Related websites

These are sites which I haven't necessarily used as sources - some are just interesting snippets or news items.

Some of my other bookmarks are related to the technology used to construct this site. More details of this technology can be found on the page About Historic Liverpool.

Articles

A History of Headstones in Liverpool - Sarsfield Memorials Liverpool Sarsfield is a family-run memorials business, but they took some time and webspace to talk about the history of cemeteries and headstones in LIverpool
Booze and robots - We Made This Just a silly little post here, but interesting none the less: letterheads from some businesses in 1930s-40s Liverpool, including 'Robot Salesmen', which was apparently a real thing! (See their new site for details).)
Dr. Wendell A. Howe: Liverpool Wendell Howe appears to be a seasoned time traveller, and has passed through many places and temporalities on his journey. This collection covers his visits to our own fair city, and his observations.
Frederick Law Olmsted and the Creation of Central Park - The Atlantic (Web Archive) Inspired ('flabbergasted' in fact) by Birkenhead Park, Frederick Law Olmsted saw how parks could revolutionise leisure time (and stop people frolicking in graveyards). This article charts his journey through Britain, to Central Park in New York.
Guardian picks of the week, 23rd October 2010 Liverpool Landscapes was my blog, 2007-2016, and once upon a time the Guardian deemed it a good idea to include it in a blogroll on Liverpool, and plonk Dave Cameron in speedos at the top of the page. Perhaps the height of my fame.
How do you research the history of a street? – Blog, Liverpool Museums The research into Galkoff's Butchers delved into the history of the whole street, and maps were central to this. Here, the staff on the project give a little insight into how you can use maps to find out about the history of a whole area.
The Mersey, river of life | Society | The Guardian An interesting personal account of walking along the banks of the Mersey. Colin Ward contributed to a book - Mersey: the river that changed the world - and this is a summary of his reasons for doing so, picking up on some of the modern conservation work.

Audio

BBC Radio 4 - Archive on 4, Lern Yerself Scouse Paul Farley cooks a bowl of scouse for Willy Russell, Gillian Reynolds, Michael Angelis and Roger McGough, and chats to them about all things accent and dialect.
Paradise Lost: The Rise and Fall of the Eldonian Dream - BBC Sounds The inspiring yet saddening story of how the Eldonian Village was set up by a pioneering group of Scousers, but in recent years has seen risks to its public ownership

Documents

Liverpool by Scott, Dixon, 1881-1915; Hay, J. Hamilton, ill On openlibrary.org, a history of Liverpool, painted by J Hamilton Hay, and described by Dixon Scott. More of a memoir than a history book, and in fact credits Muir's 1907 'History of Liverpool' as a source.
Meols: The Archaeology of the North Wirral Coast: Downloads Meols, on the north coast of Wirral, is an incredibly important multi-period site, with finds from the Roman, medieval and post-medieval periods. This report, freely downloadable, is the professional final word on work in the area, including a catalogue.
The history of Everton by Robert Syers An 1830 history of Everton which somehow made it into the Library of Toronto, and then to be scanned for the Internet Archive.

Local history research

BOOTLE free Font - What Font Is This one's a little different to the others: fancy making a sign or poster with a recognisably musical font? Free for personal use, 'Bootle' is a font to add a little Beat to your publications.
Build2Understand One way to understand the past landscape is to try recreating it, and technology is making this easier all the time. This website uses OpenSim, and has reconstructed various bits of the rail landscape of Liverpool.
CITiZAN - Coastal Map CITiZAN is the Coastal and Intertidal Zone Archaeological Network, and works to draw attention to the archaeological sites at risk from coastal erosion. This map of theirs lets you look into the sites around Liverpool and the rest of Britain
Liverpool Court Houses in 3D - Museum of Liverpool A brilliant experiment in virtual reality - explore court housing a little like using Google Streetview, and listen to re-enacted testimony from residents and investigators alike. Immersive and detailed.
Liverpool Discovers (Web Archive) For a few weeks in 2011, there was an art trail around Liverpool and Wirral highlighting amazing inventions from the banks of the Mersey. There's also a few reminders of the great and the good of the city. The website still has a few interesting snippets.
Liverpool cotton history - Liverpool Cotton History This site is a product of Nigel Hall's own original research. Hall is, judging from the Recent Articles page, an experienced researcher in this area, and this website, consisting of articles and a illustrations, is a nice looking one.
Liverpool timeline by Brian Naughty Brian Naughty's website also has a timeline of Liverpool, but it's this page on Woolton which is of more detail. There are links to specific topics and buildings, and plenty of photos too.
Lost Liverpool This blog, like the one about Fazakerley Hospital, was written by 'Barbara', and although nothing has been added since 2011, it remains a great little archive of articles about all sorts of topics, from land auctions to lost buildings.
Memories of Mr Seel's Garden (Web Archive) This was a project to look into the veg garden owned by Mr Seel (of Seel Street) and through that to learn about peoples' relationship with their food. Although much of site doesn't work anymore, there's still plenty worth exploring.
Mike Royden's Local History Pages Mike Royden has over a dozen websites to his name, so I encourage you to explore them all, but this is the main Liverpool one, and there are plenty of articles and pages to get your teeth into. You can also find out about the books Mike's written.
Ron's Liverpool Tram Site One of those brilliant labours of love which has been based on one man's lifelong passion for trams. There's all sorts from people to cars to today's preservation efforts. Well worth a browse.
Sandfield Tower, West Derby, Liverpool Sandfield Tower was built in 1851 for Joseph Edwards, one of West Derby’s wealthy merchants. Sadly, the Tower has been vacant for a long time, victim to arsonists and vandals. This website charts efforts to publicise and save it.
St. George's Church, Everton 1814 - 1982 - Lancashire OnLine Parish Clerk Project A short history of St George's church is an introduction to its births, marriages and deaths records (or, more correctly, baptisms, marriages and burials). There are also register records for St. George's School.
St. James Cemetery This seems to be a one-stop shop of all kinds of information and resources relating to the cemetery surrounding the Anglican Cathedral. This includes a burial search of about 16,000 people, so might come in useful for family historians.
Streets of Little Italy - Liverpool's Italian Families This site covers all aspects of Italian families who moved to Liverpool along with the better known Irish, Scottish and Welsh migrations of the 20th century. Debra D'Annunzio, its creator, is making sure their stories aren't forgotten.
Sugar Refiners & Sugarbakers Database Brian Mawer's website and book cover sugar refining at the national level, though I'm linking to his Liverpool page as a starting point for you. There are maps, photos and a blog to get your teeth into (so to speak...).
The Priory and the Cast Iron Shore « The Site of Priory Woods, St Michaels in The Hamlet This blog deals with a small area of Liverpool known as the Cast Iron Shore (due to an iron foundry and an iron-framed church here). There are great posts about Toxteth and the surrounding area too. Well worth subscribing.
The history of Liverpool : from the earliest authenticated period down to the present times by John Corry - HathiTrust Digital Library An illustrated general history of Liverpool. Has illustrations of many of the buildings, as well as a couple of maps.

Local societies

Liverpool Architectural Society The Liverpool Architectural Society is a society for professional architects, but also welcomes anyone interested in building design. They organise visits to buildings (old and new, no doubt) as well as trips further afield.
Merseyside Archaeological Society An active and friendly society covering the whole of Liverpool, Wirral and the rest of the county. They have regular talks, a newsletter and journals, which are all well worth investigating.
Merseyside Industrial Heritage Society I became aware of the Merseyside Industrial Heritage Society when they published a small book cataloguing industrial heritage features of the county, edited by Maurice Handley and Paul Rees, the former a member of the Merseyside Archaeological Society.
West Derby Society The West Derby Society was established in 1977 and is still very active. They hold regular meetings and go on summer outings, and are often campaigning on local preservation issues like Sandfield Tower.

Maps

A plan of the town of Liverpool with all the late improvements (1790) - Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal This zoomable map shows the town when it was still in its infancy, and is another of John Gore's great creations. The BNP is the Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal, with its Biblioteca Nacional Digital online archive
Atlas of Hillforts Sadly there are only two dots on this map in Merseyside - Camp Hill and Landican in Wirral - but it's still an interesting interactive journey into late prehistory.
Classification of Multidimensional Open Data of Urban Morphology (MODUM) - CDRC Mapmaker It's interesting to see how modern mapmakers classify the city's streets. For one thing we can see how historic development shapes the modern landscape. This map shows Liverpool to have Victorian Terraces, the Suburban Landscape, and more.
Compare maps - David Rumsey Maps David Rumsey might be the king of map collecting. This tool is similar to some of those on Historic Liverpool - but with a much bigger, global collection!
Explore georeferenced maps - Map images - National Library of Scotland The National Library of Scotland has put up a great handful of tools for exploring old maps, and they have been aligned with modern maps to make it easy to explore Liverpool then-and-now.
Find a surname - Irish Ancestors Find all sorts of information out about Irish surnames, of which Liverpool has a fair few! A map shows where families lived, and there are related names plus origins of names.
Fire insurance maps and plans North West - British Library (Web Archive) Insurance maps are astonishingly detailed plans, and the ones for Liverpool are no exception. These maps, now archived by the UK Web Archive, are beautiful and fascinating in equal measure.
Gore's Plan of Liverpool (1817), with the environs - Gallica Gallica is the online repository of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF), and this is a zoomable map of Liverpool in the early 19th century.
Liverpool Blitz Map Timeline - Paul Gallagher I found this map via the Liverpool Echo: it animates (in date order? I'm not sure) the bombs which fell on Liverpool during the Blitz. Because it's on the Carto website, it's easy to re-use the data on your own maps if you know what you're doing.
Liverpool: Docks, Liverbirds and Beatles A virtual tour around the area of the Old Dock, Customs House and the surrounding foreshore. It was created by Chris Kolonko, the North Community Archaeologist for CITiZAN, who work towards conserving and preserving coastal areas of Britain.
Map of LIverpool - Harvard Image Delivery Service This is a great map, but I've found the performance of the page a little unreliable, and there's little info. It looks like early 18th or late 19th century, and has a great level of detail.
Medieval Liverpool - StoryMapJS The medieval period is a largely forgotten one in Liverpool's history - at least to the general public. This guided 'tour' of medieval Liverpool helps rectify that, with sites starting at the river and covering the castle, streets and buildings.
New Popular Edition Maps A wonderfully specific project: Map the country of the 1940s and 1950s and collect postcode data while doing so. A clever idea to reward contributors with some old maps.
Old maps of Liverpool - Old Maps Online Another great collection of maps, with tools to identify then by place, using a map to hone in on the right location. Some of them take you to the excellent NLS website for a closer look.
Old series Ordnance Survey maps of England and Wales This site notably offers downloads of their maps at massive sizes. I've chosen to link to this one map of Liverpool, but use it as a stepping off point for exploration.
Open Domesday Anna Powell-Smith and the University of Hull created this map of the places named in Domesday. Liverpool historians will be aware that Liverpool wasn't mentioned, but West Derby and other local places were. This site helps you browse, or reuse the data.
Rail Map Online There are actually three maps here - rail, canal and trolleybus - all of which offer an interactive (modern based) map where you can click to find out some summary info and a link to Wikipedia. Amazing resource, considering it's just one chap's hobby!
Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade - Database (timelapse) This timelapse animation shows the number of voyages of ships with enslaved Africans on them heading for the New World. Although it only shows one side of the 'triangle', you can't argue with the immediacy of how the data is presented.

Photos

Images of Liverpool A search tool to bring together as many old photos of Liverpool as possible. Categorised into interesting topics.
In pictures: Looking back at Liverpool through the decades - Liverpool Echo Fifty photos of Liverpool, Bootle and Kirkby, mostly from the last 40 years but with a handful from the early 20th century. Notable for the huge numbers of smiling faces! And also pre-pedestrianised Church Street.
Inacityliving Ged Fagan has compiled a huge number of photos - in fact, the site seems to host (and may always have) the vast photo collection of Bob Edwards (Liverpool Picturebook), a site which disappeared soon after Bob's passing. Search, or browse by postcode.
Liverpool Parks A project by artist Nils Norman to walk and photograph Liverpool's parks. There are the usual suspects, like Sefton and Newsham, but the site covers all kinds of green spaces, like Allerton Tower and St. John's Gardens.
Merseyside Archive Images - Bernard Rose Bernard Rose is one of the best photographers Liverpool has for historic photos (and modern ones), and this Flickr album shows off some great shots from the 1970s and 80s. Most coverage is of the waterfront, but there's plenty of variety.
No 75 Duke Street A simple series of photos of doorways and street frontages from around 2005. Many of theses streetscapes, in the south-east part of the centre, have undergone great change since then, making this a valuable resource.
Pecker69's Photostream - Flickr It's hard to categorise these photos, except perhaps to note that they are all from around Woolton / Belle Vale, and range from 1900 to about 1980. I've not seen any of these images before - an invaluable resource!
WhatWasThere - Put history in its place! One of many similar websites that puts photos on a zoomable map. It's looking a little outdated now but there are a few pictures of Liverpool. I recommend going straight to 'Browse photos', which is where the map itself, is.

Uncategorised

29 Amazing Then And Now Photos Of Liverpool - Buzzfeed (Web Archive) Based on photos from Liverpool Picturebook, these then-and-now images show a good selection of Liverpool scenes and how they changed in the 20th century.
Aerial shots from the 1980s show industrial might of 'The Great Float’ NULL
Archaeobeach 3D models NULL
Archaeology Data Service You can search the ADS for monuments, excavations, data and their library. There's so much on here that the best ides is just to dive in and see what you can find.
BRITICE Glacial Map v2.0 - Sheffield University An interactive map of ice cover during the last glaciation. You can see where rocks were moved ('erratics') from the north of Britain further south, the maximum extent of the ice, and where giant lakes formed. A good intro to VERY ancient history!
Building Heights in England from Emu Analytics Another modern map, but one which will get you exploring! All the heights of buildings in Britain are here, colour-coded into bands. Another way to explore the urban landscape.
Calderstones Archives Archive - The Reader The Reader organisation who operate from Calderstones Mansion have this great archive online. There are photographs, recordings, maps and documents, with a simple search tool.
Canmore Canmore is the archive of Historic Environment Scotland. Although their material mainly covers Scotland itself, those with roots in Liverpool might of course be able to trace their ancestors to that country, and so this might come in useful.
Construction worker reveals unseen photos of Albert Dock and Liverpool's waterfront - Liverpool Echo Bobby Bell owned of Bridletown Construction, and liked to document his work, some that just happened to be on the Albert Dock when it was being rejuvenated in the 1980s. And so we get this excellent little stash of pics from the sunny 1980s riverside.
Descriptive catalogue of the padorama - HathiTrust Digital Library I'm not entirely sure what a 'padorama' is, but this book, scanned by Google, is a highly illustrated description of an exhibition to celebrate the building of the Liverpool-Manchester Railway. Some great engravings of railway stations in their heyday.
Directories & Social History - Findmypast While the University of Leicester have put scans of the directories online, FindMyPast have got some advanced search tools for them. You need to specify the directory to narrow it down, but it's a useful tool none the less.
Echoes of Liverpool - Liverpool Families Liverpool Histories This site aims to celebrate the 'ordinary' folk who lived in the inner city streets in the Victorian era. They have first hand testimony as well as links to more resources to aid your family history research.
Excavation of Manchester Dock - Flickr The building of the Museum of Liverpool from 2007 unearthed the Manchester Dock, a small basin opening directly onto the Mersey. This set of photos records some of the archaeological work as it uncovered the walls and woodwork of the dock.
Finding your home’s history - Heritage Calling This article on the Historic England blog, by Kate Bevan, gives an introduction to finding out the history of your house through the example of Kate's own research on her Swindon terrace. There are links to the guide's other 3 installments.
Forgotten Fort Crosby: Dune Heritage Revealed NULL
Fort Crosby - LancashireAtWar.co.uk NULL
Fort Perch Rock NULL
HUNT! Liverpool | A Heritage Lottery History Project With A Difference… A community-driven project to map out the history of the ancient hunting forest of Toxteth. Tonnes of photos of people out in the field exploring the modern landscape and matching places on the old maps.
Hidden Liverpool revealed with amazing photos by urban explorer - Liverpool Echo George Toohey bills himself as a 'guerilla photographer' and negotiates his way into usually-secret parts of Liverpool, like Lewis's post-closure. In this gallery are his photos from underground Liverpool, from river outflows to abandoned railway tunnels.
Historic England Intertidal and Coastal Peat Database (including Merseyside) NULL
History of Fazakerley Hospital A blog all about Fazakerley, based on the writer's own fascination and research into the local area. Although it's been many years since a new post appeared, the site still contains dozens of photos, and the writing is top notch.
How to Find Out about Your Home's History - Historic England This page offers a whole host of resources for finding out about the history of your own house, and how to go about caring for it if it's of unusual, maybe historic, character.
John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72) NULL
Kirklands, Hardman Street – a lost Peter Ellis building, hiding in plain sight NULL
Knowsley Historic Settlement Study - Liverpool Museums (PDF) NULL
Liverpool - Vintage Everyday The Vintage Everyday blog posts old photos an posters, and collects together interesting snippets. This link points to their Liverpool posts, which cover all sorts from political rallies to everyday work, to the Beatles.
Liverpool History Society Questions Blog This blog was a great little piecemeal series that ran until 2012. People wrote in questions and someone (usually Rob Ainsworth or Dave Bridston) would answer them.
Liverpool Transport: 1830-1900, Vol. 1 NULL
Liverpool as a Trading Port A search tool that marries genealogical records to shipping records, in an attempt to help you find out where your ancestors sailed to, or which companies they worked for.
Liverpool1207 To call Liverpool1207 a blog is to massively underestimate the amount of work that goes into it. Although you should subscribe to new posts, what you'll often get are huge PDFs delving deep into individual lives, cases or buildings.
Local Coal Mining - Prescot Museum (PDF) NULL
Lost Tribe of Everton and Scottie Road | Homepage Ken went through the electoral role for 1960 to find all the people who lived in the now-gone communities, and collected memories and stories for his book. This amazing companion website lets you search for family name and street.
Making of Croxteth - Beatles, Liverpool & More Ltd There were great ambitions for the Croxteth housing estate, and it was hoped it would provide a little utopia full of mod cons, shops and schools for the new arrivals. This article from Beatles, Liverpool & More Ltd provides a host of resources.
Making of the English Landscape - John Davies Born-and-bred John is now a vicar, but has written this local history article about the factors contributing to the development of part of Liverpool's landscape, specifically the Croxteth / Norris Green area..
Martin's Bank This is an astonishing - and densely filled! - archive of everything to do with Martin's (no relation) Bank, later the Bank of Liverpool, and later still Barclay's. There's too much on the site to summarise - just dive in!
Merseyside - British Council Film A description of the Mersey from its source in the Derbyshire hills to its estuary below Liverpool.
My Earliest Memories: A Child in Birkenhead NULL
New Battery on the Cheshire Coast (1860) NULL
New Brighton - History of the Wirral Peninsula NULL
Old Bold Street - Future Liverpool Despite the site's name, Future Liverpool often dips into history. Here are pictures of Bold Street’s history, and has everything from old postcards to modern snaps. We see gangs of people, adverts for music halls and stock sales and shop front pictures.
Old Mersey Times Old newspapers are, I think, an undervalued resource that we're only just getting to grips with now they're online. This website has transcribed dozens of articles and snippets, categorised on the home page.
Old Perch Rock Lighthouse Learns New Tricks - Lighthouse Digest NULL
Open Plaques Blue plaques are well known, but there are all sorts of different plaque projects. Open Plaques is a community-driven project to bring them all together on a map, and make them available through downloadable data files..
Parks and Gardens UK - Home Run by the Hestercombe Gardens Trust, this website is dedicated to the designed parks and gardens (like Chatsworth). It's not restricted to 'registered' parks and gardens, but is great for finding out more about these important landscapes.
Proof of Liverpool's Viking past - The Guardian A news report from 2007 when Stephen Harding, known for his work on Viking Wirral, used DNA evidence to show that families with long histories in the area are more likely to have genetic signatures also common in Norway.
Re-enchanting the Parkland - Gary Budden This is a transcript from Gary Budden’s talk at Spirits of Place, a John Reppion-led held at Calderstones Park in April of 2016. Gary’s talk was central to the day's topic: how does sense of a place affect how you approach it, and what you can dp there?
Seaforth Battery - Victorian Forts NULL
Seaforth Battery - Wikipedia NULL
Search - Watercolour World If you like the work of Herdman, who produced dozens of watercolours of Liverpool, then you'll get a lot from this website. I recommend the map search, where you can zoom into Liverpool and avoid irrelevant mentions of publishers based here, or US towns.
ShipAIS Live shipping movements from AIS and webcam looking over the River Mersey and Liverpool Bay. The map doesn't seem to work for me so I've provided a link to a specific section - the Mersey. Interesting none the less.
Stone Sleepers at Court Hey – Some Investigations NULL
Teulon Street An incredibly detailed coverage of just one street - Teulong Street - which was half flattened by German bombs. This single-page site has nearly 200 photos, as well as annotations and descriptions. It's a great case study with wider relevance.
The Ballad of Ray and Julie - Jeff Young's Notebooks If you've ever wondered about the 'two chairs' artwork on London Road (opposite where the Odeon used to be) then this article will give you a clue - its origins like in some graffiti, and a poem by Jeff Young.
The Calderstones of Liverpool – The Daily Grail It always bears remembering that historic places have different meanings to different people. The multiple histories told of them are usually fascinating their variety. Here John Reppion explores the mysterious (and historical) side of the Calderstones.
The Defences of the Mersey – David Hearn NULL
The Historic Society of Lancashire & Cheshire The HSLC are a group interested in the two counties that parts of Merseyside were once part of. Perhaps their greatest generosity is in their archive of their Journal, which is searchable and downloadable. Become a member to get the latest issue.
The Mersey Estuary Sea Forts NULL
Trading Places: a history of Liverpool docks NULL
Undated, Smith A., Liverpool Pottery, City of Liverpool Museums, Liverpool NULL
West Coat Paleolandscapes Survey (PDF) NULL
Who Cares, Liverpool - 1971 Who Cares is a heart-rending video filmed in Liverpool in 1971. It looks at the likes of Cantril Farm - high rise buildings erected to re-home those whose houses were demolished during the slum clearances of the previous decade.
allertonOak (Web Archive) Despite its name, this site covers the general history of Liverpool and Merseyside, via topics as varied as placenames, monuments and buildings

Videos

Liverpool In 1972 - Colour (1972) - YouTube Pretty grim few minutes of test footage for an Anglia TV documentary about Liverpool, filmed in 1972. There’s no sound, which kind of adds to the solemn mood, but everywhere life goes on regardless. Inspiring in a way.

Mapping the history of Liverpool

Old maps, interactive maps and the historic landscape of Merseyside.

Buy maps

Many of the maps on this site can be bought as high quality prints, either as paper or ready-framed.

You can also buy notebooks, postcards, greetings cards and other map-printed items!

Go to the shop to find out more

The book

Liverpool: a landscape history is a book about Liverpool and Merseyside from the very earliest days to the 21st century.

You’ll learn about everything from the Calderstones to the Capital of Culture.

Signed copies are available direct from me, the author, in the shop.

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A set of three matching Cassini maps from three different periods, designed to appeal to anyone who wants to discover the hidden history of their local landscape.

Cassini Old Series Maps first published between 1805 and 1874
Cassini Revised New Series Maps first published between 1896 and 1904
Cassini Popular Edition Maps first published between 1919 and 1926

Categories

Mapping the history of Liverpool

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The book

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