Built in the 1800s, Nevill Street in Southport runs at right angles to the town’s Promenade. Part of the street was constructed on two levels as the land sloped towards the beach area.
Nevill Street was apparently susceptible to flooding at particularly high tides and as a result the whole street was raised as part of the flood defences in around 1903. As a result, the lower levels of some of the existing properties now contain former windows and shop fronts that once looked out at street level.
None of these is publically accessible but it is intriguing that Southport has a smaller version of the better-known underground city in Seattle, where the whole city was lifted and rebuilt on the ruins of the fire of 1899.