The lost dock of Liverpool
A Time Team Special
First screened 21 April 2008

The first dock

Remarkable transformation
Close to Liverpool's Pier Head is a 42-acre retail-led regeneration project, the Paradise Project, named after the newly pedestrianised Paradise Street. As well as shops, a new bus station and the Park – an urban 'garden in the sky' – the development includes 600 new homes and various office buildings, including new headquarters for Radio Merseyside and the Quakers.

For Sir Joe Dwyer, the chairman of Liverpool Vision, 'it's the most exciting regeneration development in the country. It will transform the city centre and is key to Liverpool's remarkable renaissance.' Three hundred years ago, this same site was key to Liverpool's even more remarkable transformation from a small provincial town to the trading hub of a mighty empire.

For it was here, in 1709, that construction began on Liverpool's first dock – and the modern-day development of the site provided archaeologists with a unique opportunity to uncover the remains of that revolutionary structure.

Revolutionary dock
The dock was revolutionary in terms of both its design and its purpose. Although it was predated by the Howland Great Wet Dock at Rotherhithe in London, that was only used as a temporary shelter for vessels while they awaited loading or unloading on the opposite side of the River Thames. When it was finished in 1715, Liverpool's Old Dock, as it was later to become known, was the first commercial wet dock in the world, constantly full of water and surrounded by a quayside where goods could be handled directly from the ships. With massive gates to lock in the estimated 65,000 tonnes of water, ships could load and unload at any time of day or night and regardless of the state of the tides or weather.

The original building plans were lost in a fire in the 19th century, and any visible remains of the Old Dock were buried by a 1970s' development on the site. So the excavation of the dock in advance of the Paradise Project development was watched eagerly by archaeologists and historians keen to see exactly what design and construction methods had been employed.

Thomas Steers
The young man who took on the commission – after it had been rejected by several better-known engineers – was Thomas Steers. It was his idea to use floodgates to convert the 'muddy pool' of Liverpool into a wet dock. His system was subsequently adopted throughout the world.

The entrance was about 30 feet (9 metres) wide, sealed by massive wooden gates. The whole dock, including the quayside, covered an area of around four acres. The rectangular pool, contained by huge brick-built walls, covered about one and a half acres. It could accommodate 100 or so ships at any time. The first vessel to use it was the Mulberry in 1715.

Paying the mortgage
The Liverpool Corporation mortgaged its entire portfolio of land and property to finance the scheme, which was immensely controversial at the time. But it was to pay for itself many times over and demand soon exceeded capacity as the port grew in activity and wealth during the 18th century. This led to the construction of further docks, eventually covering a seven-mile stretch of waterfront, and the increasing size of the vessels entering the port gradually rendered the Old Dock redundant. Without it, though, and without the corporation's vision in arranging its construction, Liverpool would never have achieved the prosperity it was to enjoy from the 18th century onwards, nor become Britain's principal port in its heyday of empire.

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