Wednesday 16th December 1925

Construction commenced on the 2.13 mile long Mersey Road Tunnel (Queensway Tunnel) joining Liverpool and Birkenhead. More than 1.2 million tons of rock, gravel, and clay were excavated. Of the 1,700 men who worked on the tunnel during the nine years of its construction, 17 were killed. At the time of its opening it was the longest road tunnel in the world, a title it held for 14 years until the opening of the Vielha Tunnel in Spain in 1948, though it remained the longest underwater tunnel as of 1955. The tunnel, which cost a total of £7.75 million, was opened on 18 July 1934 by King George V; the opening ceremony was watched by 200,000 people. By the 1960s, traffic volume had increased. In 1971 the Kingsway Tunnel opened to relieve congestion.