Wirral could attract American Civil War tourists for 150th anniversary

Oct 21 2009 Birkenhead News

He said: “I think you’ve got a real opportunity here to bring Americans into a different part of the country – right now they visit England and they look at it as London.

“We need to look at the war as an international event. In the US we tend to look at it from the inside and as our own war, rather than the impact it had on people across the world. I think the best thing you could do here is to take what you’ve got and look at the whole area as a trail.”

Len Ellison, chairman of Wirral History & Heritage Association, said a model of the Alabama, which was part of an exhibition at Wirral Museum before its closure, was the envy of Civil War groups worldwide.

He said: “We need an area in Wirral to open that exhibition again because every civil war association would love to have that model. Before they built a ship, they built a model so it’s older than the Alabama and I think it must be worth half a million.”

Cllr Jerry Williams said: “Lairds’ No. 4 dock in particular is of exceptional importance.

“The potential is there and we look forward to seeing what can happen in the future.”