Streets of Liverpool

Manchester Street is hardly the grand street the region’s second city deserves. Tucked alongside the Tunnel entrance, it is passed by thousands of motorists daily who probably give it only the most cursory glance. Before the tunnel was built, it had a more significant role, linking Victoria Street with Dale Street, but now, thanks to the Churchill Way flyover it is just a dog-leg of a road cutting back on itself to Victoria Street.
The photograph, taken in about 1964, shows its short stretch full of shops, all long departed. The names will be well-known to many: Abraham Silver (tailors) next door to Eric’s the Tailors, Yates Wine Lodge rubs shoulders with Hessey’s large shop selling televisions in one part and musical instruments in the other.
Further down are, amongst others, the Catholic Truth Society Library, the Royal Tiger Club, Joseph Welsh (fish merchant) and D Samuels, another musical instrument dealer. The traffic policeman and the two traditional telephone boxes add a distinctly period feel to the scene, along with the pubs advertising Walker’s and Higson’s ales.

I was delighted to read the news this week that planning permission has been granted to turn the Royal Insurance Building on the corner of Dale Street and North John Street into a luxury hotel. Of course, planning permission does not guarantee action but it seems as if this is a genuine application.
The building is one of the city centre’s neglected gems. It has stood empty for well over a decade and has begun to look tired and neglected. The architect J Francis Doyle worked closely with his friend and colleague Norman Shaw (architect of the White Star Building). The building is a particularly early example of steel frame construction in this country, further proof, if any was needed, of the innovative architecture taking place in the city.
I have a couple of contemporary photographs from the building’s opening in 1903. The first is of the Board Room, which has all the grandeur that an international company required. The last photograph is of a rain butt, which shows again the attention to detail now so sadly lacking in most of today’s buildings.

Lord Street c1887

Lord Street 1900

Lord Street 1955

Lord Street is a short street, litle more than a hundred metres from Whitechapel to Derby Square. According to Picton’s Memorials of Liverpool, in 1668-70, Castle Orchard ran from the castle down towards the original pool (where Whitechapel is today). The stream was crossed by a bridge with the path leading to the Great Heath (the land to the east of the pool and south of London Road). The land was owned by Lord Molyneux who fell into dispute with the Corporation as to the right of way. The dispute was settled by treaty and Lord Street (originally Lord Molyneux Street) was formed and a stone bridge was built across the stream. Intriguingly, Picton mentions that in 1851, excavations for sewers uncovered the arch of the bridge, which had apparently been buried a few feet below street level. The width of the bridge was about 15 feet. According to Picton, the bridge was covered up and still existed in 1873). Does it still remain? A fascinating prospect for a future Time Team exploration.
The top photograph was sent to me courtesy of Charlie Schreiner. He had bought it on eBay because the description suggested it was possibly a daguerrotype. In fact, the photograph is a peculiar hybrid but of a much later date (daguerrotypes had largely disappeared by the 1850s). Charlie forwarded me his scan of the photograph and it was soon clear that it was from the late 1880s (Hope Bros did not start trading at that site until c1887). The view up Lord Street terminates with the Church of St George,(1726-34), a fine building in the Classical tradition. A later addition was a fine east window by W.Hilton, described by Picton as one of the finest compositions of the English school. The council paid the artist £1000 for the commission – a considerable sum. In Picton’s words: It is not often we have to record munificent encouragement of the arts in the proceedings of town councils. Let this stand to their credit.
The second photograph (courtesy of LRO), taken over a decade later, shows virtually the same view. There have been cosmetic changes to the buildings and the church is still there, although it had closed in 1897. Within a short time of this photograph, it had been demolished and the site cleared for the widely disliked (architecturally) statue of Queen Victoria. What happened to Hilton’s fine glass window?
The area around Lord Street suffered dreadfully during the war and virtually the whole of the left-hand side was blitzed. The 1955 photograph shows the extent of the damage and the start of reconstruction. Sadly, the 1950s replacements have little character compared to the fine Victorian shop facades.

Exchange Flags, May 1886

Exchange Flags, 1829

I must apologise to John Sergeant. He did visit Liverpool and included a mention of Frith being a founder member of Liverpool Photographic Society (although not the founder as was stated) in 1853. By way of illustration, a photograph of cotton traders and other merchants was shown – all gathered for the camera in Exchange Flags.
As John Sergeant mentioned, this was a clever commercial ploy. Photographing so many together would have guaranteed healthy sales – as any school photographer worth his/her salt knows.
My particular interest is not in the realities of commercial photography – a difficult business at the best of times – but in the setting. Exchange Flags has been through three major transformations. The photograph of Wyatt’s Exchange Buildings, built in a ‘Flemish Renaissance’ style in 1867 reveal an ornate and impressive building in sharp contrast to the building it frames, the Town Hall. It replaced a smaller building in the more complementary Classical style which is illustrated above. By the 1930s, Wyatt’s building itself was felt to be too small and the current buildings were erected, although not finally completed until after the War. I have ambivalent thoughts about the ‘modern’ buildings. I used to dislike them but my views have softened now that they have been cleaned up.
My biggest problem is with Exchange Flags itself. It should be a magnificent city square but it is a soulless place. The statue to Nelson is a superb centre-piece but there is nothing else to break up the view. Tree planting is out of the question, I suppose, because of the underground car park, but surely a more dynamic setting could be designed that will actual encourage people to sit down (seats would be a good starting point) rather than rush though. Liverpool is not good on squares – Williamson Square and Clayton Square are dreadful and Derby Square is little better in spite of its recent upgrade. The best continental squares are where people want to be, with cafés, fountains and interesting sculptures. Somehow, we cannot create such places. Exchange Flags would be a good place to start.

Lord Street c1880

Detail of Lord Street photograph

I have been looking forward to John Sergeant’s series on Francis Frith, the Victorian photographer who helped change the way we look at the world. The first of a ten-part series started tonight on the pioneer who spotted the commercial potential of taking and selling photographs of every town and village in Britain.
Sadly, if the first episode is anything to go by, you will learn nothing about Frith. In fact, apart from a passing mention in Sergeant’s introduction, his name was not mentioned again. Instead, we had the master of the dance hamming his way through a few set cameos which gave no inkling of the life and contribution of the programme’s subject matter. This is a great shame because Frith is so important to the history of photography and his photographic life started out in Liverpool.
Frith moved from Chesterfield to Liverpool as a young man and established a wholesale grocers at 85 Lord Street. In Gore’s 1851 Directory, he is listed separately as a gentleman living at Beaumont Terrace, Seacombe. A founder member of Liverpool Amateur Photographic Association (along with James Newlands, Liverpool’s innovative Borough Engineer), Frith became enamoured by photography and sold his business at a substantial profit to pursue his hobby full-time. He made his name travelling to Egypt and the Middle East, where, under the most hostile conditions, he photographed the wonders of the Ancient World. His photographs were a sensation but, not one to rest on his laurels, Frith set about creating a photographic record of Britain that still survives largely intact to this day.
My disappointment in the first programme is that Frith has been relegated to no more than a prop. I have been researching his early life and was hoping to get a clearer picture of the man. Maybe, with nine more episodes to go, there will be something of substance but I am not holding my breath: the itinerary Sergeant has chosen on his round Britain trip does not even include Liverpool.
The photograph I have chosen today is by Francis Frith’s company and is of Lord Street c1880. The photograph has been slightly damaged as the result of being pasted on board. The glue has seeped through but fortunately only the sky in the background has been affected. The detail of the horse-drawn omnibus illustrates how well these prints (130 years-old) have survived.

Scotland Road at Bostock Street, 1960

In October, last year, I posted a photograph of the interior of the Parrot Hotel on Scotland Road. I have had a number of requests for an exterior, including one from the daughter of a previous landlord. In fact, I have had so many requests for photos of different streets and buildings (particularly pubs) that I will do a bit of catch-up in the next few weeks.
The two photographs today show what were to be the final years of Scotland Road before the road widening and building of the Kingsway Tunnel took out is heart. The bottom image shows the view looking up from Scotland Place (soon to be the site of Liverpool Polytechnic (later JM University). Within little more than a decade, all the buildings in the photograph had been demolished and replaced by roads.

Scotland Road at Scotland Place, 1958

Royal visits to Liverpool are now so routine that only a few ardent royalists tend to turn out. Back in the nineteenth century, there were fewer visits and preparations were on a far grander scale. The photograph (and detail) above were taken on the occasion of the visit of the Prince and Princess of Wales in September 1881 to open the newly built Alexandra Dock.
What I like about the photograph is that it has captured the excitement of the waiting crowd. On the left is St George’s Church (where the Victoria Monument is now). A grand arch has been erected to create a spectacular entrance to the Town Hall. The Graphic magazine covered the event and produced an illustration looking out from the Town Hall.

In the detail of the top image, a photographer can be seen sitting on a ladder in anticipation of a memorable photograph. Interestingly, The Graphic also has an illustration caption Photographers Going Home – with two urchins chasing the speeding carriage. Photographs of such events pre-1890 are surprisingly rare. There are quite a few of the key buildings such as the Town Hall, the Exchange and St George’s Hall but not of events such as this Royal occasion.

In my previous post, I illustrated how much the left hand side of Park Lane had changed since the early 1970s. I have no photographic record of what was on the other side of the road before enemy bombing destroyed much of it. However, the photograph above shows a housing initiative that has been largely forgotten – the prefabs. The style shown was widely adopted in the aftermath of bombing as a quick fix to provide short-term housing. Over 160,000 were built throughout Britain, with the largest estate in the country at Belle Vale in Liverpool. Over 1,100 were built and their destruction in the 1960s was against a background of opposition from tenants who were happily settled in their estate.
These prefabs were not expected to provide a long-term housing solution. Quickly erected, they were aimed at families, and typically had an entrance hall, two bedrooms (parents and children), a bathroom, a separate toilet, a living room and an equipped kitchen. Construction materials included steel, aluminium, timber or asbestos, depending on the type of dwelling. The aluminium Type B2 prefab was produced as four pre-assembled sections which could be transported by lorry anywhere in the country.
Liverpool had, in fact, pioneered an earlier form of prefab. The concrete panels invented by City Engineer for Eldon Street flats (see my earlier post) at the turn of the twentieth century, never took off because of union objections (although the idea was used across Europe). Some 50 years later, the basic principle of prefabricated panels (now called the Camus system) was imported from France for use in Liverpool’s high-rise flats.
There has been a revival of interest in prefabs and kit houses, although it has not gained any real momentum. This is surprising in the face of the acknowledged housing problem. Surely quickly erected, low-cost houses which can last for 30+ years would be preferable to the ghastly and costly mistakes in public housing which have been made since the 1960s. After all, most of those initiatives have had a very short shelf-life too.

Park Lane Goods Station, 1980

Apartments on the same site, 2012

Kean’s Hotel (originally Mayfair Hotel) 1980

Park Lane/Tabley Street, 1980

Comparative view taken 2012

Park Lane/Liver Street, 1976

Comparative view 2012

Park Lane is a short street, probably no more the 500 metres. I walk along it most days and always enjoy my quick walk into the centre. It has no pretensions to grandeur unlike its London counterpart but it was once a busy thoroughfare connecting Canning Place with the Dingle.
I can remember some of the buildings that once lined the street. The offices of the Park Lane station (the top photograph) were demolished in the last five years to make way for the blocks of flats shown in the second photograph. Next to the station stood that glorious folly of a pub, the Mayfair Hotel. Folly in that the brewery had jumped the gun when plans were announced to extend the railway from Edge Hill to Park Lane. Anticipating a great trade from thirsty travellers, they built an impressive gin palace, only to discover that the station was meant for goods traffic only. It was a remarkable sight and survived until the early 1980s. The next blocks were typical nineteenth century Liverpool – a mix of pubs and businesses with considerable character. My 1966 Kelly’s Directory has armature winders, flooring contractors, leather goods manufacturers, turf accountants, dried fish dealers, tailors, hairdressers and publicans amongst the trades listed. All in all, a very vibrant street.
The colour comparative photographs tell a different story. Most of the street is now vacant land. There is a new housing development walled off alongside the Swedish Church but the rest of the street is now cleared land – a soulless stretch only enlivened by sight of the Albert Dock in the distance. Why does this kind of destruction have to take place? I could understand it if the land was built on (like the new apartments in the second photograph) but to remove interesting and historical buildings for waste ground is a depressingly routine act in Liverpool. Who is to blame? Developers of the City Council? Either way, the destruction of Park Lane is a clear lesson in how not to develop an area. Like the Sailors’ Home, there is an undue haste to pull down buildings in the hope that development will become that much easier. The holes in the ground and acres of waste ground are scars the community must look at, often for decades.

Byrom Street/Cartwright Place 1950s

For me, the most interesting news item over Christmas was the revelation that Geoffrey Howe had advocated the managed decline of Liverpool following the Toxteth Riots. I wasn’t particularly surprised by the ‘shock’ headlines, there had been suggestions soon after the Riots that the Government had been advocating a market forces strategy with Liverpool. What I did find intriguing is that a policy of managed decline only came into Cabinet discussions in 1981 – I thought that Liverpool’s whole post-War history had been planned to scale down the city.
Certainly the effects of wartime bombing had seriously damaged the city’s housing stock and infrastructure. Rebuilding in the immediate post-War period was frustrated by a chronic shortage of building materials and Liverpool limped through the 1950s attempting to reinstate its docks, city centre and housing. But there is more than a sneaking suspicion that the damage to the city had created a canvas that the politicians and planners could work with. Road schemes proposed in the pre-War years could become a reality and the ideas for a grandiose civic centre and new zones for shopping and business could take centre stage. (Not only in Liverpool, in Coventry the City Architect, Donald Gibson, the bombing was “a blessing in disguise. The Jerries cleared out the core of the (medieval) city, a chaotic mess, and we can start anew.”) Alderman Shennan, a practising architect and Chairman of the Planning Committee was a strong advocate of clearing out much of old Liverpool and creating a car-friendly transport system that would take out whole historic areas when implemented. In tandem, the city’s housing and industry was to be revamped by a dual policy of creating satellite towns in Kirkby, Skelmersdale, Speke, Runcorn and Northwich and by demolishing whole neighbourhoods to make way for tower block living.
This is an over-simplification but the policies led to a near halving of Liverpool’s population in less than forty years. If that wasn’t managed decline, I am not sure what is. Yet Liverpool is still officially England’s poorest city. Some management! The tragedy is that the voice of the people is never heard. It is left to a small handful of experts to impose their plans and, as has been shown time after time, they are deeply flawed in their assumptions (high rise living, new towns, importing large-scale industry which subsequently failed, destroying historic buildings for no gain). What I would like to see is a Royal Commission on the future of our cities and have a proper discussion about the future shape and function of Liverpool and its counterparts. It might take years to come to its conclusions but it would focus attention on so many pressing issues.
To illustrate one aspect of my point, the first photograph is of Byrom Street in the 1950s – a cobbled street with buildings of character, wide pavements for pedestrians and an efficient transport system. Below is an aerial view from 1964 showing a central block of buildings sandwiched between the Technical College (on the left – now part of Liverpool Museum) and the offices of Blackburn Assurance on the right. The next photograph captures this block in preparation for demolition to make way for road widening from the Mersey Tunnel. Finally, the 1978 photograph showing the end result. All character has been removed in favour of the motor car and the wide pavements reduced to a precarious sloping strip relegating the pedestrian to an afterthought. Geoffrey Howe couldn’t have done better!

Byrom Street 1964

Byrom Street 1966

Byrom Street 1978