Satellite view of the Railway Inn Pub. The position of the vessel is marked by an ellipse.
In 2007 Ground Penetrating Radar confirmed the existence of an old boat buried deep under
a car park/patio area of a pub near the Railway Station in Meols, Wirral (Fig. 1), a find that
had been reported some 70 years earlier.
1938 Discovery
In 1938 the Railway Inn Pub was being rebuilt further away from the road with the site of the
old building becoming a car-park. Workers unearthed part of an old clinker boat buried in
waterlogged blue clay some 2-3m underneath the surface. One of the workers, Mr John
McRae, made detailed notes about the vessel - its size and clinker design (built with
overlapping planks) - and noted its location before it was covered over. In 1991 his son - also
John - compiled the notes together into a report with a sketch (Fig 2), and presented it to
Liverpool Museum (now National Museums: Liverpool) in 1991, after which the information
was entered by an assitant curator into the Sites and Monuments Record [1]. No further
action was taken.
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