Chester Basin

Chester Basin was a tidal basin on the River Mersey, in Liverpool, England. The basin was situated between the Pier Head and Manchester Dock.

On the 1909 plan, Chester Basin is the unlabelled inlet two to the left of Canning Half-tide Dock, with Manchester Dock unlabelled in between.

History

The basin was built between 1785 and 1795,[1] opening in 1795 as the Chester and Ellesmere Basin, and was 2,568 sq yd (2,147 m²) in area.[2] The basin was used by canal boats which had entered the river at Ellesmere Port, as well as other small craft on the Mersey,[2] and was owned by the Shropshire Union Railways and Canal Company.[3] The basin was filled in between 1928 and 1936, with some of the spoil excavated during the construction of the Queensway Tunnel.[2]

In 2007, during the construction of the Liverpool Canal Link, the site was excavated. The excavation revealed various carved stones, which were identified as being from the Liverpool Town Hall of 1673.[4]

References

1. "Ferry Terminal Pierhead, Liverpool, Merseyside – Archaeological Evaluation Report" (PDF). Oxford Archaeology North. February 2008. pp. 9, 29. Retrieved 5 September 2016.
2. McCarron & Jarvis 1992, pp. 25–26
3. Jarvis 1988, p. 24
4. "Liverpool Canal Link, May 2007 – page 2". Pennine Waterways. Archived from the original on 10 October 2007. Retrieved 5 September 2016.

Sources

• Jarvis, Adrian (1988). Docks of the Mersey. Ian Allan. ISBN 9780711015333. OCLC 18521920.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• McCarron, Ken; Jarvis, Adrian (1992). Give a Dock a Good Name?. Birkenhead: Merseyside Port Folios. ISBN 9780951612941. OCLC 27770301.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)

Further reading

• "Nomination of Liverpool - Maritime Mercantile City for Inscription on the World Heritage List" (PDF). Department for Culture, Media and Sport. 2003. p. 121. Retrieved 5 September 2016.