The crypt provides the final resting place for around 2,000 men, women and children who fled Ireland during the great famine and arrived in Liverpool, only to die during the typhus and cholera epidemics which swept through the parish in 1847. "Some of them hold one person, some of them hold two, four, some more than that and there are common burial vaults as well." In the 1800s, an influx of Irish immigration came to Liverpool, with St Anthony's welcoming new people to the parish and also facilitating their burials. It's a recognised architectural technique and what Broadbent said to Father Wilcock was if you build your church in this way, then the weight of the roof if carried down the walls and its dispersed down the 670 burial vaults down below.Įxterior of St Anthony's Church on Scotland Road (Image: Photo by James Maloney) Local historian and church archivist Michael O'Neill told the ECHO: "The crypt is an integral part of the church and it consists of 670 individual burial vaults. Today, the building has the largest unsupported church ceiling in Great Britain because of egg-shaped arches working together to brace the building, and roof above. 27 places every Liverpool parent took their kids at the weekendĬommissioned by Father Peter Wilcock, and d esigned by John Broadbent, it was intended every worshipper would have an unobstructed view of the altar.Tour Merseyside's 'new roads' as they were in the 60s and 70s.The origins of the parish date back to 1804, when a small chapel was first established on Dryden Street, but today, its the impressive, Gothic-style chapel, built in the 1830s, which stands on Scotland Road that we've come to know. But as many of us know, the Irish links in Liverpool run deeper than the events and celebrations we've come to know and love today.Īt St Anthony's Church in particular, it's what lies beneath that may be less familiar, even on a day like St Patrick's Day. Today, the city will be celebrating St Patrick's Day and Liverpool's historic ties to the Emerald Isle, from packing the streets for the St Patrick's Day parade to raising a glass of Guinness in one of the city's popular Irish pubs. One of Liverpool's oldest churches has stood proudly in the heart of the city for nearly 200 years - but it also has an intriguing and dark past.
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