Street Names in Liverpool - Water Street originally called Bonk Street

Water Street was originally called - Bonk Street (it ran up the "bonk" in Lancashire dialect, the bonk of the river i.e. the bank), eventually became Bank Street and then Water Street. It’s one of Liverpool’s oldest streets and it was the main approach from the river, at the foot of which travellers landed on the sandy seashore of the town, from the monks’ ferry at Birkenhead, or from Ireland. Later, the Talbot, a coaching in, crowned the top of the slope where the Bank of Liverpool was later to replace it. On either sides, little lanes and alleys, forerunners of the town’s notorious courts, ran between wretched houses alongside butchers’ shambles. At the foot of the street, guarding the place of embarkation, lay the strong thick walls of the tower, built initially as the residence of the powerful Stanley family but converted after 1413 into a place of strength. During the Royalist seige of Liverpool by Prince Rupert, the tower was used as the parliamentary headquarters and later as a prison for French captives during the Napoleonic wars, by which time it was "so ill suited and disorganised that debtors mixed with criminals in the grossest and most wretched conditions, and gaol fever was rarely absent". It was finally demolished in l820 and a set of new offices - the Tower Buildings - erected in its place. This information can be found on the BBC website http://www.bbc.co.uk/liverpool/localhistory/journey/scouse/city/waterst.shtml.

It is interesting to learn about where we get our street names from. History can fascinating especially when we discover the reason why a certain place gained it's name. The purpose for building a tower is to protect a place or a group of people. The first tower in the Bible was built by people trying to get to God (Genesis 11); it was an attempt at religion on man's terms and it failed. 

The Bible often uses the idea of a 'tower' as a place of safety and protection. God is described by King David in 2 Samuel 22:3 as a "my high tower, and my refuge, saviour". Repeatedly in the Bible we have references to God as a protector and a Saviour. 

How do you find it? Is God your protector? Is He your Saviour? Isaiah the prophet communicated the message of God to his generation. "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth, for I am God, and there is none else", Isaiah 45:22. He offers to be this protection and salvation to you through His Son, Jesus Christ. 

For more information please e-mail me at stepcar61@gmail.com or visit my main Seek the Truth Bible Media page for "Truth u Can Trust" at www.seekthetruth.org.uk