Streets of Liverpool

I remember the final death throes of Queen Square back in the mid-1970s. I was about to move into the old Grapes Hotel, on the corner of Wood Street and Whitechapel, to set up the Open Eye arts project, and I attended an auction at the Stork Hotel (the white building at the far end of the photograph) at which all its effects were being auctioned off. I cannot recall anything of real interest at the auction – it was mainly stacking chairs, catering equipment and bedroom furniture – and I left empty-handed after a quick look around. It was only years later that I became more acquainted with its history as one of Liverpool’s early coaching inns, famous for its theatrical clientele (from the Theatre Royal in Williamson Square).
Queen Square was at the centre of the wholesale fruit and vegetable trade, a place full of character. Unfortunately, it was decided that the whole area should be designated for the ill-fated civic centre scheme, which was for a seven storey concrete monstrosity based on a swastika plan. The architect, Colin St John Wilson, is best-known for designing the current British Library building in London, which began in 1962 and was finally completed – after a 35-year history of political wrangles, budget overspending and design problems – in 1997. The original scheme would have created a piazza to the south of the British Museum, but would have required the demolition of a large part of Bloomsbury. After concerted protests, the scheme was relocated to save the area’s fine architectural heritage. Sadly for Liverpool, the Georgian/early Victorian buildings around Queen Square were compulsorily purchased, emptied and pulled down before the scheme was abandoned as being out-dated and an unnecessary solution to the problem of rehousing all the Council’s departments in one monolithic building.
What an appalling waste – for the cleared area became a car park for over 20 years before being redeveloped into … a square with a hotel, restaurants and offices.
Thank you to everyone who has followed my blog this year. I promise to get round to finding as many of those requested photographs I can find and to give you an even more interesting 2011. Have a great New Year!

South Castle Street

Two photographs of the Castle Street area. The first is largely unchanged – although the block of offices on the left had been replaced by the turn of the century. The main area of interest is the horse-drawn omnibus alongside the row of carriages. To the right, the old Exchange building can be seen, behind the Town Hall.
The view of South Castle Street is a Frith photograph of about the same time. The ghostly spire of St George’s Church can be seen above the buildings on the left. In the foreground are the shops of Thomas Ogden (presumably the Ogden’s tobacco magnate), who also had shops in St James Street, Mill Street, Green Lane, Park Lane and Cornwallis Street according to my 1874 Gore’s Directory. On the other corner, at 61 Castle Street, is J. Sewill, Watch and Chronometer maker (and still trading from their current shop in the Albert Dock).
Ogden’s building on the left (and much of its terrace) survived wartime bombing – but was swept away in the early 1970s to make way for the monstrous Canning Place development. It had survived for over 125 years – their concrete replacement managed 25 years. Enough said.
Francis Frith made his fortune in Liverpool before devoting his life to photography and becoming one of the great topographical photographers of the 19th century (particularly through his amazing photographs of Egypt and Sinai). His commercial enterprise covered the country but he was particularly strong on Liverpool – taking hundreds of photographs of buildings and ships. I am particularly interested in finding out more about Frith and would welcome any information on his time in Liverpool and of any photographs he took (especially earlier ones). He deserves a book – but I need to dig out a few more facts first!

I mentioned in my recent post about the Queensway Tunnel that Herbert J Rowse was, in my opinion, Liverpool’s greatest architect. His four great Liverpool buildings are:

India Buildings (1923)
Mersey Tunnel (1925-34) including George’s Dock Building
Martins Bank, Water Street (1927-1932)
Philharmonic Hall (1933-39)

Of these, Martins Bank is probably his masterpiece – a cathedral to commerce which would not look out of place on Wall Street. A student of Professor Charles Reilly, at Liverpool University, Rowse was a perfectionist who designed every aspect down to the smallest detail. Rowse persuaded Martins Bank that an expensive building was a good investment and the Travertine marble, bronze and gilding presents a stunning spectacle inside the icing sugar white exterior. What a magnificent building – but clearly not suitable for modern banking since its last tenant, Barclays vacated it.

Palatine Club, 1969

Palatine Club, 1864

The Post-War reconstruction (or destruction depending on your point of view) of Liverpool city centre, saw many fine buildings swept away. This fine palazzo at the foot of Bold Street was one. Built in 1854 to the designs of G.O. Parnell, it was painted by William Herdman for his great undertaking, the book Modern Liverpool. The fine chromo-lithograph shows an impressive building with classical detailing built out of shining Bath stone. Herdman (son of WG) was impressed by the building but not by its use – perhaps cocking a snook at the London rich:

The principal building in this view is the Palatine Club House. Club life has never found a congenial atmosphere in Liverpool, which is an arena for busy hands and fertile brains to labour and scheme and thrive in, but affords very small scope for wealthy leisure to expend itself in enjoyment. The habits of life engendered by commercial pursuits are quite unfavourable to the “dolce far niente” (translation pleasant idleness/sweet doing nothing) principle, which is essential to the club lounger.

I remember the building in the mid-1970s. The Press Club was its last tenant if I remember correctly. Why pull down such a good building for the characterless modern shops that replaced it is an almost pointless question? I wish I knew the reasoning behind such wanton destruction. On a totally unrelated point, note the hand-drawn milk float further down the street.

The poster outside The Jacey cinema is advertising Black Orpheus, a 1959 film about the Rio Carnival, but this is 1970 and the end of an era for Brown’s department store. Clayton Square was once Liverpool’s finest city centre square but it had gradually become rough at the edges and in need of serious investment. Had it got it, back in the 1970s, we would be admiring an interesting mix of late-Georgian/Victorian buildings which would have softened the brutal impact of St John’s Market. What we got was a repeat of the same mistake. Rip out the character and erect a shopping mall which, after little more than 20 years, is already showing its age. As is always the case, commercial interests run rough-shod over the sensibilities of the public – the very people they are trying to entice into their crumbling malls. In truth the public has voted – which is why these ‘shopping experiences’ are emptying out. Sadly, the damage is already done and no amount of hand-wringing can restore the period character to the area.

Strand Street c1958

Aerial View, 1952

In previous posts, I have referred to the Dock Road, or in this case Strand Street as this stretch was more formally named. My April 21st post about The Trawler showed one of the last pubs on this street before it was demolished. In the top photograph, it can just be made out next to the building with an advert for Golden Stream Tea. In mid-shot is the same cabin (selling Senior Service cigarettes) that appeared in the April 12th post about the Overhead Railway. Originally, the kiosk was part of the James Street station. Only the railway lines under the Overhead are left – which must date the photograph to about 1958.
The position of the photograph is made clearer from the 1952 aerial photograph. The block of buildings can be seen in the bottom right hand corner, with James Street to the left of it (and the White Star building standing in isolation). The street after James Street (just before The Trawler) is Red Cross Street – one of the old ‘lost streets’ of the docks. Elsewhere, in the aerial photograph, one can see the concentration of dock buildings around Canning Dock, the remains of the Goree Piazzas and, in the distance the Three Sisters (the chimneys of Clarence Dock power station). How the city has changed in 50 years!

The last post was about Liverpool pioneering pre-cast concrete. Today’s is about the city’s role in pioneering the uses of cast-iron for structural purposes in buildings. It is often said, incorrectly, that Ironbridge near Telford, was where the Industrial Revolution started – following Abraham Darby’s construction of the cast-iron bridge that still stands today as a major tourist draw. The bridge was constructed in 1779 – some seven years after iron was used for structural purposes in St Anne’s Church on St Anne Street (now demolished). Two years later, iron pillars were used in the construction of St James Church, on Upper Parliament Street, making it the oldest surviving use of cast-iron in Britain.
The photograph is of a later building, the Export Carriage and Wheelworks which stood on St Anne Street until the 1990s before it was burned down (the Fire Station is now on its site). With its facade reminiscent of the Southern States of the USA, it was highly regarded by Picton (‘among the very handsome buildings which Liverpool contains. This must be considered one of the ornaments of the town. The interior is arranged at the front of the building with large, commodious and very light showrooms, wherein are on view very handsome and first-class carriages of every description’). The building was opened in 1859 – some five years before Peter Ellis’s bold use of cast-iron in the construction of Oriel Chambers. Liverpool’s history of innovation with the material can still be seen in the two magnificent cast-iron churches of St George’s, Everton (1812-14) and St Michael in the Hamlet (1814-15), as well as the magnificent facade of Greenbank House (c1815). What a great shame that the Carriage Works and the Sailors’ Home have not survived to add to the list.

Here is a photograph of the building on the right of the previous blog. Before the road was widened, Dale Street projected a block further down (towards the Tunnel) to a junction with Byrom Street. I thought that identifying everything in the photograph would be plain sailing but, unfortunately, after hours of checking through various Gore’s and Kelly’s, I am still short of answers. Blackburn Assurance, the building on the far left replaced a block of slum property including Chorley Court (see earlier post) in the 1930s. The pub on the corner of Fontenoy Street was the Red Lion – although my last mention of it is in 1927. The pub seems to have been converted to offices, including the famous solicitors’ partnership of Silverman & Livermore, whose names will be familiar to all students of Liverpool’s criminal history.  The Liverpool Co-operative Society have an entrance in the centre of the block, although the main facade was along Byrom Street (they owned Unity House, which can be seen with two posters of  Winston Churchill – was this in recognition of his death in 1965?). By this date, however, the Co-op was no longer trading. In fact, it is not listed in the 1964 Kelly’s (it is in the 1962 edition), which suggestes the block was being cleared out before demolition. The lamp standard on the left is another of Herbert Rowse’s designs for the Tunnel approaches.

My recent posting on the Gaumont cinema, which I erroneously attributed to Camden Street (the suggestion is that it was The Savoy in Brougham Terrace) brought home to me the ease with which errors can be made and, if not corrected, become established facts. When I started publishing books, I soon realised that there were people out there with specialist knowledge on every subject you could name – but especially transport. Known unkindly as ‘rivet counters’, this body of men (they always are) have a detailed knowledge of their subject that would do a Mastermind contestant proud. A book I published with the Museum (The Liners of Liverpool) made a small number of mistakes, such as ship sailing to the wrong port, that immediately diminished its value as a reference book. So for today’s posting I am going to put up a disclaimer that all the information is from a highly reputable expert.
The line below the Overhead serviced the docks and was operated by British Rail. The locomotive is a 0-4-0 saddle tank shunter, nicknamed a ‘Pug’. Their short wheelbase made them ideal for the sharp curves of the dockland lines. Imagine, today, allowing a train to run freely where pedestrians could cross without any barriers or restrictions. I am not sure when the dock railway ceased to operate – but I am certain I am going to find out very quickly.

In my list of Liverpool ‘grot spots’, this corner of Ranelagh Street would be near the top (along with the rest of the block along Lime Street). My reaction, though, is generated by the lack of care and maintenance rather than the intrinsic quality of the architecture. In fact, looking at how the building was when it first opened, as Peter Robinson’s new store, one can see the boldness and brightness of the architect’s vision. Concrete is not a material that ages well, but the addition of strong colour gives a cohesion and life to the building that is sadly lacking today.
Post-War architecture is slowly coming back into fashion as a new, younger generation looks at it with different eyes. Just as Georgian architecture fell out of favour with the Victorians and Victorian architecture, in turn, was disliked until the 1970s, the modernist movement of the 1950s and 60s has had its years in the shadows. Much that was built in the rush to reconstruct after the War was substandard but there are gems which should be appreciated. I would not go so far as to include this building in Ranelagh Street, but it would certainly look much better if restored to its original colour scheme.