What have a church, a monument and a castle got in common?… Answers on a postcard please… only kidding !!! The answer is of course as many of you will already know… They ALL occupied the same site within our great city…
Firstly on the site, and from the times of our earliest history, was Liverpool Castle… built on the highest point visible from the river, in approximately 1232-5, the castle was to stand for 500 years. However, in the late 1720’s plans were afoot to demolish the castle as it had fallen into ruin, and build a magnificent church on the site. The city fathers were petitioned and after a consultation period, permission was granted, and work set about, to erect the Church of St. George on the site of the old Liverpool Castle.
St. George’s church was dedicated, consecrated and opened in 1734, and immediately attracted a large and regular congregation of city councillors, merchants and professionals along with their families through the 1700’s to 1800’s.
St, George’s Interior
The church was both owned and maintained by the City Council and it was the place of worship for the mayor, council and judiciary. In 1863 however Mr. Charles Mozley, who was Jewish, was elected mayor and at this, the incumbent preached a sermon denouncing the choice. From that time the mayor and corporation ceased to attend St. George’s.
This saw the church fall into a spiral of decline, and in the late 1890’s, St. George’s was closed. Although the church did not have a recognised ‘graveyard’ as such, burials did in fact take place in the confines of the church. Past Patrons and congregation members, were interred in the old crypts under the main body of the church.
Of course, the internment remains and inscribed crypt stones had to be removed before the demolition of St. George’s could take place… and so in 1901, these remains, were exhumed, and all were carried here to Everton Cemetery, where we can find an obelisk monument commemorating this event, along with the original cover stones, laid flat across each crypt internment in one of the boundary sections of the cemetery. I’m sure there is a lot of history contained on these crypt-stones, as the internment’s, would have been City Mayors, plus prominent merchants, lawyers and business-men of the day. As the historian for Everton Cemetery, I plan to do more specific research of these stones in the future, to unearth their own hidden histories.
Obelisk Stone commemorating the re-burial in 1901
The laid inscription stones here in Everton Cemetery
Subsequently, after the demolition of St. George’s, work on the ‘new’ Victoria Monument, began in the early 1900’s, and the foundation stone was laid in October 1902. The grand unveiling of the Victoria Monument took place in September 1906… The monument still occupies the same site today, and that of its illustrious predecessors.
A replica of Liverpool Castle, can still be found today, on the banks of the Rivington Reseviour on the Lever Park Estate, at Rivington (near Bolton). Although built as a Victorian ‘Folly’ of the castle ruins (as it was in its later life), visitors can visit the site for free, along with the Lever Gardens, Pigeon Tower and Pike (parking off the road or at Rivington Barn, and tea rooms).
Liverpool Castle… on the banks of Rivington Reseviour (near Bolton)
View from the castle to the Pike