Williamson Tunnels centre to close despite campaign

A heritage centre dedicated to preserving Liverpool's mysterious underground tunnels is set to close.

The Williamson Tunnel Heritage Centre in Edge Hill blamed rising rent and maintenance costs and a failure to secure long-term investment.

The centre's manager, Dave Bridson, has spent 30 years excavating the site and running tours of the tunnel network and said he was "very, very sad" to have to close.

He added: "I'm trying not to think about what will happen to it and all the effort we've put in, because that would make me cry."

Joseph Williamson was a wealthy tobacco merchant who lived in Liverpool in the early 19th Century.

When he retired aged 49 he spent a huge part of his fortune building tunnels in the Edge Hill area of the city.

While there are many theories surrounding why the tunnels were built, nobody knows for sure.

Suggestions range from them simply being a way of giving unemployed people a day's wages to creating arches over quarry pits to enable the land above to be built on.

No official records were kept and after Williamson's death the tunnels were filled in and sealed off and largely forgotten by the public.

But after being the subject of urban myth for decades they were rediscovered by volunteers in the 1990s and excavated before being opened to the public in 2002.

Last year the Joseph Williamson Society, which manages access to the tunnels, revealed its annual ground rent would rise from a nominal amount to a commercial rate of £20,000.

A fundraising appeal brought in £23,000, which the centre said afforded some "breathing space".

A long-term investor, however, has not been found.

"We've been looking for an investor but nobody seems interested," said Bridson.

"We can't keep expecting the public to pay us £20,000 every year and on top of that there are other ancillary costs particularly associated with the lease."

Bridson said there were also ongoing costs with building maintenance and that there were restrictions on future excavations.

"I put 30 years into this, one way or another, and the thought that it's going makes me very, very depressed," he said.

Bridson said the centre was due to close its doors on 20 December.

Friends of the Williamson Tunnels, which is a separate organisation, operates sections of the tunnels under Mason Street and Paddington.

These will not be affected by the closure of the heritage centre.

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