TAKE YER COSSIE TO THE CAZZIE
LIVERPOOL’S docklands play such a dominant role in its history that it’s hard to imagine the city’s entire waterfront was once largely unspoilt sand and shingle beach.
But with the coming of the Industrial Revolution, and the building of seven and a half miles of dense docklands on the banks of the Mersey, through the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, that shoreline was lost forever.
Only a small stretch of natural beach remains in the isolated hamlets of Oglet and Dungeon, near the southern district of Speke. And there are fears this too may fall prey to development plans.
One of the riverfront areas particularly despoiled was the Dingle district, just north of Speke. Even so, a short length of shoreline was not actually built over until the early-1980s. Until then it remained a local playground and swimming area for local people.
For decades it was known as “The Cast-Iron Shore” or “The Cazzie”, and is still fondly remembered by many older Liverpudlians.
The name dates from 1815, and refers to the cast iron produced at the vast Mersey Forge Iron Foundry that stood near the Dingle waterfront, on each side of Sefton Street.
This had been established in 1810, and produced cast and forged iron. Steel was also manufactured here, using massive, pivoting furnaces called Bessemer converters.
Mersey Forge
There were also huge smelting and puddling yards, great rolling and stamping mills, and a 15-ton steam-hammer, whose persistent thump, thump, thumping was loud enough to be heard on the other side of the river, and which was finally silenced after many complaints and a court hearing.
At its peak, the Mersey Forge employed 1,500 men. This ironworks also made armour plating and armaments including, in 1856, the gigantic Horsfall Gun. This was then the largest gun in existence, weighing 21 tons 17cwt.
When it was tested on Liverpool’s North Shore, the streets were decked out with bunting and a huge crowd gathered to witness a 300lb ball being shot for a distance of five miles.
The giant cannon was intended to be used in the Crimean War, fought since 1853 by Turkey, France and Britain against Russia. But, to the disappointment of the Forge owners and workers, the war ended three days after the gun was finished.
When the Liverpool to Garston railway was being cut through the south docks, in 1864, the forge had to move to three new sites, separated by Grafton and Horsfall Streets but connected by long, wide, and very busy tunnels, that are still there beneath the modern streets.
At a time before health and safety laws and environmental awareness, the spoil from this heavy industry was allowed to run off, heavily tainting and discolouring the land all around, as well as the shore and the rocks.
The beach now took on all the colour shades of metal – from yellow and orange, through red and blue, to grey and black – hence the name then given to the shore by local people.
After the closure of the Mersey Forge, in 1898, this section of the river’s edge became a very popular swimming spot for local children and young men, and a picnic destination for families.
Disappeared
No one minded the colour of the water or the polluted state of the Cast Iron Shore, why would they?
The Forge sites were eventually demolished, cleared, and built over. Then, in 1982, the Cazzie too disappeared as work began on reclaiming the land for conversion into a new riverside walkway and embankment. This would form part of the International Garden Festival: But that’s another story…