Liverpools ancient dock preserved forever in a "timewarp"

3 Jul 2007 

This week the original Liverpool Dock exposed for the first time in more than two centuries will be buried beneath a concrete cover.

IT WAS a world first – and launched Liverpool on the road to supremacy as the main port of the British Empire.

It will remain as a timewarp to a bygone age, though a large section of the dock will be retained for future generations to explore.

A large glass-covered opening will enable visitors to the new £1bn Gros-venor Liverpool One development to gaze down into the city’s past history.

Researchers, academics and archeologists will be given limited access to the old dock.

Grosvenor’s Project Director Rod Holmes hopes one day funding will be found to re-open the huge dock giving visitors the chance to explore Liver-pool’s history from its foundations.

When the Duke of Westminster’s company, Grosvenor, was given per-mission to build more than a million square feet of shops and leisure facil-ities, a condition was that archaeol-ogists would have to examine the site.

A team has been excavating the site and remarkably discovered the origi-nal brick walls of the old dock.

Mr Holmes added: “This work has been very costly – far more than we had ever anticipated, but it has helped us reveal a hidden part of Liverpool’s tremendous maritime history.

“A large area will be preserved for all time and visitors will see some-thing of Liverpool from the 1700s. This dock was the single most important factor in the rapid rise in Liverpool’s fortunes as a sea port.”

Sarah Jane Farr, Merseyside archaeological officer, said: “The revealing of the original Liverpool dock is of national and international significance. We can learn a lot from the archaeological work, even micro-scopically examining the residues to discover more about life in Liverpool in the 1700s. We have had a team from Oxford working on the dig and the extent of the intact dock system was beyond our dreams. It will be covered to make way for the Grosvenor development, but it will not be lost.”

A lengthy report of the discoveries beneath the streets of Liverpool is to be published at a future date.

The final days of the dock’s open aspect was filmed by a team from the Time Team TV series, who have recorded an episode for the popular programme fronted by Blackadder’s Baldrick – otherwise known as actor Tony Robinson. Contact information for this Press Release

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