Today we followed up two recommendations from Dave Hand for places to visit in Liverpool. They were both holes in the ground but I won’t call them the “pits” as they were well worth visiting.
The first were a series of tunnels dug between 1810 and 1840 under the patronage of an eccentric gentleman by the name of Joseph Williamson. He was orphaned at the age of 11 and his fathers employer supported him and gave him a job in his tobacco business. Evidently Joseph worked hard and became a manager in the business but then hit the jackpot by marrying the owners daughter and inheriting the business. He had a number of shops and then branched out into property by building fashionable houses in Edge Hill, just outside the city.
Following the end of the Napoleonic Wars there was a great deal of unemployment so Joseph employed workmen to dig tunnels for no apparent reason other to give them something to do.
Williamson's own explanation was reputed to be that his motive was "the employment of the poor"; his workers "all received a weekly wage and were thus enabled to enjoy the blessing of charity without the attendant curse of stifled self respect" although another suggestion is he was illegally quarrying sandstone.
The tunnels are huge, some are 40 feet high, the full extent is not yet known as after this death in 1840 households just opened a chute from their houses into the tunnel and dropped in their rubbish which in time filled them up. A society was formed in the 1980’s whose volunteers are excavating the tunnels removing tons of 19th century rubbish.
The second hole in the ground is the quarry where the stone for the Anglican Cathedral was dug which is just behind the cathedral and is now a nice garden of remembrance. If you did not know it was there you would visit the cathedral but miss the garden.
The other highlight of the cathedral was a huge artwork made of 18,000 paper doves which hangs from the ceiling, it is only on display until the end of August, not sure what happens to it then, there are not many spaces big enough to take it.
Whilst walking past an old hospital I spotted this blue plaque, the Ragged Trousered Philanthropist is a very interesting snapshot early socialist thinking and probably a “bible” for the likes of Tony Benn but my surprise was the site of the plaque.
Most hospitals have had thousands of well known people who have died there and I am sure Robert Noonan would not wish to remember his spell in hospital. If Barnet General Hospital had a blue plaque outside for every famous death the walls would be covered in them!
We are off to watch the England Scotland game in a minute probably in the company of a lot of drunk scousers, should be fun.