The Williamson Tunnels in Liverpool: Built For No Particular Reason
It is fair to say that Liverpool is a city filled with history. Pretty much wherever you look, there are all sorts of different things that you could spend hours, if not days, looking into the history of.
Whether it be the parts of Liverpool that The Beatles spent their time in or it be the city’s disgraceful links to the slave trade, almost every corner of the famous city has a story to tell. That is why there are so many museums on offer to visitors to Liverpool, getting plenty of chances to learn all about the things that have gone before us.
@coolitliverpool Next question bffr 🥂 #oops #liverpool #ink #rnb ♬ original sound – Elsie Silver
What many people might not realise, though, is that there is just as much history below the streets as there is on top of them. When the Queensway Tunnel was opened, for example, it was the longest tunnel in the world, boasting the chance to move between Liverpool and the Wirral Peninsula in complete safety.
Yet there are some other tunnels that exist that have their own unique history, even though no one is quite sure why they were built in the first place. A visit to the Williamson Tunnels might be amongst the most fascinating of all.
About Joseph Williamson
In 1806, a wealthy businessman named Joseph Williamson acquired some land in the Mason Street area of Edge Hill. At the time, that was largely an undeveloped section of sandstone that had a scattering of small-scale quarries and scars.
The land was held under a lease from the West Derby Waste Commissioners, who wanted to ensure that they kept the rights to any minerals found under it. Williamson decided to start building some houses on top of the land, located next to fashionable parts of the city.
“Underworld”
Gifted both above
Pen and crayon over paper cutouts with ink on paperThe ruined house of Joseph Williamson.
Williamson began tunnelling under his house in Liverpool from around 1805 until his death 35 years later. The resulting labyrinth was only rediscovered in the 1990’s.
— Alexis Butterfield (@takealineforawalk.bsky.social) 2 September 2024 at 20:44
Williamson was something of an eccentric, with the houses being without any rational plans to them, being labelled as ‘of the strangest description’. The land behind the houses dropped away quite sharply, so Williamson organised for the building of arched terraces on top of which gardens could be built.
Throughout his time in the area, Williamson continued to create more and more buildings, including the large house on Mason Street itself in which he and his wife lived. He employed a large group of labour to help him in his endeavours.
The Workers Who Built the Tunnels
The workforce that Williamson employed to help him build his houses was largely made up of the poor and needy, with the man himself reportedly looking to help give them purpose and money.
Some of those brought in to help were soldiers who had been left unemployed after the end of the Napoleonic Wars. It was not uncommon for Williamson to give them seemingly pointless tasks, such as to move a large pile of rubble from one place to another and then back to their original position.
When not doing work on the houses that Williamson wanted building, the workforce was often tasked with excavating tunnels and vaults at various depths within the sandstone. They were not limited to just the immediate area, stretching out to the boundaries of Williamson’s leased land and even beyond.
In one part of the tunnels, beneath Grinfield Street, there was a ‘fearful opening’ that included four-roomed houses’. The work building the seemingly random tunnels carried on until Williamson’s death in 1840, later being thought of as a ‘great nuisance’.
Touring the Tunnels
Although some work to survey the tunnels was carried out in 1881 and then again in the early part of the 20th century, by the middle of the period there was a general lack of interest in Williamson’s Tunnels. As a result, many of those that had been built at his request had been lost to new construction. In the 1980s, however, a renewed sense of intrigue into the tunnels began to increase, leading to two protection societies being created and the excavation of more of the tunnels across numerous different sites in Liverpool.
lancashire historic society check out the williamson tunnels in the mid 20s pic.twitter.com/QTbcISkf6V
— liverpoolyesterday2yesteryear (@scousegary1) December 31, 2024
As the years went by, more and more of the tunnels were discovered and soon people were able to go on a tour of the Williamson Tunnels. That tour remains today, with the registered charity the Friends of Williamson’s Tunnels looking after the area. Quite why they were built in the first place remains a mystery. There are some who believe that Williamson wanted to find an excuse to use some of his wealth to give money to the most needy whilst also giving them self-respect. Others are convinced that he was part of a religious sect. The truth, sadly, will almost certainly never be discovered.
