3 tunnels under The Baltic Fleet Pub...

[Sloyne]

Some ships through one reason or another ended

up with holds full of slaves back in Liverpool. Many unintentionally.

Not so sure about this. Ships leaving Goree and other West African Coast ports

had lots of options for discharging thier human gargo's between the West African coast and Liverpool. Cadiz, Lisbon, Oporto, Santander, Balboa or even the

passage to the Portuguese markets on the Cape Verde Islands, not to mention Bristol, or the many English Channel ports and numerous Mediteranean ports were

all options, rather than Liverpool. Even allowing for an average 30% attrition rate (figures for the middle passage) which is not likely on the shorter

voyage to Europe, I don't where the market would be, in North West England, for between 150 and 170 Africans.

[MissInformed]

...apparently.

Did few shifts there over last Christmas and the then manager was telling me about the tunnels going from the

basement.

One goes towards the docks- smuggling? Another goes into the city, and I can't quite remember the details of the third except to say that

given the shackles and chains which are apparently still in place they did at some point house victims of the slave-trade.

Part of one of the tunnels

is still used as part of their micro-brewery.


Who runs the place now? At the time the manager wasn't too confident of the owner's longterm

intentions.

...........to get back to the original thread!! any more info on the tunnels?

[Howie]

See

BBC - Liverpool - Coast - Stage 8 - Salthouse

Dock

Underneath the pub there are caverns and cellars and stories abound of a tunnel running from the pubs cellar to the docks, through which

in the days of the Press Gang men would be captured in pubs. According to the legend Press Gangs would get men drunk and then take them through the tunnels

and aboard the ships to work, they would wake up with a sore head and aboard a ship in open sea.

[Howie]

See also DESKTOP PUB -

Gallery

Ben Flynn told us of his time at the Baltic fleet - "I used to work there in the mid seventies. When I started there were all

these chains in the cellar and these tunnels underground. There were rumours about the cellars being used to chain up unfortunates who were shanghaied and

taken onto the ships in the nearby docks. And more rumours that Pirates had used the tunnels to smuggle things into the country. But we never did find out

what the chains were actually used for!"
"When there was a high tide – the cellar sometimes flooded! We had to have all planks and barriers in the way

down there, and it must have filled with water about twice a year before we got it blocked off in the end."

Now there is a microbrewery in the Baltic

Fleet basement.

[Waterways]

Not so sure about this. Ships leaving Goree and other West African Coast ports had lots of options for discharging thier human gargo's

between the West African coast and Liverpool. Cadiz, Lisbon, Oporto, Santander, Balboa or even the passage to the Portuguese markets on the Cape Verde

Islands, not to mention Bristol, or the many English Channel ports and numerous Mediteranean ports were all options, rather than Liverpool. Even allowing for

an average 30% attrition rate (figures for the middle passage) which is not likely on the shorter voyage to Europe, I don't where the market would be, in

North West England, for between 150 and 170 Africans.

Many were already sold, they just eneded up in Liverpool, and eventually in the

Caribbean.

[Sloyne]

Many were already sold, they just eneded

up in Liverpool, and eventually in the Caribbean.

Perhaps so, I wouldn't have any knowledge of that. I do, however, know from the accessible archives

located in the Central/Picton Library in Liverpool and Liverpool University that, very few Africans, between 1619, the acknowledged year that modern European

slavery from Africa started until the abolition by Britain in 1833, very few Africans, in comparison to those carried in Liverpool ships, were sold into

bondage in Liverpool it's self.

I know some, for whatever reason, would like the history of Liverpool and it's involvement in the trade in human

misery to be more complicit than it already is. Perhaps there are other sources that I have overlooked that shed light on your claim. I would be grateful if

you could pass the information, and it's source, along, your information might fill in some gaps in my own incomplete knowledge of the subject. Thanks in

advance.

[Kev]

Tunnels obvious in these attachments. Liverpool but I don't know where, I assume very near

to the River front:

[PhilipG]

Tunnels obvious in these attachments. Liverpool but I don't know where, I assume very near to the River

front:

Where did you get those pics, Kev?
I don't think I've seen them before, but I'd guess St James Mount for the first one, and Mason

Street for the second.
Can anyone confirm?

[ChrisGeorge]

Tunnels obvious in these attachments.

Liverpool but I don't know where, I assume very near to the River front:

Tunnels okay, but connecting to where?

Chris

[MissInformed]

do you all think that the owner of the baltic fleet wouldn't mind one of us going down into the 'so called tunnels' to clear this up??

[Kev]

do you all think that the owner of the baltic fleet wouldn't mind one of us going down into the 'so called tunnels' to clear this up??

ask, i thought that whilst driving past. suppose you have got to be cheeky some times

[MissInformed]

i think we should send one if the main men in tunnel snap shottery down there....nudge nudge...

[snappel]

I don't think I've seen them before, but I'd guess St James Mount for the first one, and Mason Street for the second.
Can anyone confirm?

They're excellent historic pictures. I'm 99% sure you're right on both counts. The second one can't be anywhere else but Mason St/Smithdown Lane.

As for the Baltic tunnels... Somebody mentioned to me about tunnels in the basement of the Heap Rice Mill, which would tie in with the Baltic Fleet stories. I've been in the mill basement twice, but didn't find anything, although that was before I heard about the tunnels so I wasn't really looking.

[MissInformed]

great pic....
would be interesting to see the baltic fleet ones, if they do exist...

[PhilipG]

Now that they've demolished the Fire Station at Canning Place (the one with the white mosaic walls) some interesting big blocks of masonry stones are on the site, obviously from much older buildings.
Also visible are tunnels (sorry about that, they're probably cellars!).

Sorry if I'm off-topic.