Mysterious tunnels under Liverpool

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

An extensive network of tunnels dug 200 years ago penetrates the soil under the streets of Liverpool. The purpose of these dungeons remains a mystery. The air is motionless. There is silence all around. From time to time, it is disturbed by the sound of a drop of water falling on the stones, which, with a barely audible echo, is reflected from the walls of the man-made cave.

Moisture appears slightly in some places. But it's mostly dry here. If it weren't for the dim light of electric lights, this 200-year-old tunnel under the streets of Liverpool would have been very dark. And it's very lonely.

"I still can't get over the ferns and moss," says Dave Bridson, local historian and manager of the Williamson Tunnels Heritage Center in Liverpool in northwest England.

It shows the place where water seeps through the porous stone, feeding the light green moss that grew next to the lanterns.

As soon as light was brought into the long-abandoned tunnels, pockets of vegetation such as this began to take root on the walls.

Of all the engineering projects ever undertaken in the early 19th century in the industrial heart of Liverpool (take the world's first steam-powered railway), the Williamson Tunnel is perhaps the most mysterious.

Tunnel patron, tobacco dealer, property developer and philanthropist Joseph Williamson, carefully concealed his intentions regarding the purpose of the tunnels. Even today, no one knows for sure what purpose they were used for.

Likewise, no one knows exactly how many tunnels exist under the Edge Hill area of Liverpool.

Be that as it may, for two centuries the tunnels were buried underground. They fell asleep after the surrounding residents began to complain about the smell coming from them.

Obviously, the underground voids were used as ordinary landfills and were filled with all sorts of waste - from household waste to human sewage.

Over time, information about the tunnels migrated from the realm of knowledge to the realm of myths.

"A lot of people knew about the tunnels, but that was all," explains Les Coe, one of the early members of the Williamson Tunnel Friends Society. "And we decided to take care of them."

Breaking into

On a beautiful summer day in 2001, Coe and a small team of enthusiastic explorers literally crashed into what they believed to be in Paddington, Edge Hill.

Using a pickaxe, they cut a small hole in the ceiling of what was thought to be an old basement, but in fact turned out to be the top level of one of the underground tunnel systems.

Coe and his companions carefully descended into the breach on the lines. The cell they got into was covered with rubble to such a height that it was impossible to straighten up to its full height inside.

And all the seekers were delighted. “We were very excited when we found the opening,” Coe recalls.

Later, three more sites were found in the same area, through which it was possible to penetrate the tunnels. But digging them up, then and now, is no easy job.

Over the past 15 years, a team of volunteers who excavated twice a week have removed more than 120 carts of garbage.

They discovered an abandoned basement system as well as - in several cases - tiered tunnel systems. In some of them, steps have been found that lead even deeper into the underground voids.

There are also passages clogged with rubbish and all sorts of rubbish, which branch out in different directions. It is still not clear how far they go and where they ultimately lead.

Tom Stapledon, a retired television engineer and small store owner, is one of the regular diggers. He says that the first measurements with metal probes, which pierced the piles of rubble resembling coke, showed that the chambers were unexpectedly deep.

“First, they lowered the 10-foot (3.0 m) rod. They did not reach the bottom. Then they lowered the 15-foot (4.6 m) rod and again didn’t reach the bottom,” he says. And only a 20-foot (6.0 m) rod hit the hard floor at a depth of 19 feet (5.8 m).

Digging is not an easy job. And it's not just about physical activity. Volunteers also need to get permission from the local council when they are going to dig in any new direction. Permission is sometimes denied for security reasons.

“There are apartment buildings and stuff above us. We can't dig too much,” says Dave Bridson with a chuckle and points to one of the partially open channels leading towards another chink filled with rubble.

Stapledon, however, took aim at a blocked tunnel that runs under the street. The digger team believes this tunnel could lead to a whole new system of underground chambers that has yet to be discovered.

As the excavation proceeds, volunteers methodically document all the artifacts they find.

They came across old school inkpots, bottles that at one time contained anything from beer to poison, jam jars, crockery from the Royal Liverpool Hospital, oyster shells, chamber pots, animal bones, and hundreds of clay pipes.

All this colorful collection of household and household utensils can tell about the social history of Liverpool like no other collection.

"This is a history lesson," Steppledon says, and shows off his favorite find, a porcelain cup, released to commemorate the coronation of Edward VII in 1902.

He brings the cup to the light and at the bottom of it one can see the image of King Edward VII himself, skillfully embossed on ceramics.

"Great thing," he says in sincere admiration. "I don't think we'll come across anything like this again."

King of the hill

The very appearance of tunnels here is another lesson in history, but rather a historical mystery.

Born in England in 1769, Joseph Williamson was a successful tobacco dealer. He invested the money he earned here, on the spot, in Edge Hill - he hired the surrounding people to build houses.

After the Napoleonic Wars, unemployment swept across Britain. Williamson probably reasoned that he could do a good deed to the local residents and involve them in the development of the area. Perhaps this is why he acquired the nickname "King of Edge Hill".

He also attracted people to the construction of tunnels. One of the entrances to the underground system was discovered in the basement of a house that once belonged to him.

But why are the tunnels all the same? Did he contract people to build them arbitrarily, with the sole purpose of paying them for the work done? It looks more than eccentric.

And, nevertheless, there are no documents contemporary to Williamson that could give anything similar to an explanation of why he started this construction.

Instead, successive generations of historians are lost in conjecture, which leads to all sorts of speculation.

Williamson may have needed the tunnels to move from house to house in the Edge Hill area. Or he was a smuggler and needed tunnels for some kind of covert operations.

It is also possible that he and his wife belonged to some sect of religious fanatics who professed the imminent end of the world, and the tunnels were supposed to become a refuge in the event of the coming Apocalypse.

Apparently, someone casually expressed this idea on television, and it stuck in the minds of the public.

But not Bridson. "Complete nonsense," he says with a sarcastic laugh. "He was a good Christian and a believer in the Church of England."

Those who had to work on the construction of tunnels have developed a new and much more satisfactory theory.

Bridson points to a series of sandstone marks that indicate that stone has been quarried here. In the undergrounds, ditches were laid to drain water from the rock on which the work was carried out.

There are blocks from which sandstone was cut, as well as various niches in the walls, where lifts were probably installed to extract stone, usually used as building material.

According to Bridson, these workings already existed by the time Williamson arrived here. However, it was he who came up with the idea to build arches above them and reliably strengthen them from above.

On the land reclaimed in this way, which otherwise would have been devoid of any value, it was possible to build houses.

If so, then Williamson was ahead of his time in reclaiming land, Bridson says. The work he started could spur the development of this territory, which without this innovative solution would not have been used for many years.

Williamson has shown extraordinary entrepreneurial spirit in the implementation of his projects. Simple backfilling of trenches would have taken too long in the early 19th century due to the limited transport options of the time.

Therefore, Williamson used arched structures. Moreover, as Bridson recalls, he began to use this method long before the construction of grandiose railway bridges and tunnels began in England.

Its arches "are still standing, 200 years later, with little or no renovation," Bridson said. "Apart from a few that were damaged, they are as strong today as they were when they were first erected. Therefore, he knew what he was doing."

Until now, the theory of the restoration of quarries remains just a theory. Bridson hopes that someday he will find a stack of letters and documents, written in Williamson's handwriting, that will help resolve the dispute once and for all.

"There is something in my soul that allows this hope to flicker," he says. However, Bridson admits that such a find is unlikely to ever happen.

Mystery motivation

Maybe it’s not so bad. Tom Stapledon says that volunteers often argue about whether they would like Williamson's papers to be found.

If the documents are never found, the mystery of what lies underneath will live on and haunt the minds, motivating those few enthusiasts who work on the excavation week after week.

Williamson Tunnel diggers are mostly retirees. They are Liverpudlians with the time and the curiosity to devote themselves to this project.

From time to time, younger people ask to be accepted as volunteers, but they usually leave after a few weeks. "They don't have our stamina," Stapledon jokes.

Even now, 200 years after Williamson offered jobs to the men in Edge Hill, his tunnels still keep the locals busy.

A long day of excavation has come to an end; another trolley is filled to the brim with debris excavated from the tunnel.

The steel gate that protects one of the tunnel entrances is secured with a strong padlock. Stapledon checks for constipation. “Reliable,” he says.

There is little to indicate to passers-by that tunnels run here. But they are here, right under the feet and homes of the inhabitants of Edge Hill.

But it looks like the Liverpool tunnels have finally begun to reveal their secrets, one bucket after another, inch by inch.