Tidal Tales: Uncovering the secrets of Crosby's Blitz beach

Video report by ITV reporter Sarah Rogers


The bombed out Blitz rubble has covered the Crosby coastline for decades.

Millions of visitors come see Anthony Gormley's statues on the beach there each year - but many have no idea of the history right underneath their feet a little further along the coastline.

Crosby Beach

Liverpool was heavily bombed during the Second World War, targeted because of its large port.

The devastation was catastrophic, almost 4000 people were killed and 70,000 made homeless. The streets were impassible and piled high with what once were homes and businesses.

Blitzed: Liverpool Lives. Museum of Liverpool

Now, one archeology graduate, Emma Marsh is trying to put the pieces back together.

Emma, 22, began taking photos and documenting tiles, ornate stones and many other objects and is trying to trace its origins through online project archaeobeach.

What started as a university project has become a passion extending beyond her university degree. She believes the site should be officially recognised as an archeological wreckage.

Emma has so far categorised some Georgian buildings and traced a gravestone back to a local church bombed in the Blitz.

Emma Marsh

Asked if she imagined she's still be doing this as a pensioner Emma said: "If it's still here I bet I'll still be coming. It's so close to people's lives these artifacts, I really feel that connection to the lives of the past."

Part of a gravestone found on the beach traced to Wesleyan Methodist Church in the city

Emma has created 3D images of some of her finds, they're all published on her twitter site, she hopes some viewers may recognise them in her search for clues to uncover more of the past.

The Museum of Liverpool currently has an exhibition exploring the lives of those caught up in the war in the city.

One of the curators there said a lack of funding may offer up a reason as to why the rubble was still there. "Liverpool was in a bad way for quite some time," said Karen O'Rouke, and didn't have the investment other cities like London had to begin a post war clean up operation. It would appear the rubble now forms part of the sea defences instead.

Blitzed: Liverpool Lives

"Those collapsed houses, all of the damage that's been done - you can no longer see the streets. And with Liverpool being an important city and with the workers needing to get to work, the first thing they need to do is clear the streets."


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