Inside Liverpool's Old Dock - and how to visit it

An 800-year-old sally port linking to Liverpool Castle was a major find during excavations

Every day people walk through Liverpool city centre - and unbeknown to them, beneath their feet is an amazing old dock and the creek from which the city's name derives.

The Old Dock was the world's first commercial wet dock and the creek which the dock was built on is a rare natural inlet coming in from the River Mersey.

These hidden gems have been preserved underneath Liverpool ONE, and Merseyside Maritime Museum showcases them on FREE tours.

The revolutionary Old Dock was discovered during excavations in 2001, after being buried since 1826.

Developers Grosvenor safeguarded the dock and made a portion of it publicly accessible as an important reminder of Liverpool's historic status.

The Old Dock was 95 yards across, 220 yards long and could hold 100 ships.

Many curious Merseysiders and tourists have been to see it, so we went down to listen to tour guide Daniel Wright.

Why the dock was built

Civil engineer Thomas Steers was commissioned to design the dock in 1709 and it was first opened in 1715.

Daniel said: "The dock is the first enclosed commercial wet dock in the world.

"There were other wet docks, but because our dock was used solely for trade its special.

"It had a business infrastructure and it had ways to load and unload ships quickly.

"What sets this dock apart from others was that it had locked gates on.

"If you had a dock without gates then you were reliant on the tide and because the tide came in and out the water level changed.

"If you didn't have a wet dock it would taken two weeks to unload a ship and load it up.

"But with this dock, you had a static water level so you could load and unload anytime.

"This was the only dock in the world that could commercially unload and load a ship in a day and a half and that meant merchant shipping companies from around the world wanted to use it for trade.

"The more people that used it meant more money came in and the merchants decided to build more docks.

"Many people came through this dock and Liverpool becomes metropolitan.

"There are other impacts which were not positive: Liverpool was involved in the Transatlantic slave trade."

Industrial Revolution begins

The Old dock was the catalyst for the industrial revolution in England's North West.

Tobacco, sugar, coffee and cotton needed refining and the Liverpool mills and refineries were not enough.

Daniel said: "So they spilled out into the North West. At the time when the dock was built, commodities like sugar were hard to come by.

"But because goods were able to be loaded and unloaded quickly the colonies decided to mass produce goods. Demand in Europe for sugar, cotton and coffee rose and values dropped.

"Liverpool takes off because the River Dee silts up.

"Merchants from Chester, and even London, came and carried on their trade legacy."

Using bricks

The Old Dock was made out of small bricks to keep costs down and because Thomas Steers' saw canals developed with them.

Daniel said: "It was because of labour costs why bricks were used, as to transport quarry stone was expensive.

"But it's also linked to Thomas Steers background as a Quartermaster. In Flanders, he saw canals developed and applied his knowledge on a bigger scale here.

"He realised bricks aren't ideal because they're soft.

"Having 150 tonne ships enter meant he had to reinforce the wall with wooden fender posts, and when he designs later docks he uses big stone slabs."

Before the dock was built the tide was stopped from entering by a dam which was set up at the pool's mouth, allowing labourers to cut a shelf into the bedrock and construct a wall on top of it.

Daniel added: "The bricks were made from the river's shoreline and were fired up on site.

"Once it was built they backfilled the wall and the locked gates were operated with capstans.

"When they removed the dam they had a working wet dock.

"The wall's mortar is phenonemal. William Bibby gave the mortar recipe to Steers and the lime mortar is that good that it's similar in property to Portland Cement."

Liverpool Castle escape route

The Old Dock had an exit linking to Liverpool Castle.

Daniel said: "It's known as a sally port, you can see its archway.

"It's 6ft 4ins in height and the tunnel leads in the castle's direction.

"If the castle was under siege supplies entered.

"To attack an enemy, troops gathered and at low tide they could go through with spears.

"It's 800 years old and was a major find during Oxford Archeology's excavations."

Recycling Liverpool Castle's ruins

Ruins from Liverpool Castle were used to construct the Old Dock.

Daniel said: "We have a red sandstone block, which was from the castle.

"This was a way of redeploying the castle. It shows a change in priority for Liverpool.

"Liverpool had a castle for status and defence. But we didn't need the castle anymore, so it was pulled down and bits were used to build the dock so Liverpool could trade globally."

Big slabs of stone, called coping stones, marked the quayside's height.

They were important because without coping stones in winter, rain would get into the wall, freeze and expand.

Liverpool bedrock

The visible creek is important because people could fish and settle here.

Daniel said: "As a Liverpudlian, the pool's bedrock is probably the most important attraction you can see here.

"It's the one place in the city that you can see where Liverpool got its name.

"'Liver' might be from King John who refers to us as Liuerpul , which is a Norman Anglo-Saxon translation from Latin which means 'muddy' or 'sluggish creek'."

Booking a tour

Tours of Liverpool's Old Dock can be booked.

Call 0151 478 4499. Large groups - call 0151 478 4788.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday at 10.30am, 12pm and 2.30pm.

Merseyside Maritime Museum, Albert Dock, Liverpool Waterfront, L3 4AQ