Click to return to FoWT home page
<< go back to Paddington
Here is a selection of images side by side showing various places of interest in and around the tunnels at the Paddington/Williamson Student Village site.

This drawing is taken from the letterhead of an old business which was at No.2 Highgate Street. The four-storey building is the side of No. 126 Paddington, under which were the several storeys of Williamson caverns we re-discovered in 1999. St. Mary's church is visible on the right. This photo shows more or less the same view today. No. 126 Paddington is long gone, but just behind the small block inside the railings is the new entrance to the tunnels which were underneath the old property.


This painting, reproduced courtesy of Liverpool City Libraries, shows the junction of Irvine Street, Highgate Street and Paddington early this century. The four storey building with the bakers shop on the ground floor is 126 Paddington. This was built by Williamson decades earlier, was rumoured to be a maze of rooms inside and had below it the tunnels rediscovered by FoWT in 1999. The same scene today, with the Bears Paw pub in the foreground still open for business. No. 126 has gone, but the tunnels underneath haven't!


A photograph from 1925 showing the Lancs & Cheshire Historic Society during their exploration of the tunnels under Paddington.

Some of the FoWT digging team in the same spot in 1999. Just earlier, we had met up with Mr. George Linacre, grandson of the proprietor of the business in the picture top left on this page. Also, George's grandfather is in the 1925 photo above. We were delighted to take him to the very same spot for this picture - he's third from the right.