Forums Forums Wirral History : Chasing the Past Wirral History Tranmere tunnels talk

Went to the lecture at the Williamson today. It was pretty well attended; I'd say about fifty people turned up.
It was given by one of the people involved in the official investigation in late 2014.
I found the talk disappointing. It was impossible to read most of the text on the slides and his voice didn't carry well.
The talk took about 1hr .20 minutes but could have been much shorter if he had not spent so much time talking about other tunnel systems.
He seems to think that it will be possible to get the tunnels opened to the public, but admits that it isn't going to happen any time soon.

Thanks for the feedback on this Chris. Overall, it sounds a little disappointing - by virtue of being poorly presented. Being a well visited "adventure playground" by me in the late '50's I'd love to see the system opened to the public. What was the name of the guy giving the talk?

I hope questions from the floor were fired at him re: emergency escapes. Are they intending to reopen one of the vent shafts? Which one? (Only one is remotely possible now.) Was he aware of the success of Stockport's tunnels?

If it wasn't such a long drag for me, I'd have been there. Did anyone else from wiki go ?

Did not go to The Talk. I did, however visit the Tranmere Tunnels once infiltrated by another group, a while back.....

They are in fantastic condition, compared to the Bidston Tunnels. No graffiti,sound flooring etc.... I hear there was a some asbestos around the kitchen area- we avoided that-obvs.

Thanks for your feedback Chris.

The presenter was Ian Weir of Blackett-Ord Conservation Engineering Ltd, which was the firm brought in by Tranmere Tunnels Volunteers Ltd. with a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund.
There were no really pertinent questions asked and I suspect a lot of attendees were there simply because it was part of Wirral Heritage Open Days.

Thanks Chris.

i didn't attend the talk as stuck in work sounds like i didn't miss much tho cheers chris for keeping us updated mate as a member of the 2nd visit team and the 3 it was a honor to be a part of the tunnels history and to preserve its past

This is a bit disappointing. They were given a £10,000 grant last year, you'd hope they'd have put some of that towards a new projector or something!

Seems like a hell of a task though, unless they plan on turning it into the Wirral Asbestos Museum. Free P3 mask with every visit

I think if they used entrance No2 (Holborn Square) as the main visitor entrance, they could keep the one behind the garage as a fire escape route, and that'd probably be enough to satisfy the H&S folks. I can imagine they'd only use a small part of the eastern half, since the ventilation gets much much worse towards the far side where the shaft was. You could restore some of the tunnel sections with bunks, chairs etc to make things more interesting:



Hell of a project! The asbestos is one thing, but the roofing is going to need a ton of work too - both the corrugated stuff and the sandstone above.

Fort Perch Rock has a lovely little collection of 'home front' type stuff as well as the aircraft bits, maybe they could loan a selection of stuff to get things off the ground? I mean, they'll eventually have to make it the Merseyside Blitz Museum or Wirral Wartime Experience or something...the tunnels themselves are pretty featureless and the most use they ever saw was as storage for empty egg crates

EDIT: any of you folks involved with the volunteer group? they seem rather elusive!

Seeing how well the Stockport one does, I'd like to see this happen. But it really needs heavy council and other promotions to make it work.

Just found this link
Clan have been in the tunnels to inspect the integrity of the structure
http://www.clan.co.uk/What-Lies-Beneath

Cannot find a date of when they carried this inspection out so don't know if the project is still on/off

The last statement from Tranmere Tunnels Volunteers Ltd in March 2016 was that progress had slowed.

Don't be fooled by their name containing "Volunteers", this has been created as a company and to my mind a relatively secret one as well as it certainly isn't a public group at the moment.

They are in discussion with the Birkenhead and Tranmere Neighbourhood Planing Forum as to how progress can be made.