Forums Forums Wirral History : Chasing the Past Wirral History Bidston Hill Underground Tunnels Part 1

On 28days they mention the shaft was filled with cement??

Do you remember much about the shaft at all Chris? How deep was the first set of ladders? Was it one set, then a trap door and another set leading into the tunnels themselves, or was it just ladders from start to finish?

We found a trap door kinda thing you see.

Broad97
Hi there, looking at your picture i think your off the mark a little. The marker closest to the houses is where we suspected the entrance behind the steel door to be at the end of the tunnels. We measured them out and your arrow is just too far to the right to be part of the "Bidston Tunnel" complex we discovered. How ever we have been told that at the front there was 3 Entrances. If the entrance we use was say Number one all the way to the right. And another Entrance is almost in line with the last house on that row and the field, apparently you could see it from the main road (Bus stop) and that was the reference i was told they used, now ive also been informed that there is a 3rd Entrance with was or could be pretty much where your pin marker is. Maybe a tiny bit towards the main road, but we found cuts in the Rocks which look man made, and if it was the same place there is a whole lot of dirt been poured over it.



The Vent shaft
To my knowledge and i'm no expert as we only found the one ventilation shaft, but that's over beside the "cock Pit" a good distance from where you have pointed out. What i can say about the one we found is that at half way up the shaft was a ventilation thing that looked like an air raid siren. The Shaft its self was cut into the rock we can tell you that much. There was alot of sand / soil at the bottom of the top most ladder but no bricks that we could see. I think we are talking about the same shaft. if you go back and read the topic and the way we found and explored the tunnels and shafts you may find it helpful. There is alot of myths and idea's about where things are.
No Brick walls, this is the final part to going up the shaft.
And we left TUX the Penguin in there at the top as a momento.


Just a little recap but there is still more to find and discover this is what we all feel strongly about.

It would be amazing if some one had a original picture of the
entrances in there hay day.

See this post Click Me

The last ones show you where we were on Bidston hill.

The little flag is where the vent shaft is.
Beyond that, from the picture angle would be where we found a load of rubble and a big cement slab on its side.
Hope that helps?

Whenever anyone is next at the above mentioned "slab", could they take a tape measure and measure it please ? Thickness/depth and length of one side would be great.

Why ? I have a close up photo of one of the Tranmere vents. From memory, the Bidston one was identical. They were constructed at more or less the same time. No doubt a standard drawing would be used. With a bit of scaling, we could say with certainty, whether or not it's from the vent or something else. If it is from the vent, the filled or capped shaft will be (very) close. They won't have bothered moving something that must weight a couple of tons too far without due cause ! Just an idea.

Ta muchly.

Mike.

the concrete slab i have found is about 10 mtrs past the one on its side .and it is well buried in to the ground(couldnt see the whole slab)it is also well bedded into the ground and well grown over. i would say that it is about 8x6 and about 12-18in thick. i will be backup with the dogs some time this week so as requested i will take some measurements of both areas

not sure if this helps but its just a rough guide
4/is roughly where the rubble pile is
5/is where we have found the large square bedded in slab

Thanks jonno. That would be great.

4 is where we first thought the shaft Entrance was.
We moved a little dirt to see what we could see.

5 I dont think any of us got that deep into the woods. (Good Find)

So 4 is the part we discovered and now you have found
As i Called it the "cross roads" as the main path is
between the Cock pit and No 4.

The Shaft Old Building.
Don't shoot me as its what i was told.
My Uncle as a child played in the Tunnels and they would use the shaft entrance as there way into an apple orchard which is now gone. But it used to be covered with a "Red Brick Building" But this Building had a wooden door. SO every time the council came out to repair it and stop people using the shaft, it was as i was told pretty easy and 2 kicks later and the door was kicked in. And access to the shaft would not be a problem again.

Now in the same breath, i'm also told that there were other red brick buildings 2 or 3 which were viewing buildings, i cant think of the correct word, anyway a small building say 6ft High and 10ft wide on each side?? But they had small slits in them that the army could use as something like a turret or something.

And now it gets a little confusing as i'm sure that the picture chriskay put up could be something very similar, but this picture was more to do with the Tranmere tunnels (please keep this thread to the bidston tunnels)

So you can see how the past could be getting distorted.
But the picture could be a clue to what was there?

the slab roof here is very similar to what we have found in the wood .if anyone would like me to show them exactly where please ask as i live very local to the hill (5 min walk)and it wouldnt be a problem at all

If it stops bloody raining i may come a long for the ride
And a mini meet up too

cool just let us know when :>

Mark
You have made me look a right plonker but fair due's to you mate I should have read the thread before I posted on it, looking at your photo,s it's hard to believe that I thought the ventilation shaft was about 200ft deep but bear in mind there were two of us when we went down that shaft we were 17 yrs old and the best we had for lighting was the front lamps from our bikes as we were going down we couldn't see our feet below us, it felt as if we were decending into the bowels of the earth

I left the Wirral in 1981 and I have not been back to Bidston hill since so dont you think my guestimate's of the entrance and the shaft are pretty good?, when we found the shaft building we had been directed there by an old bloke that I worked with who told us to walk up the hill in a straight line from the top of the entrance so I am quite pleased with myself for getting near the mark on Google Earth with 29 yrs worth of undergrowth to contend with.

The graffiti tells a facinating story though dont you think? every generation seems to find their way in and leave their mark, I hope you left yours

The picture of the building you have posted is prety much bang on to the one I encountered all those years ago, You can see why we lay on the roof to smash our way in

PEACE

Actually, that picture comes courtesy of Pinzgauer, from another site, & I should not have used it without his permission. It is almost certain that the Bidston one was of the same design. You can see the concrete lintel over where the door was.

No Problems Chris. The picture shows the roof slab in all its glory! If enough is showing of the Bidston "slab", a quick measure of one face plus the thickness should verify if it's from the Bidston vent.

Bearing in mind the bricks are "imperial" not metric rhubarb, it should be simple to scale.

Thanks in anticipation to jonno and others helping out !

Just done that. The buildings are 8' square (that's 2.4384 metres for you metric wimps ). I judge that the roof slab overhang is about 6", so the length of the slab is about 9'(2.7432 metres).
Incidentally, the Frodsham St. one illustrated above, is built in Flemish bond, but the Seymour St. one (you know about that one, Pinzgauer) is in English bond: there's a bit of useless information for you, although perhaps it indicates that the 2 buildings, which are only 1/4 mile apart were built by different gangs.