I apologise for resurrecting this long-forgotten thread of mine after so long, especially as I have no modelling to offer (if you’re anything like me, I only like looking at pictures so feel free to move on without reading any further), but in lieu of such, I’ve decided to fulfil a promise to
@Osgood - or any other WT-er in the unlikely event that they might be in the slightest bit interested in this remotest of possibilities (if that makes any sense?).
Eventually, I intend to start a new thread chronicling the construction of this layout, and create a link to this for continuity, so if anybody is interested, bear with me and I’ll do so in due course, providing details of gauge, size and track plan which I hope some will find if interest.
It’s unlikely that I will be attempting to do any modelling until the warmer weather arrives, but my goal at present is to at least construct a working chassis for a Manor Class loco in the time available.
Until then, thanks for looking.
P.S. the kit-bashed signal box in the previous post won’t be making an appearance; I’m going back to an original idea for Cheapside’s box.
Liverpool (Cheapside) G.WR. - a history.
According to some, Joseph Willamson (1769-1840) was simply an ‘eccentric’ business man; a philanthropist, best remembered for his labyrinth of tunnels hewn from the soft sandstone bedrock on which stands the City of Liverpool. Apart from mention of one or two apparent unusual traits, this rather unkind description of a man who did a great deal of good for the poor of the city is unqualified.
However, there is no doubt in the minds of many that this slur is due to the very tunnels for which he is renowned, creations that many saw as mere folly.
But look at little closer, and you’ll find that the ‘facts’ don’tquite fit.
You see, Williamson was an inspired businessman of working class roots, whose acumen saw him grasp every opportunity to work his way up the ladder in his future father-in-law’s tobacco business, eventually acquiring the business for himself following the former’s death. But add to this the fact that, unbeknown to his late father-in-law, Joseph had been busy squirrelling away the healthy profits of his own successful tobacco businesses for several years hitherto, in essence, making him a direct competitor of the hand that fed him. Already it is plain to see that Joseph had a ruthless streak to his character, essential some might say to the development of the accomplished empire builder he was to become. Ironically, it was these private interests that ensured the necessary collateral to acquire the business from its eventual owner: his brother-in-law. That, and the fact he’d married into the family!
But it was this very ruthlessness, drive and foresight that made him the man he was; a man who not only did business with the up and coming port of Liverpool, but also with its established contemporary: Bristol (perhaps not in usual in itself, however this willingness to speculate and refusal to be tied to one master, would provide the impetus for a whole new venture) and further evidence of a man who wasn’t averse to doing a deal with the devil by having a foot in both camps. So you see, the Mole of Edgehill, as he affectionately became known, never did anything without a reason. Even one of his eccentricities which has been described elsewhere, wasn’t the peculiar act it first seemed after hearing the full story - in the interests of keeping to the plot, I shall refrain from regaling you here with that tale, save to say that how else does a rich man ensure that his many acquaintances are indeed true friends? So you see, everything done for a reason.
Therefore, is it likely that this shrewd businessman and tunnel engineer – you can add that to his list of attributes – would merely waste the last of his years and flout his hard-earned wealth boring holes in the ground and paying the masses to pointlessly move earth from one point to another, then back again, for no other apparent reason other than he could?Perhaps. However, whilst on the surface (no pun intended) his honourable intentions to busy the recently demobbed soldiers of the Napoleonic War and provide them with an honest income cannot be challenged, the reasons that this was simply the good deed of a man of considerable wealth wishing to share some of it via trivial means should, and has to be folly in itself, especially in light of the evidence.
So what on earth, does all this have to with railways?
Even in his latter years, when attention had turned away from a more recent venture of property developing in the Edge Hill area of Liverpool, his passion for business was never far from Joseph’s mind. Perhaps it was a sheer stroke of luck that Joseph took up residence and located his tunnels in that particular area, but it cannot go unnoticed that Edge Hill was also the site of the western terminus of the pioneering Liverpool-Manchester Railway of 1830. Like many of his contemporaries, Joseph was struck by the prospect of railways and the opportunities they could provide, especially in terms of investment, and with it all happening in his own back yard, well, the temptation to do a little prospecting of his own was just a little too hard to resist.
Already a man of influence, Joseph had the ear of several landowners especially Lord Derby, a conservative bitterly opposed to change and, like so many of his ilk, averse to the notion of these new-fangled iron-horses traversing his land. Indeed, it was Derby who was instrumental in delaying Stephenson’s venture, and possibly one of the reasons why Stephenson looked to exploit Joseph. That, and of course, his experience at tunnelling through sandstone rock, essential to Stephenson’s goal of getting his line the final couple of miles or so into the City, and essentially, the environs of the lucrative docks.
But with his interest already piqued, Joseph had no intentions of extending his benevolence to a possible rival in Stephenson, as he’d already commenced a project of his own;one that would be in direct competition with Stephenson’s by attracting business from more southwesterly provinces; one which he could drive through without incurring high costs; one which a wealthy financier of Joseph’s standing – with a little additional investment - could deliver. He had the ambition, the finance, the workforce, and much of the engineering know-how that had allowed him to make a start, in effect, putting him ahead of his competitors. Most importantly, however, in this dawn of the railway age, he had the ear of the gentry, essential to getting any proposal through Parliament – or even just to broach the subject. As mentioned, the biggest obstacle to the plans of any railway entrepreneur, were the landowners and canal companies, especially the latter who saw the railways as a threat. For what Joseph had in mind, however, the owners of the only canal affected along his proposed route – the Sankey (St. Helens) Canal – had no axe to grind with him, satisfied that Joseph had no desire to poach the relative small fry of an upriver wharf which it served. Indeed, Joseph had bigger fish to fry down in Liverpool’s docklands, enhanced by the conveyance of City businessmen, ‘for hire or reward’, into the heart of Liverpool’s business district, an area known to its inhabitants as Cheapside. No doubt, with Joseph’s gentle powers of persuasion, the canal owners, having had the pros and cons of such a venture spelt out to them, would have succumbed to the inevitable.
So, returning to Joseph’s biggest hurdle, how would he persuade the reluctant landowners to come on board and offer their full support, both financially and politically? Apart from the prospect of change, many claimed that the sight and sounds of these horseless carriages would prove detrimental both in terms of aesthetics and to the welfare of their livestock, to say nothing of broaching their revered hunting grounds.
However, Joseph could circumvent these issues by offering assurances that the urban part of his line would be mainly subterranean, and that his proposed terminus of Warrington, a town several miles to the south east of Liverpool situated on the upper reaches of the Mersey, and which many considered Joseph’s home town, could be reached by skirting the banks of the estuary along its entire length, obviating the need to encroach on the estates of any country pile (apart from Speke Hall, of course, however we’re thinking here in terms of ‘real estate’ of the influential). What Joseph intended to do with his line on reaching Warrington would be a matter of concern, something he was acutely aware of and perhaps a moot point, but Joseph knew only too well that financial enticements were key to maintaining the interest of any potential investor, and securing the trade from all ports west, including the nugget in the form of the Port of Bristol, would, he considered, be enough for them to grant him at least a listening ear.
Perhaps it was naïve nee foolhardy even of Joseph to have started his project without Royal Assent – I prefer to think it as yet another mark of his enduring prowess and confidence at getting his own way, and let’s not forget his unwavering support of Liverpool’s poorest in the process - but by Spring of 1828, two years prior to the opening of the Liverpool-Manchester Railway in 1830, the subterranean section of his scheme had all but been completed and was ready to burst forth from the rock-face in Dingle, close to where the C.L.C.would later plumb the depths into Central High Level Station.
But, you see, even for those of privilege, not all hurdles were so easily overcome, even in more clandestine times.
I refer here to the acquisition of locomotives. Even for Joseph, especially at this relatively embryonic stage of railway development, this was to prove a monumental task . From where was he going to secure this fundamental detail of any railway system, past or present, without giving the game away? While, to date, he’d somehow managed to carry on covertly constructing the built environment of his railway beneath the streets without attracting too much unwarranted attention, it would no longer be as easy to conceal his plans from prying eyes, as the Stephenson’s were the ‘go-to’ of the time in terms of loco construction and purchase, with their superior engineering knowledge, work force and foundries.
Obviously, Joseph still had much to do if his venture was ever to see the light of day.
But there again, personalities of Joseph’s standing wouldn’t let something as trivial a detail as this put pay to their best laid plans, and although not a matter of record, other avenues would undoubtedly have been explored- was it for instance Joseph who first sparked the seed of rail travel from the southwest in the mind of a certain engineer while discussing the prospect of locomotion, and whose son’s name famously became synonymous with railways in this region? That’s how deeply influential the Mole of Edgehill was in those innovative times. Indeed, a bridge for crossing the Mersey at its first narrowest point was outsourced to the engineer Charles Vignoles (he of the iron rails). Essentially of wooden construction – unlike his later iron construction in Oxford – it was to have been akin to a method he had become familiar with during his army service and more durable than one at first might think (and of course, economically sound). Coincidentally, Vignoles was later employed as a tunnelling engineer himself at the behest of Stephenson, for a later railway venture beneath the streets of Liverpool, and from which his services were ignominiously dispensed with; in favour, I believe, of a certain Mr. Gooch, no less.
Sadly for Joseph, however, he was beginning to face his greatest nemesis: his ailing health. Project managing, as we’d call it in this day and age, eventually proved nigh on impossible, and during bouts of illness, others were beginning to round on Liverpool and his other target, Bristol, as history has shown. Undoubtedly, without his dynamism and oversight, the project was doomed, and regrettably never got any further than that unremarkable Dingle rock-face.
Finally, on 1st May 1840, the great man succumbed to ‘water on the chest’ and died along with his, and mine’s, hopes of God’s Wonderful – as it eventually became known - ever gracing this most northerly of outposts – as indeed it should (Cheapside is a far more fitting location for an Inter-City railway station than Lime Street, or at least I’ve always thought. Consider Exchange Station (Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway) on the other side of Dale Street from Cheapside and its far more salubrious surroundings in the business district).
What therefore, one wonders, would Cheapside station have looked like?
Attached is a (rather poor) sketch of the dungeon-esque conditions likely to have formed part of this subterranean world, that would have seen the embarkation and disembarkation of members of the poor (like me) and other goods – as well as providing cover for the ubiquitous turntable or traverser for the release of steam locomotives - with its soot-stained brick arched ceilings and longitudinal cast-iron beams stretching its length.
Meanwhile, the upper-echelon of Liverpool’s Georgian society would have enjoyed the more genteel surroundings of a train-shed, located in the only part of this underground creation open to the elements: ‘in order to relieve the ladies of their claustrophobic tendencies’.
The station building, almost certainly entirely constructed below ground level, would either have been of stone and brick construction in typical Regency style, or of timber as many of the earliest stations were, anything above ground consisting mainly of an atrium, perhaps with a covered iron awning for the protection from the elements of the upper classes as they alighted their horse-drawn carriages.
So what, if anything, is left to substantiate any of this?
Certainly no trace above ground would have remained following extensive war damage and post-war modernisation, although perhaps one day, when funds allow, the friends of Williamson’s Tunnels
Friends of Williamson's Tunnelsmight excavate the terminus buried beneath, along with much of what remains of his extensive tunnelling – or, more likely, during the pending navigation of these old underground passageways, which will once again see a number of the city’s stations of yore returned to service.
And wouldn’t it, indeed, be a fitting epitaph for a remarkable man who, amongst other great achievements, did so much to relieve the suffering of the poorest in one of our greatest cities, long before the creation of the Welfare State?
Watch this space.
Jonte