Erhalten Sie Zugang zu diesem und mehr als 300000 Büchern ab EUR 5,99 monatlich.
In Ken Pye's third collection of strange and often bizarre tales from Merseyside's History, prepare to be amazed and entertained, once again. Where on Merseyside was the nonsense rhyme, 'The Owl and The Pussycat' written? How did the 'Cast Iron Shore' or the Cazzie get its name? Is there a lost street running beneath Lime Street? Learn about 'Roast Beef' the Crosby Hermit, the prehistoric footprints on Formby Shore, and the particularly intimate wax models of diseased body parts found in the Paradise Street Museum of Anatomy. There are over fifty such true stories and secret wonders in this amazingly eclectic book, but consider yourself warned – once you begin reading these tales you might find it hard to stop!
Sie lesen das E-Book in den Legimi-Apps auf:
Seitenzahl: 244
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
Das E-Book (TTS) können Sie hören im Abo „Legimi Premium” in Legimi-Apps auf:
First published 2023
The History Press
97 St George’s Place, Cheltenham,
Gloucestershire, GL50 3QB
www.thehistorypress.co.uk
© Ken Pye FLHU, 2023
All images © the Discover Liverpool private collection, unless otherwise stated
The right of Ken Pye to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978 1 80399 204 4
Typesetting and origination by The History Press
Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ Books Limited, Padstow, Cornwall
eBook converted by Geethik Technologies
Introduction
1 The Pugnacious Vicar of Huyton
2 The Earl and the Pussycat
3 ‘The Cazzie’: The Cast-Iron Shore
4 The Prescot Turnpike and the Mob
5 Liverpool Gentlemen and Manchester Men
6 A Bridge Too Far
7 Hale Head and the Lighthouse
8 Zeppelins Over Widnes and Halton Heroes
9 The Archway Road Vikings
10 The Bidston and Tranmere Bunkers
11 The Iron Men: Facing the Future in the Shadow of the Past
12 A Memorial in Time: The Sarah Pooley Clocktower
13 ‘Roast Beef’ and other Crosby Relics
14 The People’s Parliament and the People’s Club
15 The Little Tramp
16 The Museum of Anatomy
17 The Horrors of Crank Caverns
18 The Petrified Priest of Tue Brook House
19 The Cavern Club: Where Merseybeat was Born
20 Everton and Wavertree Lock-ups
21 The Monster and the Ghost Ship
22 Edward Rushton and the Royal School for the Blind
23 The Black Rock Mermaid of Wallasey
24 The Thugs of Willaloo
25 ‘And Did Those Feet …?’: Bidston Hall and the Holy Grail
26 Leasowe Castle and the Derby Races
27 Wavertree Garden Suburb
28 The Pyramid Tomb of Rodney Street
29 The New Brighton Waxworks Chamber of Horrors
30 The Demon and the Bin Field
31 Everton Beacon: Fires and Flags
32 The Owen & William Owen Elias Streets
33 General Tom Thumb in Liverpool
34 The Iron Duke’s Column
35 Liverpool’s Titanic Memorials
36 Pistols at Dawn
37 The Boneyard: St John’s Ornamental andMemorial Gardens
38 The Railways and the Rocket
39 The Angel of the Slums
40 Neglected Woolton Hall
41 The True Inventor of Radio?
42 Bonnie Prince Charlie’s Chair
43 Vessel Number 290
44 Britain’s Largest Theatre: The Olympia
45 The Lost Street Beneath Lime Street
46 Blackie, the War Horse
47 Princes Road Synagogue
48 Bidston Mill
49 The Working Man’s Pauper Pioneer
50 Otterspool, the Prom, and the Lost Community of Jericho
51 Naked Abandon in and on the Mersey
52 The Café on Top of a Chimney
53 Secrets of the Beatles’ Statues
54 The Ancient Chapel of Toxteth
55 The Steble Fountain Urchin: A Jazz Pioneer
Acknowledgements
Select Bibliography
About the Author
In my first two volumes of Merseyside Tales I stated just how proud I am of being a born-and-bred Scouser, but one who has worked all over Merseyside and who loves the entire county with an abiding passion – even though it is now officially known as Liverpool City Region. One of the many things that make this part of the world so attractive for me, apart from its wonderful people, is its rich and diverse heritage. While I find this endlessly fascinating, I am particularly entertained and continuously amazed by the wealth of tales from its history that I find odd, unusual, surprising, impressive, or simply bizarre.
This is the third volume in my series of such stories, and here you will find another fifty-five that I am sure will entertain, delight, and hopefully surprise you too. As with my previous volumes, each of the stories is true (although some are more true than others!) and they all prove that, indeed, ‘truth is stranger than fiction’. I certainly hope that you enjoy reading them, just as much as I enjoyed researching and writing this, my collection of Even More Merseyside Tales!
Ken Pye FLHU
Liverpool, 2023
The author and his family. (Discover Liverpool library)
‘Muscular Christianity’ was a term used to describe powerful, blood-and-thunder, hellfire-and-damnation preaching in Christian churches, especially during the Victorian era – although quite a bit of this still goes on today! In the nineteenth century, one of the best exponents of this style of sermon was one of the vicars of St Michael’s Church, on Bluebell Lane in Huyton village. This has always been an important site of worship, probably even in Pagan times, and there has been a church on this site from at least the twelfth century. The present building dates from 1663 and is Grade II listed.
Many redoubtable vicars have ministered at St Michael’s over the years, and the longest serving to date was the Reverend Ellis Ashton (1789–1869). He was vicar for fifty-six years, between 1813 and 1869, and a local road is named after him. He was a member of the very wealthy Ashton family and was born in the grand family home of Woolton Hall, in Liverpool.
Reverend Ashton had a reputation for being a forthright and dominating personality, and he was appalled that the young men of his parish were using the village green, in front of his church, for cockfights and for the even more bloodthirsty ‘entertainment’ of bull baiting. So angered was he by this that he delivered many sermons condemning the practices and the gambling that went with them.
However, his preaching fell on deaf ears, so one day when there was a major bull-baiting bout taking place on the land in front of his church, he took off his coat, rolled up his sleeves, and marched out of his church and directly onto the green. He then proceeded to belabour each of the offenders, quite impressively getting the better of even the biggest youths, who were all too ashamed and intimidated to take on their vicar, who was a big man!
Bull baiting. (Liverpool Athenaeum library)
The blood sports now stopped for good and church attendance increased, especially among the young men of the village. The forceful vicar had given a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘muscular Christianity’!
Although St Michael’s has altered much over the centuries, there are many signs of its ancient history in and around the building. These include two fonts, one dating from the eighth or ninth century and the other from the 1600s. The older font was discovered during repair work in 1872, when it was excavated from beneath the church tower. This was along with a capital from a Saxon stone column, which is decorated with four helmeted heads.
Huyton had become quite an important local market town by the mid-nineteenth century, with a large resident population. As a result, the church graveyard, which had only a limited area, soon filled up. This meant that a branch burial ground was now needed. This was created at the end of Derby Terrace, in the corner of the village green.
One of the reasons why the graveyard needed to expand was that the church also served a number of other local villages and communities. A remnant of this function can be found a little way down the hill from the church. Here, running opposite the road named The Garth, there is a wide passage. It is all that remains of a long track that once connected the nearby village of Tarbock with Huyton. Records dating from 1520 show that it was along this old pathway that the medieval inhabitants of Tarbock would carry the bodies of their loved ones for burial at St Michael’s Church in Huyton village; hence the name of the passage – Corpse Way!
Edward Smith-Stanley, the 13th Earl of Derby, was born in 1775, and owned one of the finest, private natural history collections in the world. He also had a large menagerie and aviary. These were all located on his exceptionally large estate at Knowsley Park, which stands near the township of Prescot, just to the east of Liverpool. Here, his current descendant, the 19th Earl of Derby, owns Knowsley Safari Park, so the modern keeping of animals at Knowsley is nothing new!
However, whilst today’s safari park is a popular tourist attraction, the 13th Earl’s menagerie was only for his personal amusement and the edification of his family and invited guests. In fact, it was he who built the 13-mile-long wall that still surrounds part of the Knowsley Park Estate. This was designed to combat the problem of local people breaking into his collection to poach an emu or a pelican to roast for their Sunday lunch – just for a change!
The 13th Earl was President of the Zoological Society, and in his private zoo he had ninety-four different species of animals and 318 kinds of birds. In 1831, Earl Edward was visiting Regent’s Park Zoo in London when he noticed a young man sketching the animals. Lord Derby was so impressed by the young man’s artistry and technical accuracy, that he commissioned him to move up to Knowsley to sketch all of the animals. The youth readily agreed, little knowing that the job would take him five years.
Suffering from shyness and social inexperience when he came to Knowsley Park and Hall (he was only 20 years old after all), the youth was out of his depth. However, he became very friendly with the young children of the earl and his relatives and Lord Derby encouraged this. When not engaged on his commission, the artist could often be found in the nursery, playing with and entertaining the youngsters. He regularly kept them amused by drawing humorous sketches and cartoons for them and writing limericks and nonsense verses.
‘Can you write a rhyme about anything Sir?’ they asked him one day.
‘Why, yes, my children,’ he replied. ‘Simply pick a subject or an object and test me out!’
The children looked around the room and saw, staring balefully at them from the top of a sideboard, one of the earl’s great owls. The aristocrat’s habit was to stuff and mount the animals in his collection after they had died and display them throughout Knowsley Hall. He even employed a resident taxidermist!
The children pointed and cried out excitedly, ‘That Sir; the owl! Can you write about that?’
The young man thought for a few moments, smiled wryly to himself, and then immediately recited, writing and sketching as he spoke:
‘The Owl and the Pussycat’ by Edward Lear. (Discover Liverpool library)
The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea in a beautiful pea green boat.
They took some honey, and plenty of money, wrapped up in a five pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above, and sang to a small guitar,
‘Oh lovely Pussy! Oh Pussy my love, what a beautiful Pussy you are, You are! You are!
‘What a beautiful Pussy you are!’
The name of the young man, of course, was Edward Lear (1812–88), and he went on to publish his limericks and nonsense rhymes to great public acclaim. He also published his sketches of Lord Derby’s animals, in 1846, in a volume entitled Gleanings from the Menagerie and Aviary at Knowsley Hall. These drawings and watercolours are still acclaimed for their outstanding accuracy, lifelike colour and high quality.
The 13th Earl died in 1851, and once Queen Victoria and the Zoological Society of London had taken ‘first pick’, he bequeathed his private museum to the people of Liverpool. He also gave part of his vast collection of stuffed animals and birds, including the owl! This collection became the basis of the first Liverpool Museum, which still stands on William Brown Steet in the city. The owl from the ‘Owl and the Pussycat’ rhyme was, for a time, on display in the Museum of Liverpool at Mann Island, near the Pier Head. However, it has now disappeared, and none of the museum staff could tell me where it has gone!
Until the coming of the Industrial Revolution, in the latter decades of the eighteenth century, the full length of the Liverpool waterfront on the River Mersey was largely unspoilt sand and shingle beach. But, with the building of 7½ miles of dense docklands throughout the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, this was all industrialised and lost forever. Only a small stretch of natural beach remains in the isolated hamlets of Oglet and Dungeon, near the southern district of Speke. However, this too is now threatened by the planned expansion of nearby Liverpool John Lennon Airport.
One of the riverfront areas that was particularly despoiled was the Dingle District, just north of Speke. Even so, a short length of shoreline was not actually built over until the early 1980s. This remained a playground and swimming area for local people until that time. For decades it had been known as the Cast-Iron Shore, or ‘The Cazzie’, and it is still fondly remembered by many older Liverpudlians.
The name dates from 1815, and refers to the cast iron produced at the vast Mersey Forge Iron Foundry, which stood near the Dingle waterfront on each side of Sefton Street. It had been established in 1810, and produced cast and forged iron. Steel was also manufactured there, using massive, pivoting furnaces called Bessemer converters. There were also huge smelting and puddling yards, great rolling and stamping mills, and a 15-ton steam-hammer. Its persistent thump, thump, thumping was loud enough to be heard in Wirral. Following many complaints, it was finally silenced as the result of a court case.
At its peak of operation, the Mersey Forge employed 1,500 men. It also made armour plating and armaments including, in 1856, the gigantic Horsfall gun. It was the largest gun in existence at the time, weighing 21 tons 17 cwt. It was tested on Liverpool’s North Shore, watched by very large crowds and with the streets decked out with bunting. Everyone witnessed a 300lb ball being shot for a distance of 5 miles.
The Cast-Iron Shore. (Discover Liverpool library)
The massive cannon was intended to be used in the Crimean War, which had been fought since 1853, by Turkey, France, and Britain against Russia. But, to the disappointment of the forge owners and workers, the war ended three days after the gun was finished.
When the Liverpool to Garston railway was being cut through the south docks in 1864, the forge had to move to three new sites, separated by Grafton and Horsfall Streets but connected by long, wide, and very busy tunnels. They are still there beneath the modern streets!
This was a time before the existence of the Health and Safety Executive and before environmental awareness. The ignorance of the people then meant that the spoil from this heavy industry had been allowed to run off and heavily taint and discolour the land all around, including the shore and the rocks. The beach now took on all the colour shades of metal – from yellow and orange through red and blue to grey and black – hence the name then given to the shore by local people.
After the closure of the Mersey Forge in 1898, this section of the river’s edge became a very popular swimming spot for local children and young men, and a picnic destination for families. No one minded the colour or pollution in the water or on the Cast-Iron Shore, why would they?
The forge sites were eventually demolished, cleared and built over. Then, in 1982, the Cazzie too disappeared under the bulldozers as building work began on reclaiming the land for conversion into a new riverside walkway and embankment. This would form part of the International Garden Festival: But that is another story!
Because of Prescot Town’s dreadful reputation for unruly behaviour and drunkenness, in 1759, the people of nearby Liverpool became convinced that they were about to be invaded and attacked by mobs of Prescot villains! In October that year, the Corporation of Liverpool appointed a committee to ‘appraise and value the arms … to defend the town from the insults of the Prescot mob’.
In September the following year, the council ordered that ‘Mr. Adams, gunmaker, be paid the sume of fourty-nine pounds for a parcel of musketts and bayonets, & c, sold to this Corporation when the town was in danger of being plundered by a mob of country people and colliers in and about Prescot’.
All of this panic had come about because of the tolls that Liverpool had imposed on the coaching road from Liverpool to Prescot, and the fact that Prescot people did not want to pay them! By the beginning of the 1700s, the most important road in and out of Liverpool and its port was the packhorse route to and from Prescot. This was mainly used to transport coal, which was becoming an increasingly important commodity on the eve of the Industrial Revolution.
The state of the road, though, was very poor. The surface was uneven, strewn with rocks and boulders, and full of potholes. When it rained some of these were so deep that people had been known to fall in and drown – very few people could swim in those days. Also, in bad weather the road could become waterlogged and turn into a mire of mud. It was the responsibility of each parish the road passed through to make the road good and usable. Some parishes did and some did not.
As the route became busier, and as other routes began to make their way out of town, something had to be done to enforce road maintenance and security. So, in 1726, an Act of Parliament created the Liverpool to Prescot Turnpike Road. ‘Turnpiked’ meant that tollbooths, toll gates, or toll houses were placed at various points along a principal packhorse or coaching route. These were to raise income to pay for the regular upkeep of the roads.
A turnpike was originally a gate-like frame, pivoting at one end on an upright post or ‘pike’. This was kept closed and blocked the way until a toll was paid. Local constables were employed to secure the roads and monitor the toll houses.
The road charges were paid in addition to any fares that travellers were already paying for their transportation. They were also paid by people who were simply travelling on horseback. Pedestrians were not charged, providing they were not carrying goods, and there were usually side gates through which they could freely pass.
At this time, tolls on the new Prescot Turnpike were:
A packhorse bringing coal into Liverpool. (Discover Liverpool library)
for wagons carrying coal, 6d each;
for carts carrying coals, 2d;
for carts carrying other commodities or goods, 6d;
for horses carrying coal, ½d;
for other horses 1d;
for coaches, 1 shilling;
for cattle ½d per head;
and for sheep ¼d (one farthing) per head.
The toll keepers were called ‘pikemen’ and they each wore a uniform. This consisted of a tall black hat, black stockings and knee britches, and short aprons with deep pockets in which to hold the money. The wages paid to these men – and sometimes women – were poor, but at least they and their families could live, rent free, in the purpose-built toll cottages.
In the 7 miles between Liverpool and Prescot there were four toll bars. These were located at Fairfield, Old Swan, Knotty Ash, and Huyton. Anyone who tried to avoid travelling through the turnpikes found that others were also installed on branch roads – if you wanted to move yourself or your goods then there was no escape!
No wonder the people of Prescot were incensed by this obstruction to their freedom of movement, and this new financial burden on their commerce. And to think that early in the seventeenth century letters to Liverpool used to be addressed to ‘Liverpool, near Prescot’!
The inland city of Manchester had developed industrially almost in parallel with Liverpool, but its workforce, and that of its surrounding towns, was principally employed in factories and textile mills. It had, however, received its charter as a city in 1853. The port did not achieve its city charter until 1880. Also, its workforce was largely engaged in dock labour and maritime industries. Nevertheless, in relation to Manchester, it had a very large white-collar workforce too. These were mostly the clerks, accountants, insurance agents, and company administrators who were all involved in the running of a large port.
It was said that Liverpool gentlemen imported cotton while Manchester men made it into cloth. This led to the phrase ‘Liverpool Gentlemen and Manchester Men’, which was then doing the rounds of the gentlemen’s clubs, coffee houses, dinner parties and soirées of the north-west. This more than implied some sort of superiority on the part of Manchester’s great commercial rival.
What really upset the ‘Manchester Men’, though, was the level of the dock, harbour, handling, and shipping fees that Liverpool was charging them to process their imports and exports, which they believed were excessive and monopolistic. Something had to be done to cut out the ‘middle-men’ of Liverpool and bypass the port in some way. A canal from Manchester directly to the sea seemed to be the only realistic solution.
While this idea had been around as early as 1660 – and indeed, Thomas Steers (1672–1750), who had designed and built Liverpool’s (and the world’s) first commercial wet dock, had also drawn up plans – nothing had happened. But then, in 1882, Manchester engineer and manufacturer Daniel Adamson (1820–90) called a meeting of Manchester and Cheshire men who could fund such an enterprise. He also brought together other leaders from local businesses, as well as representatives and politicians from towns and communities who would directly benefit from such a canal. These men then put a bill together that they presented to Parliament later that year.
Digging the Manchester Ship Canal. (Liverpool Athenaeum library)
Liverpool naturally objected to Manchester’s proposals at every turn, especially in Parliament. However, the persistence of the new canal’s advocates, as well as a general desire to take the smugness of Liverpool down a few notches, meant that, eventually, in 1885, a bill was passed in the House and work could now begin on the Manchester Ship Canal.
Edward Leader Williams (1828–1910) was appointed as chief engineer, and the first spadeful of earth was dug on 11 November 1887, by Lord Egerton of Tatton. He had recently taken over the chairmanship of the Manchester Ship Canal Company from Adams.
Actual construction work began in 1888, with an average workforce of 12,000 navvies, and almost 200 steam trains hauling 6,000 wagons. The first stretch, to Ellesmere Port, was opened to the first ships on 1 January 1891, the second stretch, to the River Weaver, opened the following September. Costing £15 million to build, the canal was officially opened by Queen Victoria in May 1894.
The canal begins at purpose-built Eastham Locks on Wirral, directly across the Mersey from Garston in Liverpool. It then stretches for 36 miles (56km) and is, in effect, one long harbour servicing a vast range of industries, factories, businesses, and communities between Eastham and Manchester. Using their own vessels or renting canal space to other shipping lines, the company could not only accept small boats and barges to transport goods and raw commodities, but oceangoing ships too. The canal is wide and deep, so can accommodate ships up to 600ft long (183m), 65ft 6in (20m) wide and almost 28ft (8.5m) deep.
The company also invested in the building of a vast complex of inland docks at Salford Quays near Manchester. However, ships’ cargoes could also be processed and serviced at many points along the canal. Container ships could also use the canal, which means that Manchester could keep pace with Liverpool’s expansion into this modern form of cargo handling.
Railway lines were laid directly from the Salford Docks and Manchester, and alongside the canal to the rest of Britain, facilitating the movement of goods throughout the country. Liverpool’s monopoly was now well and truly broken. This entire operation was controlled from Eastham.
The Manchester Ship Canal connects with the River Bollin, Glaze Brook, the Mersey, the River Irwell, the Bridgewater Canal, the Shropshire Union Canal, and the Weaver Navigation. Significant crossings of the canal include the Mersey Gateway Bridge, the M6, Warburton Toll Bridge, Hulme Bridge Ferry between Irlam and Flixton, the M60, Barton Swing Aqueduct, Latchford Rail Viaduct (closed in 1984), and Barton Road Swing Bridge.
As ships increased in size through the 1950s, particularly oil tankers, they became difficult for the canal to handle. However, they still needed to discharge their cargos of crude oil, and so, in 1954, a new dock was constructed on the landward side of Eastham Lock. Large ships can now bypass the canal entrance, anchor in Eastham Dock, safely discharge their cargo, and return to sea.
The canal is now privately owned by Peel Holdings, whose plans include redevelopment, expansion, and an increase in shipping from 8,000 containers a year to 100,000 by 2030, as part of their Atlantic Gateway project.
Sadly, the totally unnecessary rivalry between Liverpool and Manchester continues, especially between football supporters. However, the City Region Mayors of Liverpool and Manchester are both Scousers who already work well together. They share a vision for commercial, social, industrial, and environmental partnerships between the north’s two greatest cities. Both cities are also blessed because they are made up of Liverpool and Manchester Men and Women, and Manchester and Liverpool Gentlemen and Gentlewomen!
Since 1440, the Molyneux family had been holders of Liverpool Castle and its surrounding land, under licence from King Henry VI (1421–71). By 1632, Richard Molyneux (1594–1636), the 1st Viscount, and his family (who went on to become the Earls of Sefton) had leased the rights to the Manor of Liverpool from King Charles I (1600–49).
But this was the time when Puritans and Parliamentary forces ruled England under Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658) and – as a supporter of the Royalists in the Civil War, and having betrayed the town, leading to a massacre of hundreds of its inhabitants – Richard’s son, Lord Caryll Molyneux (1626–99), the 3rd Viscount, had to lie low for a while on his family estate at Croxteth Hall. (This still stands to the east of Liverpool in the suburb of West Derby.)
However, tensions gradually eased so that, sometime around 1675, Lord Caryll felt confident enough to cut a track through the castle orchard. He named this Molyneux Lane and then Lord Molyneux Street (now Lord Street), and he built a town house on the north side of his new street. This was demolished in the nineteenth century and a Tesco store now stands on the site.
Molyneux’s road led to the shore of a wide creek that needed a rowing boat to cross and which formed the eastern boundary of what was then still quite a small town. Liverpool townsfolk grumbled at this arrogance a little, but he was lord of the manor so most people kept their opinions about his new road to themselves.
Then, in 1669, Molyneux built a bridge linking his road and castle lands to the other side of the creek. However, this territory was nothing more than a vast area of very sparsely populated open land known as the Great Heath (or Great Waste). It stretched for miles and reached as far as the independent communities of Kensington, Edge Hill, Old Swan, Wavertree, and Childwall. The creek still runs from the hills above Liverpool and down to the river, but today it is culverted completely and runs beneath many modern roads, including Whitechapel and Paradise Streets in the city centre.
Molyneux wanted to develop this section of the heath for his own commercial advantage, extending his holdings up the hill to what would eventually become Bold Street. But this, quite literally, was ‘a bridge too far’ for the townspeople. They felt that it was common land and belonged to them – once again, the Molyneux family were getting on the wrong side of the people! They also feared that Molyneux was trying to make a claim for all the lands of the heath, so they were not pleased.
Two local townsmen, Edward Marsh and James Whitfield, supported by their fellow citizens, promptly demolished Molyneux’s bridge almost as soon as he built it. Molyneux had them imprisoned, but they were immediately bailed out by their friends, who also paid for solicitors to take up their case.
After a court hearing and protracted negotiations, and in return for permission to build his bridge, on 20 March 1672, Molyneux settled out of court. He agreed to sub-lease the lordship of the manor of Liverpool to the Town Corporation. This was to be for a period of 1,000 years and at an annual rent of £30, so it was a bargain. Molyneux also agreed that the townspeople of Liverpool should have title to the town land and its income, as well as having free access to the common land across his bridge.