HERITAGE UNDER THREAT: LIVERPOOL’S EDGE HILL CUTTING

One of the most spectacular, but little known engineering feats of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway (L&MR) is the ‘Grand Area’ – as James Scott Walker dubbed it in 1830 – at Edge Hill.

Here were the portals to the Wapping Tunnel and the short Crown Street passenger tunnel, the famous Moorish Arch which housed the two Stephenson winding engines, and the towering 105ft tall chimneys dubbed the ‘Pillars of Hercules.’

In 1830, the Wapping Tunnel was considered a wonder of the world. It burrows for 1½ miles under the streets of Liverpool, emerging on to the docks at Wapping where Park Lane goods station used to stand.

Brilliantly illuminated by gas, visitors were admitted to the tunnel upon payment of a modest fee. One of the most famous visitors was William Huskisson MP in August 1830.

George Stephenson wrote: “We had a grand day last Friday – Huskisson visited the greater part of the line with the Directors – of course I was one of the party ... at Olive Mount we were met by the Locomotive Engine () which took the whole party, amounting to about 135, through the deep cutting at the rate of nine miles an