The secret tunnel beneath Liverpool park

A secret tunnel located beneath Wavertree Botanic Gardens in Liverpool has recently drawn the attention due to the mysterious face profiles that are illustrated on its walls.

The tunnel used to provide shelter for people at the Littlewood Building during the World War 2 infamous blitz campaign conducted in 1940 and 1941. Liverpool was the 2^nd most affected city by aerial bombs after London. The 300-meter long underground facility consisted of 13 entrances. 

Littlewood Building was constructed in 1938 and used to host football pools but during WW2 it became a factory of barrage balloons that were used against aircraft attacks. The building was engulfed by fire in 2018 however, its framework survived the damage.

Something interesting about the tunnel is the drawings that still exist in its walls which illustrate faces whose initials are also written beneath. The portraits show both men and women with helmets and they were possibly drawn as an entertaining feature during the dramatic moments of the aerial bombing.

A year ago, Kyle May, a photographer and designer from Liverpool, found an entrance open in the tunnel and started investigating those drawings in an effort to recognize the faces. "Last summer somebody seemed to have broken into the bunker so I went and had a look around and I was sat there thinking 'I wonder if someone has worked out who the people in the pictures are'," Mr. May said.

The attempt was rather difficult as it seems that the drawings did not illustrate famous but normal people of that era. However, Mr. May managed to track down one person due to its rate name.  "It was a proper mystery, no one knows who painted them or who they are. But I noticed one of the faces had the initial U next to it and I thought there's not many names that begin with a U so I signed up for a free trial on Ancestry and started looking for people from that time with a name beginning with that letter. After a lot of researching Kyle managed to narrow down his search to two possibilities and eventually one lady was left who seemed to fit the bill. She's a lady called Ursula Lois Forshaw. My search said this person is in somebody else's family tree and I managed to find him on LinkedIn as he'd stopped using Ancestry a while ago." he stated.

Mr. May also managed to contact the woman's relatives. Her niece stated that Ursula was in the Women's Air Force.

The research to identify the rest of the faces is on-going. It is suggested that some of the faces belong to workers at the Littlewood factory.