Forums Forums Wirral History : Chasing the Past Wirral History VCH Mortuary/Morgue

I now work back in VCH and was discussing the history of one of the buildings earlier today with one of my colleagues who said that a few years back there was a horrid smell emanating around the building and people were called in who went "down under to the morgue" and it was flooded and the staff were sent to APH A&E to be checked for side effects. I believe they weren't told what the smell was...

I've had a look down the building and can't for the life of me even see a possible entrance down to a place/area beneath the building... The building i work in was once a maternity unit and it confuses me as to why a maternity unit would have the morgue underneath but i suppose one has to go somewhere...

Does anyone know of any location and/or entrance to said morgue at VCH???

What's VCH?

Victoria central hospital

Body Store/Mortuary are labelled on this map from 2007 (you might need to right-click and view/open image to see it in higher resolution)

Very, VERY, interesting DD. I work at 024 'MHRC' and there's meant to be something underneath there but it doesnt seem like much. Nor at any point while wandering the grounds or current buildings does it seem there's anything below the surface anywhere...

Hospital had a centralised boilerhouse so under the old wards it will probably have the usual pipe corridors which may even have connected some buildings underground.

Good post

I worked as an IT Manager at VCH from 1997 until we were moved out in 2005. We were based in the Admin building, which along with the MHRC were the oldest parts of the site.
There was a large and deep service duct which ran under the full length of the Admin building from South to North, this was filled in when the Admin building was demolished, it then turned East and ran in the middle of the space between X-Ray and Physio and further East between MHRC and Ward 4, ending just short of the Hospital Store. This duct carried fibre and copper cable, BT phone lines, piping, etc into the various buildings.
The duct used to flood quite regularly and when the site was being prepared for major demolition in about 2002/3, the Eastern end of the duct, between MHRC and Ward 4 was found to be full of asbestos, this was removed by a specialist company.

The mortuary was connected to the main drainage system but not to the main service duct, this area is now part of the Walk In Centre.

Thanks for sharing kenmo52

I had a couple of things cut off me in VCH & was not offered sweeties after.

Netted knickers? lol

i was in there in 1964 and had 2 things cut off.Tonsils and and adanoids

Not there - but in Edge Hill Liverpool, there used to be a school and all the teachers and children had gone into the boiler-room to escape the noise. Unfortunately it attracted a direct hit from a pod of bombs and the story was that they couldn't get at the bodies in the Boiler room as the flesh had been boiled-off of the poor people down there - so they bricked the whole area over and put a monument there. Very sad, when I learnt about this - years later, I cried for several days. Still very saddening. linuxfanatik

Aah! When I had a prostate operation a few years ago - I never got any humbugs or gob-stoppers either! linuxfanatik