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Jan 12

Update on the Meols Viking Boat Burial

After much speculation about the possibility of a Viking boat being discovered under the car park of the Railway Inn, Meols, staff at World Museum Liverpool’s Field Archaeology Unit have written an article outlining the ways in which archaeologists must go about deciding what to do with the buried vessel. As well as damping down runaway speculation as to the age of the boat, the piece gives an excellent insight into how field archaeology works in general when considering the need to excavate buried remains.

In essence the article concludes that the boat is not under threat, would cost millions to raise, and would probably cause more harm than good were it to be exposed to the elements. Furthermore, there is no conclusive evidence as to the date of the boat, with some evidence actually refuting claims that it originates in the mid to late part of the first millennium AD.

Jan 11

Liverpool Newsnight Special

Ahead of this weekend’s celebrations, Newsnight will be showing a special edition focussing on the next few days, and the coming year, in the Capital of Culture.

Newsnight, 10:30pm, BBC2

Jan 9

Culture celebrations begin, the Europe’s Other Capital of Culture and Liverpool’s many face-lifts

Capital of Culture Opening Ceremony
This Friday witnesses the People’s Opening of Liverpool’s Capital of Culture celebrations. Nigel Jamieson, artistic co-director for the event told icLiverpool: “It will be something those who go will remember for the rest of their lives.” With a mixture of established acts (Ringo Starr, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra) plus other special guests) and younger generation artists, the 40 minute show includes cranes (of course), aerial performers and extreme sports enthusiasts. “There will be people performing in spaces and on stages where you’d never imagine them to perform,” Jamieson said.

Related: Merseyside Police ban ’08 related holiday.

Banksy mural covered up –
A mural of a rat by renowned artist Banksy has had to be partially covered by hoarding as part of the ongoing effort to hide eyesores in the city during the Capital of Culture year. The Liverpool Culture Company said it had “no choice”, as the building on which it was painted – the White House pub at the junction of Berry and Duke Streets – is in such a state of disrepair. Interestingly, a different take can be found on the Liverpool Regional Development Agency website, which brands it a ‘dressing’ of the buildings, with six other ‘selected’ structures. This is the Look of the City project, an attempt to cover with artwork as many ugly buildings as possible, while increasing numbers of visitors wander around the town during the next twelve months.

Welcome to Stavanger
It’s not only Liverpool that’s enjoying a year as European Capital of Culture. The Norwegian city of Stavanger, on the south west coast is paired with the British city in holding the title for 2008. The town has a booming oil-related industry, and is well known, at least locally, for its large number of wooden buildings, and ‘Christmas card image’. It is already a wealthy place, and so their version of the event is less concerned with generating tourism and attracting business investment, and generates as much local cynicism as in Merseyside. Details at the BBC News website

Other news:

Garden Festival site ‘should be left wild‘;
The new St John’s Shopping Centre unveiled.

Jan 7

Buildings linked with Slave Trade Highlighted

The old Martin’s Bank, and a warehouse in Parr Street are two of the many buildings and landmarks in Liverpool linked to the trade in enslaved Africans. This connection has been highlighted by the government to commemorate two centuries since the trade’s abolition. Margaret Hodge, Culture Minister, and Simon Thurley, chief executive of English Heritage, both commented. There’s a full report by the Liverpool Echo.

Dec 30

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Merseyside’s Martime History, ancient and modern

Two recent news updates have highlighted the marine importance of Merseyside, on both sides of the river:

Viking boat at Meols
Recent work by Professor Stephen Harding and a team of archaeologists from the University of Nottingham has brought attention to a possible Viking boat buried under the car park at the Railway Inn, Meols. The remains were first spotted in 1938 by men laying the car park, but with the risk that building work would be delayed by a dig, the find was kept secret. One of the workers, however, made a few notes, and in 1991 his son produced a report and a sketch. After the report was brought to the attention of the current landlord, the Nottingham team was brought in, and conducted a Ground Penetrating Radar survey of the location.

The survey seemed to show a ‘boat-shaped anomaly’ in the underlying clay, and further survey will assess the potential for an evaluation excavation.

The find is particularly interesting from a landscape perspective, as the pub is over a kilometre from the coast, and even further from the medieval shore. Prof Harding suggests that the boat may have been washed in by a flood, or have sunk in one of the many marshes which covered the area at the time. The area is covered with old Norse field and track names, and it wasn’t unknown for the people of the time to drag their ships substantial distances inland if necessary.

Reference:

Current Archaeology, Issue 213: p4-5.

Links:

Wirral and West Lancashire 1100th Anniversary Homepage

Liverpool Echo article on DNA analysis done in Liverpool by Professor Harding

News article in the Independent covering the survey.

HMS Whimbrel

More recent marine heritage may soon be making its way back to the Mersey, if Chris Pile and members of the HMS Whimbrel Battle of the Atlantic Memorial Project get their way. The group aim to bring the Whimbrel, a modified Black Swan class sloop, to Merseyside, and place it in Canning Dock, close to the Liver Building, with other symbols of Liverpool’s maritime heritage. The Whimbrel, launched in 1943, was designed for the defense of merchant convoys in the Atlantic.

The Project Team see the ship as a “symbol of heroism and sacrifices made in six year battle to keep open Britain’s vital wartime lifeline to North America”, and need £2m to bring it home from its current location, Egypt. They then require another £2m to make the ship fit for a public museum, which they hope to complete by Summer 2008. £300 000 has so far been raised from the Duke of Westminster, Liverpool City Council, the Government Office of the North West and several smaller donations.

Links:

HMS Whimbrel (1942-49) Battle of the Atlantic Memorial Project

Read the Signs
A recently released pamphlet highlights details of streets of Liverpool which are named after individuals who played a prominent part in the Transatlantic Slave Trade. The issue has become controversial in recent years, with calls to rename the roads, against the insistence that even Liverpool’s darker past should not be forgotten.

The Read the Signs booklet was written by Laurence Westgapgh, and distributed by HELP (Historic Environment Liverpool Project), who were involved in a Heritage Open Days event at Toxteth Town Hall, attracting over 200 people from the Liverpool area. There will also be an exhibition called ‘Read the Signs’ at St George’s Hall in 2008, managed by HELP.

The pamphlet is available from locations around Liverpool, including libraries and community centres.

Links:

English Heritage’s news article about the pamphlet

Read the Signs (PDF)

Dec 4

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Urban Music – a Liverpool Case Study

Liverpool has been chosen as a case study as part of research by the Arts and Humanities Research Board, in partnership with Dr. John Schofield of English Heritage and National Museums Liverpool. The research will examine the influence of the urban environment on popular culture. The long term goal is to publish the results of the research for a wide range of audiences to read. Go to landscape.ac.uk for more details.

Dec 3

Vikings in Liverpool

A study reported in Molecular Biology and Evolution shows that the area around Liverpool was an important centre in the early middle ages, a time usually associated with the Vikings. Place names on Merseyside already point to the presence of Norse settlements in the area (see Kirkby, West Derby, Formby, and possibly Toxteth and Croxteth). However, this latest study involved research into those surnames present in the area before the massive influx from Ireland, Scotland, Wales and beyond in the 19th Century, coupled with genetic tests and documentary research. See a summary at Guardian Unlimited

Nov 8

Cathedral is one of Britain’s Best; Museum of Slavery

Continuing this series of catch-up stories, I thought I’d mention the recent UKTV History channel’s competition to find Britain’s favourite historic site. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Briton’s were most proud of the prehistoric monument of Stonehenge. In second place, however, was HMS Victory, which I think surprised a lot of people. In third place, however, was our very own Anglican Cathedral! A triumph of the 22 year old Giles Gilbert Scott, it took from 1902 until 1978 for the Cathedral to go from inception to completion. The architect is buried under the bell tower.

The August edition of the Museums Journal contains an interview with Richard Benjamin, the head of the recently opened International Slavery Museum. Although having no curatorial experience when he took on the role, Benjamin
has a bachelor’s degree in urban policy, community and race relations, and studied for a PhD on the archaeology of the African diaspora. Having spent his entire career giving access to education to ‘non-traditional’ groups, he is well qualified to “challenge the bigots, and to give people of African descent a sense of empowerment, by giving them information on African achievement and historical knowledge.”

Nov 7

A new exhibition, and Liverpool in ludicrous law levity!

Photographs of the houses of Liverpool’s and Wirral’s rich, as well as professional decorators and architects, are on display at Sudley Art Gallery, Mossley Hill Road, Aigburgh, until early 2008. The majority were taken by Harry Bedford Lemere, who was often drawn to the city during its time as the second port of the Empire. The exhibition has been arranged in partnership with English Heritage’s National Monuments Record, which holds a large collection of Bedford Lemere’s work. Many of the images, plus more from the Bedford Lemere Collection, can be found on English Heritage’s Viewfinder website. Follow this link to go straight to his photographs of Liverpool.

Liverpool was in the news yesterday for all the right reasons: it is home to the 3rd most ludicrous law in the UK. In the great city, it is illegal to be topless in public, unless (of course!) you are a clerk in a tropical fish shop. Dying in the Houses of Parliament, and using a postage stamp upside down are also illegal, and voted more ludicrous than the Liverpool law.

Oct 28

Introducing the all new Liverpool Landscapes Blog!

Liverpool is often in the media these days, what with the Capital of Culture events of next year, and the many exciting and controversial developments in the World Heritage Site and beyond. This blog will keep you abreast of the handful of articles I come across. Feel free to add more in the Comments section.

To get going, here are a few of the pieces I’ve found in the last few months:-

  • With Liverpool facing up to its placement at the Old Kent Road end of a hypothetical Monopoly board of Britain, the Guardian dedicates one of its ‘In praise of…’ columns to the city. The snub was “shrugged off with the humour for which it is famed”, with the council saying the manufacturers should be given a Go to Jail card. Still, Newcastle and Edinburgh failed to make the board at all.
  • River of Life: a large feature in the Guardian Society section tells of David Ward’s journey to find the source of the River Goyt, a Mersey tributary, and a walk along quite a length of the Mersey itself. As well as the oft-celebrated salmon, cod are regularly caught by local fishermen as far upstream as Otterspool; the only reason they’ve not been found further up being that “we haven’t fished there”. Porpoises, grey seals and an octopus – predators – have followed in the fishes’ wake. (Ward’s book Mersey: the River that Changed the World will be published on December 6th by Bluecoat Press)
  • Guardian National news: under a photograph of the Pier Head, including the proposed Mann Island development, an article outlining the huge events programme lined up for next year. Highlights naturally include Paul and Ringo, and the public face of the Culture year, Phil Redmond. A city-wide public arts programme, similar to the Biennial and events covering Bill Shankly, Mersey music and ‘North-West Side Story’ are also highlighted.
  • Finally, on October 25th, the Financial Times contained a whole supplement dedicated to the business potential of the whole region, entitled Doing Business in Liverpool and the North West. I haven’t had a chance to look at this in detail, but unsurprisingly it concentrates on the relevant interests of the FT’s readership, and is also overwhelmingly optimistic. More on this soon.

Well, I hope this gives you a taste of what the blog will bring. No doubt there will be plenty to report on in the next 18 months, and hopefully beyond. As it stands, nothing is off topic at the moment, so if you want to contribute, feel free to get in touch. Thanks for reading!

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