At Braygreen, we run four social media Facebook groups on local history.
Our largest group is Liverpool's Lost Pubs which has 15,000 members and is well known throughout Liverpool. Our second group is My History of Liverpool which provides some rare images and history on Liverpool, with over 10,000 members. Our third group is My History of Childwall. This group has a strong following for the local community and has over 3,000 members. We total just over 28,000 members across these groups. Finally, our newest group is the Joseph Williamson's Tunnels, providing the full historical overview of the Williamson's Tunnels in Edge Hill!
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LIVERPOOL'S LOST PUBS – With over 15,000 members in this group, Liverpool’s Lost Pubs focus on our past lost pubs and clubs in Liverpool. A staggering amount of pubs have been demolished or left abandoned, where once there was ‘A pub on every corner’.
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Within the group, we have a large collection of albums that depict the pubs that have been lost in time, both internally and externally. We also feature maps to provide an exact location, and more importantly, if we once drank in them, we’ll provide a brief write up on their history also!
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​Liverpool was once the place to go to for its ‘superclubs’, and it’s incredible to realise that we have none left. The State, Quadrant Park, Cream, Buzz Club, The Conti, Rotters, these are all names from the dusty past in which featured a wide variety of clubs for every taste. Clubs that put Liverpool on the map!​​
There are times when we will be asked to provide detailed history on some of the pubs that are still open in the area, and have been in many usual pub cellars, and found out some amazing history to assist the proprietors of the pubs with some interesting history! If you have an open pub that you currently run in Liverpool and would like us to photograph the building and provide a write up on the history, please get in touch!
Click on the Lost Pubs image to visit the Facebook Group. ​​
MY HISTORY OF LIVERPOOL – Liverpool has so much history, that it is difficult to know where to begin. The buildings, the Churches and Cathedral’s, the underground tunnels from Joseph Williamson’s domain, the rich history that Liverpool has to offer with its Dock’s, its former warehouses and the constant changing face of the city.
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We hold a vast amount of images in the archive on the group, which have been collected over the years by our members, and my personal archive. We have featured some very rare images of ‘old Liverpool’ as well as images that are recent but are places that the public don’t normally see. We’ve been in graveyards, cellars, tunnels and abandoned buildings to scope out the rich history of the city and attempt to tell the past in a pictorial way.
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Each part of Liverpool is unique and each district has its own story to tell.
Our members will regularly interact with the group and provide their own take on their own experiences on past history. We welcome family history connected to Liverpool, old photographs and stories about the area, and welcome anyone who has good memories of the city, as well as the newcomers to Liverpool who want to learn more about our fantastic city! We feature high res images that aren’t generally found on other groups and take pride in researching the story behind the image for the full round up.
Click on the Liverpool image to visit the Facebook Group.
MY HISTORY OF CHILDWALL - The district of Childwall has a rich history! The earliest recorded reference to Childwall was in the Domesday Book of 1086: "Four Radmans held Childwall as four Manors. There is half a hide. It was worth eight shillings. There was a priest, having half a carucate of land in frank almoign."
There is a fantastic history in relation to the area. Childwall Hall, Childwall House, Childwall Abbey Pub, All Saints Church, Childwall Woods, the Childwall Cross. Each subject has its own history and completes the write up on the historical aspect of the area. Childwall was once served by a Railway Station, a stop on the former North Liverpool Extension Line and trams used to serve the area well. Even when Childwall was sometimes listed as ‘rural Childwall’ from the start of the 1900’s, there are still large parts of the area which have rolling fields, woods and park’s that have escaped being built on.
The group also focuses on the local pub, the historical Childwall Abbey, and we love to get involved when there are open days at the local Churches too!
Click on the Childwall image to visit the Facebook Group.
JOSEPH WILLIAMSON’S TUNNELS – The district of Edge Hill, Liverpool, has hidden a vast secret for many years with only the most interested people really knowing the full details from the late 1990’s onwards. Built and constructed by Joseph Williamson ‘The Mole of Edge Hill’, the Williamson’s Tunnels is one of the largest folly’s in the UK. Constructed between 1805 and 1840 with the ‘cut and cover’ method over former waste land quarries, the Williamson’s Tunnels are a unique set of tunnels under Mason Street/Smithdown Lane that have a rich history.
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"Vaulted passages cut out of the solid rock; arches thrown up by craftmen’s hands, beautiful in proportion and elegant in form, but supporting nothing. Tunnels formed here—deep pits there. Yawning gulfs, where the fetid, stagnant waters threw up their baneful odours. Here the work is finished off, as if the mason had laboured with consummate skill to complete his work, so that all the world might see and admire, although no human eyes, save those of the master’s, would ever be set upon it. ​​
Here lies the ponderous stone as it fell after the upheaving blast had dislodged it from its bed; and there, vaulted over, is a gulf that makes the brain dizzy, and strikes us with terror as we look down into it. Now we see an arch, fit to bridge a mountain torrent; and in another step or two we meet another, only fit to span a simple brook. Tiers of passages are met with, as dangerous to enter as they are strange to look at. Learn all about Williamson and the Tunnels in this new and fantastic group!
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Click on the Tunnels image to visit the Facebook Group. ​
BRAYGREEN
