Queensway, River Mersey Tunnel

Main Queensway Tunnel | The Old Dock

The Queensway Tunnel, was the first of two road tunnels to be built under the River Mersey, connecting Liverpool to the Wirral. The second being the newer Kingsway Tunnel, which opened in 1971.

Construction of Liverpool’s Queensway Tunnel began in 1925 and by 1928, the two pilot tunnels being dug from either side of the Mersey, met with great accuracy, being less than 1 inch out. Construction work continued, with the tunnel finally opening in 1934. At the time, Queensway held the record for being the longest road tunnel in the world until 1948, being 2.01 miles long. Though it still remained the longest Tunnel beneath a body of water, until 1955. Queensway became known as the eighth wonder of the world for its engineering. During the nine years of construction, 1,700 men worked on the tunnel with sadly 17 being killed.

In addition to the Tunnel itself, there are the spectacular external Art Deco features, which include the tunnel entrances, toll booths and the ventilation and control buildings, which are now Grade II listed.

Tours are available of the Tunnel and the main Tunnel building at Mann Island. During the tour, in addition to learning about the history and construction of the Tunnel, you will get to see the original control room, the Tunnel ventilation systems and even step into the road tunnel itself as the cars pass you. Then, you venture further down still, into an even lower section of the Tunnel below the road, where originally it was planned trams would run.

I can’t recommend the Mersey Tunnel tours enough, if you would like to book, you can do so here.

Main Queensway Tunnel

The Old Dock

The Old Dock

The waterfront of the old city, was once originally further inland, where the Strand is today. Liverpool had an extensive set of docklands along it’s Mersey coast. One of those docks, the old Georges dock near Mann Island was filled in, in order to reclaim the land to build the new Pier Head and the Three Grace’s. The arches that can be seen in the photographs below, were originally built to carry roads that crossed the former old dock down to the Pier Head and the newly created waterline, between the new buildings.

Main Queensway Tunnel