Williamson's tunnels

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Coordinates: 53°24′14″N 2°57′19″W / 53.403744, -2.95525

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Graffiti circa 1960s on the wall of The Williamson Tunnels

The Williamson Tunnels in Edge Hill, Liverpool are a collection of apparently pointless tunnels built by local men employed by Joseph Williamson from the early 1800s to 1840.

1 The tunnels
- 1.1 Theories regarding purpose
2 Joseph Williamson
3 The tourist attraction
4 Timeline
5 Further reading
6 References
7 External links

[edit] The tunnels

The corner tunnel and arch constructed out of individual sandstone blocks with view of Biddulph's factory rubbish chute.

The tunnels are in an area to the east of the Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral in a rectangle bordered by Mason Street, Grinfield Street, Smithdown Lane and Paddington. They run beneath the brow of the Edge Hill, which is one of the highest points in Liverpool.^[1]

[edit] Theories regarding purpose

The reason for their creation is unknown. The most common presumption is that they were constructed to provide employment during the economic recession following the Napoleonic Wars. If this is true then the tunnels may be an early job creation scheme.

It is also thought that the tunnels were built not only to provide work for the unemployed, but also as a training scheme. The brickwork in the tunnels bears a striking resemblance to the brickwork in the Albert Docks. It is believed that the tunnels could have been created solely for the purpose of teaching the unemployed of the area how to build arched tunnels. Once they had learned this brickwork they would then have the skills to go on and work on other projects, such as the construction of the Albert Dock.

Another theory is that the tunnels served the purpose of land reclamation. The site of the tunnels was previously an open sandstone quarry for at least 200 years before Williamson bought the land. This quarry consisted of a wide range of holes of varying depths meaning that during the early 1800s, the land was uneven, unsightly and unsuitable for building on.

Other less widely held theories include preparing a refuge from Armageddon; passageways for secret activities; routes offering shelter for horses in bad weather; or an eccentric folly.

Certainly the men built arches, mainly from bricks but occasionally out of sandstone to cover the old quarry pits. These arches started at the edge of the holes from the quarry and could support a great weight above them. Therefore the first formation of the tunnels was likely to provide support for the terraced gardens of his houses on Mason Street.

[edit] Joseph Williamson

Joseph Williamson (also known as The Mole of Edge Hill or The King of Edge Hill) was a 19th-century philanthropist, tobacco merchant, property owner, and pioneer of tunnels. He was born on 10 March 1769, in Yorkshire. His family later moved to Warrington. At the age of 11 he moved to Liverpool to seek employment. His mother, possibly called Sarah, permitted him to move from his home at such an early age on the condition that he was to lodge with his employer. His employer was Richard Tate of the Tate tobacco and snuff manufacturers, brother of the painter William Tate and father of industrialist Thomas Moss Tate.

Williamson became wealthy by working his way up through the company and simultaneously forming a partnership with Joseph Leigh in a separate tobacco venture. In 1802 Williamson married Elizabeth Tate, his boss's daughter, and in 1803 he gained ownership of the company after buying it from Thomas Moss Tate, his brother-in-law. Such was his wealth that he took retirement long before his days were due and sold on the company for great profit. Using his wealth he constructed houses and terraced gardens in the Edge Hill area of Liverpool and excavated a labyrinth of seemingly pointless tunnels and cellars underneath them.

His houses were an early indicator of his eccentricity. It is said that some had coal cellars that could hold 200 tonnes of coal as well as multi-level cellars. Despite the unusual designs, many wealthy people wanted to live in the houses because of their desirable location. Williamson's tenants included artist Cornelius Henderson and philosopher James Martineau.

Williamson died aged 71 on May 1, 1840, leaving no children. The tunnelling ceased immediately upon his death and never resumed. The tunnels were abandoned and rubbish was allowed to accumulate. Williamson was buried in the Tate family vault at St Thomas's Church, at the intersection of Park Lane and Paradise Street in Liverpool city centre. The church was abandoned in 1906 and demolished in 1911 and in later years the land was used as an NCP car park.

During the summer of 2005, archaeologists employed by Grosvenor, the developers, began excavations on the site as part of the Paradise Street Redevelopment. On October 23, 2005 the gravestone of Williamson was revealed for the first time in nearly a century.^[2] Sadly the stone was broken in half but the inscription on the stone records that Joseph Williamson and his wife Elizabeth Tate are buried there, along with her brother Richard Tate, mother Hannah Tate, father Richard Tate and grandmother Ann Tate.

[edit] The tourist attraction

Plates from the 1830s onwards were among the rubbish found in the tunnels after Williamson's death

During Joseph Williamson's lifetime many of the tunnels that he created were used as cess pits and rubbish dumps, there being no sewers in the area until the 1860s and very little in the way of refuse collection. By the 1860s the stench arising from the tunnels beneath the Mason Street area was unimaginable and the Corporation's Health Committee, in remedying the situation, embarked upon a program of burying the waste. Across much of the Edge Hill area thousands of tons of demolition rubble, ash from local factories and other inert material was dumped in the vast subterranean labyrinth in order to conceal the rotting waste. The land was then purchased by Liverpool Corporation and turned into a working stableyard, now known as The Old Stableyard, Liverpool.

In 2002 the Joseph Williamson Society, a charitable trust undertook a major refurbishment of the southern block of stables at Smithdown Lane to form the core of the Williamson Tunnels Heritage Centre which is now a popular tourist attraction. This refurbishment has allowed a small section of the tunnels to be opened to the public all year round and guided tours to be taken around the site.

The nature of the Heritage Centre means that excavation work is continual on the site and every weekend volunteer diggers and volunteer archeologists can be seen clearing away more of the rubble and detritus that has been filling the tunnels since the 1840's. This clearing of the already accessible tunnels also means that new areas are being discovered and opened to the public as the project continues.

The stables in the Heritage Centre are shared with 'Pop', the first horse to be resident there for ten years.

[edit] Timeline

1769 Born in Yorkshire, England on March 10
1780 (circa) Moves to Liverpool
1780 (circa) Finds work at tobacco and snuff firm of Richard Tate
1802 Marries Richard Tate's daughter, Elizabeth Tate
1803 Buys the family firm and builds his mansions in Edge Hill
1815 Napoleonic Wars end and he employs former soldiers for tunneling
1822 Elizabeth Tate dies and he immerses himself in the tunnel project until his death
1840 Williamson dies aged 71 from water on the chest on May 1