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This is something I've really enjoyed learning about recently.
Amongst other things I've just found out my old high school is a former Infectious Disease Hospital, a Council Office I grew up opposite was the nurse and doctor quarters for said Hospital and the local cemetery which is next to the Council Office used to be allotments on either side of a smaller cemetery. All of this is boxed in by four roads and probably runs about half a mile if you were to walk right round.
To have found out this much in a matter of days about such a small piece of land I personally find very, very interesting. I live in a well-built area of Liverpool with the docks roughly two miles from my house, which in turn is about 100 yards from my high school. As little as a hundred years ago, before my current estate was built, houses at the top of my road were advertised as 'Sea-View' properties as you could genuinely see right down to the docks and further. Imagine finding out your house just in a modern council-built estate once had houses considered as sea-view. A mile west of my home has areas listed as 'Bootle Bay'. It's all very interesting to me. My girlfriends parents home where she grew up in apparently has a running lake underneath. Within 5 miles there's tunnels built by a man named Joseph Williamson that run like a labyrinth beneath the City, and some are open to the public now. They were built on a reasoning of giving workers just Something to do. There are also apparently hidden tunnels that stretch further that were built by monks hundreds of years ago, some to hide from Cromwells men, some for unknown reasons. A book titled Strange Liverpool tells of homes and streets being excavated only to find tombs and coffins just laid sporadically in prestine condition. Williams Mckenzie was buried in Rodney Street, with a 'Winning Hand', to trick the Devil. The author of The Ragged Trousered Philanropists, Robert Tressils, was buried in an unmarked grave opposite a prison which was once labelled the most overcrowded in Britain.
I've been on old-map sites and discovered maps dating back 100s of years where you can see the rapid change and overall modernisation in recent centuries and even decades. You can practically see the streets being built, map by map.
This is all very interesting to me, and I hope it's interesting to others.
Does anybody else here delve into their local history?? What have you found out??
Amongst other things I've just found out my old high school is a former Infectious Disease Hospital, a Council Office I grew up opposite was the nurse and doctor quarters for said Hospital and the local cemetery which is next to the Council Office used to be allotments on either side of a smaller cemetery. All of this is boxed in by four roads and probably runs about half a mile if you were to walk right round.
To have found out this much in a matter of days about such a small piece of land I personally find very, very interesting. I live in a well-built area of Liverpool with the docks roughly two miles from my house, which in turn is about 100 yards from my high school. As little as a hundred years ago, before my current estate was built, houses at the top of my road were advertised as 'Sea-View' properties as you could genuinely see right down to the docks and further. Imagine finding out your house just in a modern council-built estate once had houses considered as sea-view. A mile west of my home has areas listed as 'Bootle Bay'. It's all very interesting to me. My girlfriends parents home where she grew up in apparently has a running lake underneath. Within 5 miles there's tunnels built by a man named Joseph Williamson that run like a labyrinth beneath the City, and some are open to the public now. They were built on a reasoning of giving workers just Something to do. There are also apparently hidden tunnels that stretch further that were built by monks hundreds of years ago, some to hide from Cromwells men, some for unknown reasons. A book titled Strange Liverpool tells of homes and streets being excavated only to find tombs and coffins just laid sporadically in prestine condition. Williams Mckenzie was buried in Rodney Street, with a 'Winning Hand', to trick the Devil. The author of The Ragged Trousered Philanropists, Robert Tressils, was buried in an unmarked grave opposite a prison which was once labelled the most overcrowded in Britain.
I've been on old-map sites and discovered maps dating back 100s of years where you can see the rapid change and overall modernisation in recent centuries and even decades. You can practically see the streets being built, map by map.
This is all very interesting to me, and I hope it's interesting to others.
Does anybody else here delve into their local history?? What have you found out??
