Mann Island, Liverpool- Post-excavation Assessment

The area known as Mann Island (centred at SJ 3403 9008) is bounded on the north by a road of the same name, on the east by The Strand, on the west by the Mersey itself, while
the Canning Graving Docks form the southern limit. The Strand, as the name implies, marks the approximate position of the natural shoreline of the Mersey, before two centuries
of land reclamation. Mann Island itself, which lies partly within the Maritime Mercantile City of Liverpool World Heritage Site, consists entirely of made ground, created during the construction of a series of docks, each of which experienced phases of rebuilding during its lifetime, with some reaching redundancy and being infilled.
The process of reclamation began in the early eighteenth century, when a tidal basin to ease the approach to the Old Dock (built 1710–17) was established. The later extension
and development of this, from c 1740, created the Dry Dock, from which Canning Dock was created in 1829. Further phases of reclamation westwards culminated in the establishment of Manchester Dock in 1785.
The archaeological excavations on Mann Island, carried out by Oxford Archaeology North between May 2007 and May 2008, with further work in July 2009, on behalf of Countryside Neptune, occupied ground extending from the early eighteenth-century reclamation close to the original shoreline, westwards to the northern and eastern walls of
Manchester Dock, and including successive limits of land reclamation inbetween. From an examination of historical records and maps, it was apparent that the excavation was likely to encounter the remains of sea walls, the Dry Dock, the passage between Canning Dock and George’s Dock to the north, Manchester Dock, the Mersey Railway pumping and
ventilation station, and buildings which occupied the area marked on maps as Nova Scotia.