Report from our Talks Programme
By Peter Keen

Thursday, January 29th -  Liverpool's Old Dock and the Birth of the Maritime City
A talk by Jamie Quartermain, Project Officer of Oxford Archaeology North team

In these enlightened times no property development can take place in a location if there is the possibility of there being archaeological remains. When Liverpool's planning authority gave permission for the demolition of  parts of the city to make way for a new shopping centre, one of the requirements was an archaeological investigation. This was carried out by Oxford Archaeology North, and SCARS was privileged to have Jamie Quartermain, the Project Officer, to give the first presentation of 2009 based upon this work.

For a city as full of history as Liverpool, little serious archaeology had been carried out prior to 2000 and centuries of  development lay beneath the surface, disturbed only by the bombing raids of the last war.

Jamie however took us back to the origins of the port which began its life as a small fishing village based upon the original pool, a tidal inlet from the Mersey. The tides dictated the depth of water in the pool and limited the amount of time vessels could use it, causing no little inconvenience. With the expansion of trade and industry the pool became inadequate and it was decided to build a 'wet' dock, the water pounded back behind gates. This would afford protection from the Mersey's dangerous currents and allow vessels to load and discharge cargo continuously.

The dock was very much a pioneering project, with no previous bank of knowledge to draw upon, but was a great success. It was built between 1710 and 1715 by Thomas Steers, the dock engineer who preceded Henry Berry. Prints of the 1700s showed  the wet dock as being  shaped like a playing card, with rounded corners and a gated entrance with a circular waiting area towards the river. Now, boats could be unloaded in one and a half days instead of two weeks so trade increased, much to the detriment of the port of Chester which was struggling with the massive silt deposits which were to bring about its eventual closure.

The westerly location of Liverpool made it an ideal base for the infamous slave trade triangle and trade with the Americas but the wet dock could not keep pace with demand so more and more docks were built along the river frontage, and the wet dock was filled in and forgotten about, eventually having a substantial Customs House built on its site in 1840.

In 1800 the last slave ship had left the port but sugar and spirits were still being imported in large quantities whilst textiles had become an important cargo and the port continued to prosper as raw materials were shipped in and finished goods exported. Tonnages went from 37,000 a year to 400,000 in 1800 to 12.4 million in 1900.

During the Blitz, much damage was done to the port, its docks, industries and great buildings. The Albert Dock's warehouses, although badly damaged, were repaired and continued in use. The Customs House on the other hand was destroyed and the site levelled.

Now it is the 21st century and Liverpool is to become the City of Culture, trying to discard its years of neglect and deterioration. How better than to redevelop the city centre and provide more retail facilities. Extensive demolition took place and the archaeologists moved in, supposedly for a three-week evaluation exercise which turned out to be a nine year involvement and still counting .

Using a combination of old plans, engravings and modern O.S. maps, trenches were put in which found the old materials to be amazingly accurate.  Bearing in mind that the Old Dock had been built in the 1700s, had been filled in and had the Customs House built upon it, which had been bombed, burned and demolished, the diggers were amazed to find that, rather than there being no remaining structures, the dock itself had survived, safely covered by only 3.5 metres of infill.

The curved 'playing card' corners of the dock were revealed from the sandstone floor of the dock up to coping stone level. The sandstone bedrock had been cut away to create a curved join between the dock floor and its walls and the walls were built up in brick to coping stone level. Timber baulks were used during the construction process to stabilise the walls as they rose, then the space behind was filled with puddled clay to effect a water tight seal.

Photograph 1 shows the curved corner of the dock wall revealed during excavation whilst photograph 2 shows the building method, the sandstone base to the wall, the brickwork above and the coping above. To the right are the concrete piles which have been installed to support the massive concrete beams seen above, which support the shopping malls of Liverpool 1. Eventually the public will be given access to parts of the dock, one of the earliest of the city's historic features.

A puzzling feature was the differences in height of the dock side in different places ranging from 3.7 metres to 4.7 metres above sea level. It was decided that this was to cater for the variations in tidal range or possibly for different sized boats. In the early days there were no cranes so cargoes were discharged by men carrying them along a plank or gangway to the dock side. Too steep a slope could be disastrous.

As a pioneer, the wet dock identified problems which later dock construction was able to avoid. Brickwork was not used again on large dock developments, probably as a result of Liverpool's dock walls crumbling over time. Instead, as was the case in all the later docks, stone was used since this was much more durable. The variation in dock side level was not used elsewhere as cargo handling improved. In many old settlements the present-day street layout and property boundaries reflect the pattern established centuries ago.

In Liverpool, the recent development reflects the shape of the Old Dock beneath the new shopping malls. This pattern is familiar to archaeologists.

What was not familiar was their way of working on the site. Whereas they were used to excavating in draughty fields and wind swept countryside they had to wait for the contractors to install countless concrete piles and roof them over with concrete beams so that the building work could be carried out above. The diggers then moved in below the new ground level, to excavate underground, more mining than archaeology.

During the latter years of its use the Olds Dock had been suffering from increasing siltation, partly because of the sand burden of the incoming sea water but also because of the build up of sewage which was being released into the dock. It could be assumed that any sewers would lead downhill into the dock but the archaeologists were amazed to come across a bricked up tunnel which sloped downwards from the dock to a lower level, for no apparent reason.

The tunnel entrance is shown in photograph 3, pierced by a pipe made from a hollow log, itself contains a timber plug. Various explanations were offered, from it predating the Old Dock, being associated with the original pool or being a secret escape tunnel from the castle. It did lead off in the direction of the castle site but unfortunately a row of pilings prevented any further investigation.

As part of the development a Visitor Centre is to be established which will exhibit the history of the site and allow public access to a section of the dock wall. Of all the structures in the city the Old Dock must be of the greatest importance since without the dock the fishing village would not have become the thriving port which continues today, a most sobering thought that someone from the 21st century can actually see the reason why a city came into being in the first place.

Mr Quartermain continued his presentation but details of this will be published in the next issue of Cuttings. It was a fascinating story and very well received by all those present.   

1729 map of the Old Dock and the surrounding area.

The view in WG Herdman's painting on our front cover would have been visible from the point marked with an 'x'.

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