Time Team Special: The Lost Dock Of Liverpool

[John(Zappa)]

Without going on tooooooooooo much about slavery there are people who have lived all their lives in Liverpool and grew up with the misconceptions and still believe that slaves were chained up in Exchange square and sold there etc etc. which as Ged put it my cousin Franny Carlyle would be totally outraged at this. They showed Nelsons statue and the French prisoners of war whilst talking about slavery giving the impression the statue depicts slaves in chains totally misleading. The Georges hall was breezed over no mention pf Harvey Lonsdale Elms, and they only threw in Thomas Steers name once linking him with the dock briefly.I was totally disappointed with the programme.

Debz and Zappa

[Cadfael]

I have to say for a 'special', it wasn't much. I only watched it for the Liverpool connection and there wasn't anyone who lifted a spade! (apart from Phil who looks like he could with a bloody good wash and a hair cut!)

You wonder what else we have under Liverpool which has been 'forgotten' about and will only come to the surface once another large building is knocked down.

[julieoapw]

Exactly what I thought Kevin!

[QUOTE=kevin;127685]We finally get some interesting coverage of Liverpool yet the main thrust of this thread is identifying negativity?
QUOTE]

[Samp]

The Time team Special I feel was very positive for Liverpool, which makes a welcome change.

It also was better without the Academic Muppit in the striped jumper swanning around.

The next dig is in North Wales, ( they are looking for a piece of Flint!!)

[brian daley]

I have just watched the Time Team programme on the Lost dock of Liverpool,immediately after watching it I logged on to read how the regulars felt about it. Shytalk and Ged mirrored my thoughts,Tony Robinson did'nt matter,Liverpool spoke for her self.Just watching those images flash by on the screen was marvellous,it did'nt need a sound track,the music of the city was in its' people and the wonderful buildings. I feel like an ex-pat down here,a bit cut off from the current life in the city,that programme made me feel so homesick. I am a son of that beautiful old pile,the different nationalities that created the fabric of that town course through my veins, slave owner and slave, oppressed and oppressor,we are the sum of its years,there is no other city like it ,and no other people like us. Liverpool I love you.
BrianD

[julieoapw]

Yes, I was bursting with pride too Brian.

[knowhowe]

Nice pics Steve. You haven't got one of the Dolphin pub that was in the Steers House complex have you, I worked in Foster House next door to it for a short while.

Sorry Ged, I haven't. Just something else that I should have photographed but didn't..

Here's another of the remains of the Customs House dating from as late as 1954, over a decade after it was bombed. The cellars don't seem to go down anywhere near as deep as that hole we saw on the programme. One wonders, therefore, how much damage its construction would have caused to the Old Dock beneath?



I found both this and the aerial view above online somewhere ages ago but can't for the life of me remember where now.

I heard it said that the interior of the Customs House was, like the Museum, gutted by incendiaries but that its main structure was basically ok and could also have been restored. What we see in the pictures is deliberate demolition, not bomb damage. Can anyone confirm?

[lindylou]

I have just watched the Time Team programme on the Lost dock of Liverpool,immediately after watching it I logged on to read how the regulars felt about it. Shytalk and Ged mirrored my thoughts,Tony Robinson did'nt matter,Liverpool spoke for her self.Just watching those images flash by on the screen was marvellous,it did'nt need a sound track,the music of the city was in its' people and the wonderful buildings. I feel like an ex-pat down here,a bit cut off from the current life in the city,that programme made me feel so homesick. I am a son of that beautiful old pile,the different nationalities that created the fabric of that town course through my veins, slave owner and slave, oppressed and oppressor,we are the sum of its years,there is no other city like it ,and no other people like us. Liverpool I love you.
BrianD

Lovely words Brian. I too am very proud of Liverpool

[Ged]

Those Customs house 'cellars' look like ground floor rooms to me

[knowhowe]

You may be right.

[fortinian]

Just re-watched it 'on demand'. There was quite a bit on St George's Hall actually - in retrospect it seems that most of the program was actually about repeating what had previously been said (after every commercial, Tony would repeat what they were doing in Liverpool). There was so little by way of explaining about the imports and exports (cheshire salt, cotton, tobacco (and the Stanley Dock) which would have all been relevant to Steers' dock by way of evolution.

Like I said though, we could spend hours saying what wasn't included, i'm just glad they made a decent programme of it - even though it wasn't spectacular.

[lindylou]

yes, I agree with that. I was quite pleased with the program overall.

[PhilipG]

Not seen that photo before.

The main structure was demolishd in 1948.
With indecent haste.
It was said "to provide employment", and the Government gave subsidies (or compensation) for demolished buildings, although it's now agreed that it could have been rebuilt.
I still think they're the cellars (and foundations) we're looking at.
The tops of the walls seem level with the surrounding streets, etc.
Besides, wouldn't the ground floor rooms have been bigger?

[Ged]

The rooms do look small but looking at those bollardy things running along Canning Place at Street level, these rooms don't look to be below them?

Yet when you look at the street in the foreground, the rectangle room next to it is definitely above ground but the rooms the other side of it could be below? A bit of an optical illusion.

[kevin]

I still think they're the cellars (and foundations) we're looking at.

You could be right. The building was constructed when it wasn't unusual to have cellars which finished slightly above ground level. It was necessary if you wanted to install a window to get some light in there - gas and electric not being as efficient as they now are.