THE BOAT UNDER THE PUB CAR PARK

THE ‘BOAT BENEATH THE CARPARK’ PROJECT

ANCIENT WIRRAL BOAT TO BE INVESTIGATED - WE NEED

YOUR HELP TO FINISH THE JOB!

Wirral Archaeology Community Interest Company will be carrying out a professional

archaeological investigation of an alleged ancient, clinker-constructed boat buried beneath the

car park of the Railway Inn in Meols, on the northern coast of the Wirral Peninsula.

OUR TARGET - £15,000

The project team has raised around £9,000 to enable this investigation to get started, with most of the funding coming from the University of Nottingham. This will enable us to carry out the

investigation and pay for the analysis of some wood samples of the boat that we hope to obtain. These wood tests must be carried out straight away. This is because ancient wood, once exposed to the air, will begin to deteriorate very rapidly.

However, we need to raise a further £15,000 to finish the job of analysing the soil and

wood samples that we will obtain from the site under investigation.

Whatever donation you can give will be appreciated and it’s so easy to donate using

gofundme.

“There has been intense local interest in this buried object for many years. It has been thought

that the boat dates from the Viking era but no professional investigation has ever been carried

out to establish the truth, so everyone is really delighted at the prospect of what we might

discover.”

(Dominga Devitt, Chair, Wirral Archaeology CIC)

The work is due to begin on 18th February 2023 at the Railway Inn. The team from Wirral

Archaeology CIC will work in partnership with the pub owners, Greene King, to investigate the

buried object under the supervision of professional archaeologist Charles Jones, who has spent

many years researching the site of the Battle of Fulford which took place in 1066, and scientist

Professor Stephen Harding of Nottingham University.

Professor Harding is an acknowledged expert on Viking settlement and culture on the Wirral

peninsula where he comes from. He explains; we plan to go down systematically with an array

of about 100 narrow bore holes across a wide area in front of the pub where the boat lies – buried

approximately 9ft (3m) underneath the surface and capture small samples of wood and the

surrounding environment for full analysis. The boat is purported to be a very old wooden clinker

(overlapping planks), a design of boatbuilding that originated in Scandinavia, and is buried in

waterlogged blue clay – a great preservative – and similar to the clay in which the famous

Norwegian clinker boats, the Oseberg and Gokstad were deliberately buried”

“The position and depth suggest it is very old, and it may even date from the Viking Age, when

Meols was a vibrant seaport and Wirral hosted a large Scandinavian community. Any remains,

and surrounding soil will undergo a range of scientific analyses including Carbon14 dating,

dendrochronology and wood assessment (state of preservation and possible origins). These tests

will provide us with a context and valuable information about the age and possible origin of the

boat.”

A BUZZ OF EXCITEMENT!

Lisa Jones, General Manager at The Railway, said: “Team Railway is very happy to be part of this

historic moment for Meols and supports the work of the Wirral Archaeology group. There is a buzz of excitement around this and we look forward to finding out more about what is buried beneath the pub car park. Like everyone around here, we all want to identify just what is there and if it does date back to Viking times.”

OUR WEBSITE

www.wirralarchaeology.org.