Nevill Street: The Buried Road Under Southport

 Although this blog is about Preston, I am going to start in Southport - it has a Preston postcode, so is near enough. It was reading about Nevill Street that gave me the impetus to start a blog.

I found out about it in Wikipedia, looking at a page on underground cities. I was very much surprised to find one just down the road! In fact, there is another in Liverpool, so the northwest of England actually has TWO underground cities. Supposedly...

There are a small number of web sites, such as here, that talk about how the road was raised by one floor, so the ground floor of the buildings all became basements, and the first floor became the ground floor, and - though the local council do not want you to know about it - it is still possible to go down into that hidden world!

Hmmm.

How does that fit with the surrounding roads? You can see a modern aerial view here. Nevill Street runs from Lord Street in the southeast to the Promenade, in the northwest, and has two side streets on each side. All those streets were there over 100 years ago, and they are all pretty flat. Was Nevill Street in a trench or something?

I do not know for sure, but I strongly suspect that Nevill Street is at the same height it always was - it just had a ramp down to the beach in the middle of it.


This map from 1895 shows Nevill Street. Towards the northwest end, the road splits and goes either side of a white area, open at the southeast end. This - I suggest - is the ramp, which goes under the Promenade to give access to the beach just where it says "Pier Entrance".

Look at this view of the pier, dated 1890-1900. At the point a road had been built that extends from the Promenade, and runs parallel to the pier for some distance; it is called Marine Parade and is still there today.


Between this road and the pier there is a queue of horse-and-carts, lined up, waiting to go under the promenade, and up the ramp onto Nevill Street.

By 1910, the land between Marine Parade and the pier was filled in to 60 to 70 m out from the Promenade, and a pavillion was built there. Presumably the ramp was filled in at that point. Since then much more land has been reclaimed, and nowadays the promenade is about 500 m from the beach.

If I am right, this "underground city" was no more than a subway under the promenade giving access to the beach. There may have been a couple of kiosk on it, but no more than that.



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