136 History of Inland Transport 



Liverpool as she had been to Bristol, to Lynn, to Hull or to 

 Boston. These, and other ports besides, stood on streams 

 which were naturally navigable for more or less considerable 

 distances into the interior of the country, whereas the Mersey 

 was not naturally navigable for more than about fifteen 

 or twenty miles above Liverpool. The navigation even 

 of the estuary as far as Liverpool presented difficulties and 

 dangers in stormy weather, owing to sand-banks, violent 

 currents and rapid tides ; but beyond Runcorn the Mersey 

 was not then navigable at all. Nor were the tributaries of 

 the Mersey the Irwell and the Weaver navigable. 



Liverpool was thus shut off from communication with the 

 interior by river, and for a long time the town was not in a 

 much better position as regards roads. No Roman road came 

 nearer to Liverpool than Warrington, and, down to 1750 (as 

 I have already shown), the road between Warrington and 

 Liverpool was not passable for coaches or carriages. On the 

 east Liverpool was practically isolated from the rest of the 

 country by the high range of hills dividing Lancashire from 

 Yorkshire, and there were the still more formidable hills 

 of the Lake District on the north. The early route for a journey 

 to the south from Liverpool was to cross the Mersey at Monk's 

 Ferry, Birkenhead, and then pass through the forest of Wirral 

 to Chester. Here there was found a Roman road, along which 

 a coach to London was running in the reign of James II. (1685 

 1688), whereas the first coach from Warrington to London did 

 not start until 1757. 



So long as our commercial relations were mainly with 

 Continental or other ports which could be more conveniently 

 reached from the east or the south coast, or from Bristol, 

 and so long as the industries of Lancashire and Yorkshire were 

 but little developed, or found an outlet abroad in these other 

 directions, the comparative isolation of Liverpool was a 

 matter of no great national concern ; though how, in effect, 

 Liverpool compared with other seaports or river-ports in the 

 thirteenth century is shown by the fact (as told by Thomas 

 Baines, in his " History of the Commerce and Town of Liver- 

 pool ") that whereas the aggregate value of trading property 

 in Liverpool, Lancaster, Preston and Wigan the only four 

 towns in Lancashire which then acknowledged possessing 

 such property at all was given in an official return for the 



