lane, London, 1841

You can explore this area in detail on our FREE tour of the Pier Head on www.obelisktours.com

Tour description:  

"This FREE tour of Liverpool’s Pier Head unveils how this huge port became the world’s busiest trade centre and “one of the nineteenth century’s greatest success stories.”  As we wander around the Pier Head we will discover the history behind this area and its buildings as well as finding horses and kings, museums and memorials, a church and a vanished dock, a canal system and a tunnel."

Liverpool - Pier Head - Old Engraving

From the engraving of St. Nicholas' Church, Chapel Street, Liverpool, 1829.

Today St. Nicholas Church is landlocked, but this engraving illustrates how the docks once stood immediately outside its front door.  It truly was the Seaman's church as thousands of Sailors and emigrants would attend church here for the last time before setting out on their adventures around the world.

The majority of the nine million emigrants who emigrated from Liverpool left from St. George's Dock and Basin which stood in front of St. Nicholas.   The Royal Liver Building, The Cunard Building, and the Port Of Liverpool building now occupy the site of the old Dock.  The only hint of its existence is the name of the road: George's Dock Gates.

Drawn by G & C. Pyne.  Engraved by H. Jorden.  Published by Fisher, Son & Co., London, 1829

The engraving is dedicated to 'The Rectors The Rev. R. H. Roughsedge, M.A. and the Rev. Samuel Renshaw, M.A.'

This Liverpool Pier Head area can be discovered in greater detail in our FREE tour on www.obelisktours.com

Liverpool - Waiting

In our world of fast cars, trucks and planes and trains we tend to forget how the horse was once a vital part of the whole system of commerce.    By the late 1800s there were over 3 million horses working in Britain. 

This monument pays tribute to the working horse and points out that at their peak more than 20,000 horses worked on the streets of Liverpool.

 The monument gives a taster of the loads these beasts of burden once carried:

Bags of seed, tea, groundnuts, cotton, rubber, dried fruit, rum, canned goods, rice, butter, tobacco, timber, billets, linen, saltfish, red oxide, yellow ochre, bales of dry/wet hides, carbon black, steel coils, steel girders (7 tons), casks of beer, milk powder, holloware, bodies, bundles of hessian, bags of Demerara sugar, and more…

For over 250 years there was an army of occupations depending upon the horses for their livelihood such as blacksmiths, farriers, ostlers, carters and wagon builders. 

 Imagine the sound, sight and smell of thousands of horses moving around these docks and streets - the clattering of metal hooves and wheels on stone, the neighing, hollering and cajoling, the whiffs of sweat, damp and pooh.  The average horse would produce around 25 pounds of manure a day.

This delightful bronze statue was a result of the Retired Carters Association who were concerned the history of the working horse would be forgotten.    The statue, by Judy Boyt, is called Waiting showing the obedience of these powerful creatures.    It was unveiled May 2010.  

This monument is included in the FREE tour of Liverpool Pier Head available from www.obelisktours.co.uk

Liverpool - Mersey Tunnel

Today we are going to look at a ventilation shaft. 

 Hold on....do not click out yet.  It might sound rather mundane, but this little treasure is one of Liverpool's oft-ignored Art Deco treasures.   

Background to the Tunnel

At the time of its construction in 1925 the Mersey Tunnel  was the largest underwater tunnel in the world.   Four lanes of traffic run under the River bringing Birkenhead and North Wales within easy reach of Liverpool.     The official opening ceremony took place nine years later in 1934 when Queen Mary and King George V arrived to ‘cut the ribbon’ and open the tunnel for use.   A second tunnel under the River Mersey was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1971.

Our Art Deco Treasure

All the tunnels needed ventilation and this building, by Herbert James Rowse (1887-1963),  is the finest of those shafts.  Thousands drive by this every day without giving it a second glance, but I highly recommend you park the car and take some time walking around all four sides.  

 

 The large rectangular building is one of three ventilation shafts to the tunnels on this side of the river.  If you stand by the River you can look across the river and see three similar shafts on the Birkenhead skyline.  This building is not only extracting all the car fumes out of the tunnel, but also pumping clean air in.  It also doubles up as offices and a control centre.

But it is the little things that bring this building to life.   

 There are some rather abrupt slashes of green around the building which at first jarred me, then, gradually, as I warmed to the building's design I accepted what had initially seem like an intrusion.  The contrast between the light earthy Portland stone and this flash of colour strangely began to complement each other.

 

On the main road side is a sobering reminder of the lives that were lost creating the tunnel.

  If you walk around this building you will discover some nice sculpture work by Edmund Charles Thompson (1898-1961) and George T. Capstick including:

‘Speed’ with his helmet and goggles representing the thousands of cars motoring deep beneath our feet.

‘Night and Day’ representing the ever open tunnel running 24/7 with the sun in the lap of the first, and a star in the second.  

  Sculpted panels representing Engineering, Construction, Architecture and Decoration

This is one of the many fascinating buildings and stories to be found around Liverpool's Pier Head.  To find more Liverpool treasures download our FREE tour of Liverpool's Pier Head on www.obelisktours.co.uk 

Liverpool - The Liver Birds

The Liver Bird is a mythical creature, so any birdwatchers hoping to catch a glimpse of one will have a very long wait.  Historians often trace its lineage to a coat of arms made over 700 years ago which displayed the eagle of St. John the Evangelist.    So someone’s really bad drawing of an eagle evolved into a make believe bird that has become Liverpool's symbol. 

 The two enormous Liver Birds on top of the Royal Liver Friendly Society building are here because the Friendly Society adopted them as part of their company logo and this is their HQ.

 There are some funny local legends attached to these two birds.

The one looking out to sea is supposed to be female since she is waiting to see when the sailors are coming in.  The bird facing towards the City is male because he is waiting to see when the pubs will open.

   

There is also a legend that if an honest man or a virtuous woman ever walks besides the Liver building the Liver birds’ wings will flap.  They have yet to move.

It is also claimed that if they were to fly away the City of Liverpool would fall.  You will note they have been tied down to prevent them leaving… or are those just support lines?  You decide. 

This is an excerpt from the FREE tour Liverpool: Pier Head found on www.obelisktours.co.uk

Liverpool - 5 Pier Head Memorials you must not miss

The Pier Head in Liverpool is full of memorials and these are the pick of the bunch.  Make sure you find them when you visit.   If you want to know the stories behind them you can download our FREE tour app of Liverpool Pier Head on www.obelisktours.co.uk  

"Waiting" by Judy Boyt

Cunard War Memorial by Arthur Davis

Memorial to Alfred Lewis Jones - Ship owner and Tropical medicine benefactor.

Merchant Navy War Memorial

The Engineers or 'Titanic'  Memorial