But in travelling down Bold Street we travel not only back in time,
but travel back towards the origins of the city. As we do so the
slavery links grow stronger.(6)
Into Dale Street, the heart of the commercial centre, you encounter
Rigby's pub, backing onto the (7) Hole
in the Wall pub built in 1726, Liverpool's second oldest pub.
Venture into the courtyard of Rigby's and you are transported back into
the former heart of the city with its closed courtyards, warehouses,
industries and housing all gathered together. Here the owners originally
lived above their business establishments and the workers "existed"
in the cellars and basements. In these crowded areas all manner
of life teemed. Attracted by the wealth and industry that the slave
trade brought, Liverpool prospered. From a sleepy fishing village,
which the Romans visited and left unimpressed, only to colonise
nearby Chester, the city sprang to life from the 1700s. The physical
representation of this flows down wards from Dale St to the river.
(8) The present Town Hall, built 1749-54,
is an imposing monument by itself. Lift your eyes to the skyline and you
find another link with slavery. Etched around the outer perimeter of the
building are the stone carved features of black people, lions, tigers,
elephants, crocodiles and Africa. Behind the Town Hall stands the exchange
flags, the original meeting place of the merchants who shook hands when
exchanging goods and slaves.
(9)
Today there stands a monument to the
Napoleonic war, around the base of which are chained figures commonly
referred to as slaves, but in fact those chained are French prisoners of war.
(10)
Next to the Town Hall is Martins Bank, temporary holder of the nation's
gold during the second world war, before its transportation to Canada,
whose magnificent interior is modelled on a mosque. Outside, however,
inscribed in a doorway are stone friezes depicting two African children
carrying
bags -denoting the wealth of Africa.
(11)
Take a walk another hundred yards away and you come to the Racquet
Club - the home of businessmen in the city. How many of them have
noticed the stone reliefs around the outer reaches of the building
that depict Queen Isabella, Columbus, Amerigo and others, those
responsible for wiping out the indigenous populations of the Americas
and promoters of the notorious trade in human beings.
(12) Only
a stones throw away there is an even more remarkable link with slavery.
In Rumford Place flies the American flag. Enter the courtyard and you
are once again transported in time. Here there is no room for a horse
and carriage to turn around so there was an entrance and exit. Within
the courtyard are the symbols of the Southern States of America . So what
is the link? Well during the American Civil War in the 1860's Liverpool
was a hotbed of spies for the confederacy (the South), England was supposedly
neutral in the war. But across the river at Cammell
Laird shipyards, the Alabama
was being built. Spies for the confederacy notified the South when she
was completed and a raiding party hijacked the ship. Not for nothing can
you find these references and others such as Maryland Street in Liverpool.
(13)
From here our journey with Eric takes us to St Nicholas Church,
(14) behind which stands the offices of the
Harrison Line, whose building boasts the least known of the three
Liverpool Liver birds. Here on the promontory which overlooks the river
were the coffee houses from which merchants and traders would watch the
progress of their ships up the river, before hurrying up to the exchange
flags. And so we have come full circle back to the birthplace of the city
- to the river, which strategically was so important to the triangular
trade.
(15)
As testimony to the wealth which flooded in during two centuries
stands the Royal Liver Building,
built well after the abolition of slavery, a monumental structure
of gothic proportions proclaiming that Liverpool was the second
most important city in the Empire. Along this way used to run the
Goree Piazza, long dismantled but linked by its name to the settlement
of the same name in Africa....
(16)
Looking up Water Street from the Strand.
The Goree Piazzas were situated down the centre of the Strand.
