Streets of Liverpool

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

Christmas in the Workhouse

Coopers, Church Street, 1930s

Back to the computer after a break away and may I thank everyone who has logged in, commented, and supported me over the last year. I did not have a chance to wish everyone a great Christmas but I am in time with New Year greetings. All the best for 2012.
Today’s posts cross over both occasions. Photographs of Liverpool’s Workhouse on Brownlow Hill are surprisingly rare. Sadly, it appears that the subject matter was not worth proper documentation. As we prepare for the duocentenary of Charles Dicken’s birth next year, no doubt we will be constantly reminded of the worst aspects of Victorian England. The workhouse might have offered shelter but it was a harsh life for all those who finished up inside its walls dependent on parish relief. The hardship is etched in the faces of the women. The single chain of decorations on the wall only add to the pathos.
The second photograph is of the ‘only wild haggis in captivity’. A curious crowd has gathered outside Coopers, the upmarket foodstore om Church Street. I remember Coopers just before it closed down in the early 1970s. It was a bit like Harrods/Fortnum and Masons in London, with a wonderful aroma of freshly-ground coffee. It was part of a larger chain, which had its headquarters in Glasgow.
Time was not on its side against the rise of supermarkets and it closed to make way for WH Smith (and more recently River Island).

Two photographs of the same block on Brythen Street, with the Playhouse clearly visible in the first photograph to fix the location. A bit of a pub crawler’s dream – with The Old Royal next to Quinn’s Oyster Bar, Roberts (bird dealers), The Dart and The Old Dive on the opposite corner.
I have already posted a number of photographs around the Williamson Square/St John’s Market area. The destruction of the network of streets and squares to make way for the new market, road widening and (abandoned) civic centre scheme was one of Liverpool’s most significant architectural losses. My reason for resurrecting my opinion is the visit of Unesco officials to determine the threat posed to Liverpool’s World Heritage Status by Peel Holdings’ proposed Liverpool Waters development.
It is reassuring that the issue is being discussed at this stage. In the 1960s, the heritage lobby would have been brushed aside as an irrelevance. Today, the balance has shifted but is Liverpool Waters a threat or a necessary, even essential, scheme to create a future for the city? I am fairly clear where I stand. Unlike the 1960s redevelopment, which removed over a century of character and history, the Peel proposal is on derelict land which has been vacant for decades. The physical integrity of Pier Head is not threatened, the key issue is the visual impact (which has already been badly compromised by the Mann Island development). I cannot say I am a great fan of skyscrapers unless they are of a very high architectural quality – and most in this country are not. I prefer the human scale of smaller buildings in a more intimate setting where a restored Stanley Dock could take pride of place. Clearly Peel will have a strategy that will accommodate revisions to their plans and I hope that the public can have some input. Development at all cost is not the issue – even with 12,000 jobs at stake – but what future Liverpool has got without an ambitious plan.

Houghton Street, 1964

Daisy Day, 1965

In May last year, I included a photograph of Houghton Street looking towards Clayton Square. The photograph today shows the street from the opposite direction looking down towards Williamson Square. Within a year, the whole site was cleared to make way for the new St John’s Market.
One shop caught my eye – Madame Foner’s corsetry shop. The shop relocated to Bold Street and, last year again, rather incongruously to the front courtyard of the Bluecoat Art Centre. The last move seems to have been unsuccessful and it has been replaced by a gift shop. Small shops come and go but Madame Foner has had a long lifetime for a specialist shop.
The second photograph is of a fundraising campaign for Merseyside hospitals. I only arrived in the city in 1970 and I cannot recall Daisy Days. The small girl dressed as a nurse would appear to be helping her dad.
Two more photos (and the last for the time being) from Pat Weekes. Would anyone else like to submit their photographs of old Liverpool? Any date, any subject – this is a perfect forum for getting them seen!

Victoria Street, 1965

Hackins Hey, 1965

One of the main reasons for starting my blog was to get more people involved in discussing Liverpool as seen through photography and to encourage greater sharing of collections. There is a wealth of material out there and the internet offers an ideal opportunity to involve a wide network of people. I have my own ideas of where I hope it will go and will be putting forward a plan for the future before long.

The response I have received is beyond my expectations. Sadly, I have not managed to meet everyone’s requests for images but I hope to rectify that in coming months. I know it might seem as if my collection is limitless but many of the photographs I have been asked about (of tenements/courts and backstreets in particular) are more likely to be found in the City Engineer’s Collection at Liverpool Record Office and they must be approached rather than me.

Today’s two images were, again, taken by Pat Weekes, who ran the memorable Merseyside Collectors’ Centre in Temple Court. The first image is of happy Liverpool supporters returning from the great FA Cup celebration held at the Town Hall. The soot-blackened buildings are very much in evidence. With the exception of Watson Prickard’s building on the corner of North John Street, all the buildings have survived and look much better for having been cleaned. The second photograph is of another street that remarkably has survived largely unchanged. Hackins Hey has no great architecture but it has the atmosphere of an older, lost Liverpool.

Two photographs of Lime Street taken from the same elevated position on St George’s Plateau and quite probably on the same day. The day is easy to pinpoint – it is July 12th and the Dingle Orange Lodges are heading to Exchange station for their annual bash in Southport. Pat Weekes has taken his time. Having set his camera, he has also captured the fine sweep of what was once St George’s Place – a natural curve of buildings that flowed down towards Roe Street. Only for one further year because they were to make way for the angular, unsympathetic contours of the new St John’s Precinct – designed without any sympathy for the grand setting of St George’s Hall.

You know my grumbles well enough by now – so enjoy two fine photographs of the 1960s.