Hidden History

In early 2020 a Twitter user by the name of PhoenixME (@Phoenix1270) got in touch to ask about the ‘Forgotten Street’ (as they put it). This led to a very interesting little journey to discover a road that is blocked off at one end by a gate, and at the other by buildings. But Fisher […]

Credit for this goes to Phil Nash, who posted a couple of photos to the Liverpool Hidden History Facebook group. The former Dominion pub (or Dominion Hotel) at the junction of Regent Road and Bankfield Street in Kirkdale is now the Bankfield Enterprise Hub. This, its latest role, represents the early years of a new […]

A photo of this grid popped up on Facebook in early 2019. I had no idea what it really was, but was intrigued. It looked like something from the William Morris school, which I like for both design and political reasons, so I did a little snooping (i.e Googling about a bit). The metal grid […]

This is another guest article, this time from John Owens. John got in touch hoping that I or you, dear readers, could help identify the source of some photos of a copper rolling works featuring an ancestor of his (see main article). I’ll pass it over to John now, who takes up the story. If […]

Following the curve of Princes Parade, on the north west side of Princes Dock, are a set of rails which are one of the few clues left to the presence of Liverpool Riverside Station. Today the rails might look odd, as they are constructed like a tramway’s, with heavy stone setts bringing the level of […]

Plans were once put together to make West Derby a more peaceful village. Only a few clues now remain to those plans. Martin’s Note: I’m indebted to the West Derby Society again for revealing this feature to me, in a post on their Facebook page back in December 2015. Having been a political centre for […]

In the Victorian period Liverpool was Britain’s second greatest port. So there are hundreds of remnants of Liverpool’s trading golden age dotted around the landscape. We’re all familiar with the scores of warehouses, docks and the odd road bridge seen around town. But there are also tiny details which have survived and which give clues […]

Knotty Ash Village, and Springfield Park, are part of a historic area. They’re on the edge of West Derby and also on the main route between Liverpool and Prescot, and then on to Manchester. The old mail coaches would have flown past in their day, and the tram routes have left their mark in turn. […]

The dock railway was built in Liverpool to solve a challenge which other cities did not face. With dock expansion, ships were docking further and further from the central business district. Places like Manchester and Bristol stood astride their rivers, and twice the mileage of docks fit in each mile of river than in Liverpool. […]

Liverpool is (like so many other places) full of the remains of hidden paths and landscape clues. Blessig’s Style is one such path in West Derby, once the home of ambassadors and merchants. I was reminded of a certain footpath by a short video posted in the Facebook group West Derby Society back in 2014. […]

All sorts of stories are associated with the Sanctuary Stone. Its name conjures up anything from slave-related scenes to cheeky apple snatching medieval urchins. You might never see the same story told twice. The Sanctuary Stone sits on Castle Street in the centre of Liverpool. Of greater certainty is that it marked one of the […]

Liverpool, as a city, is master of reinventing itself. It re-uses parts of its landscape when priorities (and economics) change. The Pier Head area in general has seen many, many changes. The filling of the Pool, and the creation of the first wet dock, is perhaps the most significant. The road sign declaring George’s Dock […]

There is a brass Maltese cross embedded in the pedestrianised pavement of Church Street. It once lay in front of HMV before the building was converted into a passage through to School Lane and Liverpool ONE. The cross is related to St Peter’s Church, which once stood very close by and which gave Church Street […]

On the morning of 14th February 2013, the funeral of Mr. John Dewsnap took place. He was my teacher in year 6 of primary school at Blackmoor Park in West Derby (c.1992-3), and was an inspiration. It might not be too far fetched to say that, if not for him, you might not be reading […]

Continuing our look at the men and women who have had the greatest impact on the Liverpool landscape, this time we examine the work of Jesse Hartley, dock engineer. Jesse Hartley (1780-1860) is best known as the architect of the Albert Dock. But this was just one of his achievements as Civil Engineer and Superintendent […]

Joseph Williamson’s Tunnels are the maze-like remains of excavations under Edge Hill. They are the work of Joseph Williamson under the streets of east central Liverpool, constructed in the early part of the 19th Century. Williamson had bought land on Mason Street on which to build houses. He employed a number of men to dig […]

OK, so perhaps the Norse are aren’t the first people to come to mind when we think of ‘Liverpool Heroes’. They’re distant in time, left little visible trace in our city, and went about changing society through the delicate application of pointy-horned helmets. But of course none of that is strictly true. There are traces […]

This article was originally inspired by International Womens’ Day, which takes places on March 8th each year) Kitty Wilkinson’s story is classic Victorian Liverpool: born in Londonderry in 1786, Wilkinson moved to Liverpool with her parents when she was just 8 years old. Tragically her father and sister were drowned at the end of the […]

In writing about the historic landscape of Liverpool, it’s often the case that the people get mislaid, or hidden from the narrative. This post is the first in a series which aims to redress the balance, and ties in (rather loosely) with Liverpool’s Year of Radicals, which was celebrated in 2011. These people weren’t radical […]