From Warrington the Mersey, still keeping a sinuous course, begins to expand, and when next it comes into touch with the ship-canal, which it does at a point known as Randall’s Creek, it assumes estuarial form, and markedly so just before reaching Runcorn. Then there is a sudden change, caused by the outswelling of both banks of the river, the result being that the Mersey is contracted to about 1,200 feet across, after being more than twice that width. This contraction, known as Runcorn Gap, lies between Widnes Point on the Lancashire side, and Runcorn on the Cheshire side. At this, the nearest point to the upper estuary proper, the Mersey is crossed by a high level bridge, giving the London and North Western Railway access to Liverpool. Runcorn has been made by canals; three, approaching from different directions, touch the Mersey there. The ship-canal lies to the north of the town, after passing through a cutting extending to a depth of 66 feet, the deepest on the route. Lying under the railway bridge, and coming close to the river, it soon finds itself wholly in the bed of the Mersey, separated from the stream by a massive concrete wall, for which in one place a foundation had to be made 70 feet down. There were considerable docks and warehouses here before the greatest of the canals gave additional claim to Runcorn to be considered a seaport. Ethelfreda, daughter of Alfred the Great, is said to have founded the town; and antiquaries are pleased to regard the name as a corruption of Runcofan, from the Anglo-Saxon “cofa,” a cove or inlet. The locks on the canal here are so constructed as to enable vessels to leave or enter at any state of the tide. Widnes, on the opposite side of the river, is a busy, thriving manufacturing town, with chemicals as its leading commercial product, but doing a good deal also in various branches of the iron trade.
From Runcorn the ship-canal forms the southern side of the Mersey. The outer wall of protection follows the course of the river, bending with it round what may be called the Runcorn headland, and crossing the mouth of the river Weaver. The Weaver being navigable up to Northwich, the construction of the canal across its opening into the Mersey was a work of considerable ingenuity and difficulty. In the first instance, provision had to be made by special locks to give entrance to the tributary before the point of junction with the Mersey could be interfered with; and when the canal itself was carried over the tributary, a series of great sluices had to be constructed to regulate the flow of the waters into the Mersey. Since then the Weaver has not been subjected to the inconvenience of low tide. Another result of the change has been the formation of a new town on its west bank, known as Saltport, with wharves and other arrangements specially adapted for the cargoes of salt that come down the Weaver for shipment elsewhere. In the case of a smaller stream further on, the Gowy, the water had to be carried under the canal by means of syphons strong enough and large enough to withstand tidal influences. From the Gowy the line of the canal follows the northward sweep of the estuary, and continues thus past Ellesmere Port, where is the outlet for the Shropshire Union system of canals. It then passes onward to what may be called the grand entrance to this commercial undertaking, namely, the Eastham Locks. These locks are in sets of varying sizes, according to the vessels that come and go, this arrangement being necessary to avoid waste of water from the canal. From Eastham the distance by the Mersey to Liverpool is six miles, and to the lightship at the bar nineteen miles.
The Mersey is at its widest in the neighbourhood of Ellesmere Port, the stretch across from here to Dungeon Point, on the Lancashire side, being about three miles. Gradually narrowing in its progress to the sea, it is only some 1,250 yards wide at the entrance. The passage outwards, between Liverpool and Birkenhead down to the bar, has been compared to a bottle-neck, and it is this feature of the stream, added to the fact that, although a river of the west coast, it turns round and takes a northerly direction, which gives it its commercial importance. Through the narrow passage, the tidal flow is rapid enough to maintain an open channel into the inlying estuary, and to clear a passage for the largest vessels well out into the open sea. One source of danger lies at the bar. Here sand is apt to silt up; and if this were allowed to go on, the result would be that large vessels would have to wait on either side for high water in order to get in or out. The remedy has been found in extensive and frequent dredging, the effect of which is not only to make entrance to the river accessible at all states of the tide, but also to increase the inrush and the outrush of water, to the manifest improvement of the inner channels. The estuary has the further advantage of natural protection. The Wirral Peninsula, as a glance at the map will show, serves as a magnificent break-water, and the harbour has of course a great out-lying safeguard in the barrier Ireland presents between it and the Atlantic.
It is where Mersey is at its widest and best—at the places where it affords safe and capacious anchorage for the merchantmen of all nations—that its story begins to unfold itself; and, as has been indicated, it is not an ancient recital, by any means. Elsewhere along its course are references to places and persons that take one back as far as the written history of this island can go, but in the neighbourhood of Liverpool the references are all of them comparatively modern. Here there is trace neither of Roman nor of Norman. Yet if Liverpool and Birkenhead do not figure in the Domesday pages, they are by no means creations of yesterday, though, as we now find them, both are very much the outcome of nineteenth-century enterprise. Liverpool got a charter as far back as the year 1173, and about a century and a half later the enterprising Prior of Birkenhead obtained a licence to build hospices for travellers, and secured at the same time the right of ferryage, of which the Monk’s Ferry of to-day is an interesting reminiscence.
It is in the early Liverpool charter that the name of the great city is first met with. It is there written Lyrpul, and the name has undergone such variations as Litherpool, Liderpool, Liferpool, and Lithepool, before finally passing into its existing form. No one has been able to say exactly what the name means. The latter part, of course, causes no difficulty. The first part can be one of half a dozen different things, or may mean something else. Certain authorities favour the notion that in Liver we have the name of an aquatic bird of the cormorant family, that found choice food on the shores of the Pool. Others assert for the first part of the name that it comes from the liverwort plant, which grew abundantly in the neighbourhood. Other opinions are that the name really means “Ship Pool,” or “the place at the pool,” or “the gentle pool,” but all that is guesswork. What is certain is that a cormorant or a pelican, or a liver (whatever sort of creature that may have been), has figured upon the borough seal since the time of King John, although advocates for another derivation have claimed that the figure upon the seal was not meant for an aquatic bird, but for an eagle. The authorities of the town never adopted this view; they have kept loyally to the bird that is said to have found peace and plenty on the banks of the stretch of still water around which Liverpool sprang into existence.
1. RUNCORN BRIDGE (p. [257]). 2. THE LOCKS AT EASTHAM (p. [258]).
The pool on whose borders the city grew spread out over the site of the Custom House and adjoining buildings. At some uncertain date after the Norman occupation a castle was built where now stands St. George’s Church, and this stronghold was held for many generations by the Molineux family, the descendants of William de Molines, one of the Conqueror’s lieutenants. In time another Norman family, the Stanleys, found their way into Liverpool, and got possession of “the Tower,” a structure which had been raised for the purpose of observation on what is now Water Street. The Stanleys strengthened and fortified “the Tower,” building a mansion round it, and covering some four thousand square yards in the process; so that practically Liverpool had two castles, with two powerful families dominating the place, and making life almost unbearable, for they were continually at feud as to their rights, though, curiously enough, fighting side by side for the king as the occasion arose.