Williamson tunnels why were they built

To accommodate the gardens, Williamson had his men build brick arches that they could be extended onto. In this way, the gardens and orchards were laid out and, most significantly, the first outwardly visible parts of the tunnels had been put in place. The manner in which matters developed from this point on is the subject of much Chinese whispering and even more speculation.

A choice has to be made here without the benefit of any significant documentary evidence. Most casual and many serious observers today maintain that Williamson had his men continue digging, building and tunneling, perhaps making use of the old quarries on the site, as a response to the poverty which surrounded his neighbourhood. His comments may have been observation rather than explanation and are not in themselves enough to prove the philanthropy theory. Indeed the absence of any categorical explanation of the tunnels by their mastermind leads inevitably to speculation about alternatives.

These include the suggestion that the Williamsons subscribed to an extremist religious sect which claimed that the world faced Armageddon several years hence. Williamson therefore built the tunnels as a place into which he and his fellow believers could escape to avoid the catastrophe and emerge later to build a new city. Fanciful though this theory appears, there are factors which lend it some credence: at the time Liverpool was a hotbed of religious extremism, with any number of sects propounding such theories.

Secondly, it is known that Williamson was a religious man — a regular member of the congregation of St. Thirdly, as stated above, he was very secretive about the tunnels, only allowing certain people to see inside the hidden parts of them. Finally, equipped with this theory today, one cannot help but notice the numerous gothic, chapel-like features that have survived in many parts of the tunnels …. In any case, the expansion of the labyrinth continued.

By the Napoleonic Wars were effectively over. Soldiers returned to their home towns and thousands began looking for work. Just as important, the home industries which supported the war effort suddenly had a lot less to do. Unemployment was rife and social support was only available on a scarce and informal basis. Williamson had retired and sold the tobacco firm by now.

It would appear that from this point on almost all his attention was given over to expanding the tunnels — whatever the reason. It is easy to underestimate the severity of the recession that hit Liverpool at the time. Williamson kept taking more and more men on. Skip to content. Liverpool Heroes 4: Jesse Hartley. Shirdley Hill Sand, Sefton Coast. I would love to visit some time too. Regards, Martin. Pingback: No. He holds it up to the light and an image of King Edward VII himself appears in the base of the mug, cleverly embossed into the ceramic.

Why the tunnels are even here might be another history lesson — but, for the most part, is a mystery. Born in England in , Joseph Williamson was a successful tobacco merchant. He ploughed his money back into the local area — Edge Hill — by employing men to build houses. He also had men build tunnels.

One entrance to the system even has been found in the basement of his former house. But why tunnels? Did he ask them to build his tunnels arbitrarily, for no other purpose than to be paid for work?

It seems extraordinary. Instead, succeeding generations and historians have had to guess — leading to all manner of speculation. Perhaps Williamson wanted secret passages to get to and from buildings in Edge Hill. Or was a smuggler and needed the tunnels to carry out covert operations. Or maybe he and his wife belonged to a fanatical religious cult that anticipated the end of the world, and his tunnels were designed to provide shelter during the apocalypse.

Apparently, someone once made the suggestion casually on television, and the idea since stuck. Not with Bridson, however. Those who have worked on the tunnels have now developed a new, somewhat more satisfying theory. Bridson points out a series of markings in the sandstone that he says are indicative of quarrying.

There are channels to drain rainwater away from the rock while men worked, blocks out of which sandstone could be hewn, and various niches in the walls where rigs were once likely installed to help with extracting the stone, commonly used as a building material.

Bridson believes that before Williamson came along, these pits in the ground already existed. Properties could then be built on top of the reclaimed land — which otherwise would have been practically worthless. Williamson was also said to have engaged his workers in pointless duties, such as moving piles of rocks from one place to another for no purpose, and excavating tunnels only to have the entrance bricked up.

Many of Williamson's workers is said to have later found employment in railway construction with the skills they had learned. More recent research by academics of Edge Hill University suggests that Williamson was not driven by any philanthropic goals, but the purpose of his tunneling endeavor was to extract stone to supply a demanding urban market.

The researchers believe that Williamson sought to conceal his real motives because the excavations constituted illegal quarrying and Williamson would have required to pay large amounts of income tax and mineral rights duties from the sale of sandstone, which he wished to avoid.

One can only speculate why Henderson was so keen to protect the secrecy of the tunnels if there was nothing nefarious in Williamson's activities. Nonetheless, Edge Hill remembers Joseph Williamson as a local hero. In the s, a small portion of the tunnels were excavated and large number of personal artifact belonging to the Williamson family was recovered.

A part of the tunnel is now open to public visit. The Wine Bins, Williamson Tunnels. Artifacts recovered during excavation, displayed inside the tunnel.