A mother walking with her children through a derelict docklands. Like a frame from one of the ‘kitchen sink’ films of the early 1960s, it brilliant captures the dying moments of a once-bustling port. I am not sure about the location. My first thoughts were the granaries which once dominated the southern end of the docks but, on closer examination, Birkenhead docks might be the answer.
My reason for using the photograph, apart from its dramatic quality, is to illustrate the dilemma faced by the City Council in deciding on the merits of Peel Holding’s plans for the Liverpool Waters scheme.
The report that the Unesco team was potentially minded to withdraw World Heritage status should the scheme go ahead without serious modifications raised a storm of adverse comments on the Liverpool Echo forum. The consensus seemed to point to Liverpool going the way of development and foregoing the hard won World Heritage accolade. (Of course there were the usual anonymous posters suggesting banning all Unesco officials from Liverpool permanently – but that, sadly, is the norm of internet forums). The basic argument is whether outsiders have the right to challenge Liverpool’s future by imposing conditions on any future development. Peel is seen as representing a golden future with the promise of thousands of jobs and the badly needed regeneration of north Liverpool.
In my opinion, there is a different scenario. Peel have already stated that their plan is a 50 year plan – hardly immediate development. The time scale makes no sense if plans are being put forward now that cannot be fundamentally changed (which is Peel’s position – stating they have already compromised on the number of high rise buildings and that the economics of the development will not add up otherwise). So far, the whole plan is speculative – no major commercial parties have been announced who might underpin Liverpool Waters. All we have seen are fairly wild artist impressions of what might be. In other words, is there any substance to Peel’s case or is it just a case of getting planning permission for the old-fashioned carte blanche approach to planning (the kind that blighted Liverpool in the 1960s and 70s – allowing whole areas from St John’s Market, Derby Square/South Castle Street and the Georgian quarter around the University to be removed wholesale)?
Of course most of Peel’s land is already cleared, which is an important distinction, but should we just sit back and let them do what they think is best (for themselves or the city?).
What is essential is that Liverpool gets it right and it must take the necessary time to make an informed decision. If Liverpool Waters is a 50 year plan, what is the problem in having a public inquiry and allowing anyone who is concerned to see Peel’s proposals in detail. I have never heard of a development planned over half a century before – even over a decade there are significant changes in economic circumstances to say nothing about architectural tastes. The argument must be about a sustainable and sensitive development that brings back Stanley Dock and other important features into proper focus. Skyscrapers are not necessarily the answer. Very few are architectural masterpieces, most are uninspiring filing cabinets in the sky (especially in Manhatten, London or Shanghai). The Unesco officials are right to be concerned – Liverpool’s heritage is too important to be railroaded by speculative developers.
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.
Salisbury Dock and the Victoria Tower
The recent announcement by English Heritage to fight Peel Holdings’ £5.5bn Liverpool Waters scheme – unless Peel agrees to make further changes to its plans, may come as a surprise to many who have watched in horror as the Mann Island development has destroyed the harmony of Pier Head. The Regional Director of English Heritage, Henry Owen-John, said Peel has a “significant” way to go to persuade English Heritage that it should back Peel’s plan regenerate the city’s northern docklands and that it would not damage the city’s World Heritage Site.
If English Heritage lodges an objection and the city grants planning permission, the scheme would automatically be referred to Communities Secretary Eric Pickles – dramatically increasing the chances of a lengthy and costly public inquiry. Mr Owen-John also revealed that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport has notified Unesco, which oversees World Heritage Sites, about the Liverpool Waters project.
So here we have a government agency that has singularly failed to protect Liverpool’s historic waterfront now complaining about a development of a derelict brownfield site that has the potential to change Liverpool’s international status and secure huge amounts of investment. Ironically, one of the concerns is about the Victoria Tower, which under Peel’s plans would become a major feature. English Heritage has raised the objection that key views to and from the Victoria Clock Tower, reflecting its symbolic and actual importance in historic dock management, will be lost. So do we sit back and look at it from afar in its present abandoned and inaccessible state?
Liverpool desperately needs a vision of the future and there is no public money going to be thrown at it. What Peel have recognised is that the economic power of the future lies with China and that Liverpool can hold the key to a huge amount of inward investment. Their plans for a major trade centre (either in Ellesmere Port or Birkenhead) are well-advanced and Chinese investment is already in the pipeline. Liverpool Waters is another piece in a jigsaw which will transform a previously derelict area with no future into a dynamic extension of the waterfront with a feature Shanghai Tower skyscraper. The economic prosperity of Liverpool has always depended on adapting quickly to change. World Heritage status is important, as is the protection of architecturally important sites such as Stanley Dock, but are these really threatened by a scheme which will create thousands of jobs and create a new, dynamic image of Liverpool?
Mr Owen-John said: “We fully support the principle of developing the area. Clearly it is a brownfield site at the moment which is inaccessible and there is real opportunity that could have enormous benefit for Liverpool widely and north Liverpool particularly.” So why throw a spanner in the works having allowed far more sensitive sites to be developed without serious objection.
The view of the photograph is clear enough, looking to the Custom House and beyond, but I am puzzled as to where it was taken from. The dock in the foreground is empty, the remnant of George’s Dock, but I had assumed it had been filled in at the time Mersey Docks and Harbour Board building had been erected in 1907.
The rooftop shown would indicate it was taken further along the road – Goree Piazzas and Brunswick Street are to the immediate left – roughly from the position of the Cunard Building. Perhaps someone can enlighten me as to when the dock was finally filled in and where the camera is positioned.
That problem aside, I have often thought what was the ‘best’ year to have enjoyed Liverpool’s architecture. My own choice is slightly later than this photograph – probably the late 1930s. The Blitz and post-War destruction had yet to inflict devastation on the fabric of the city and the new buildings (Pier Head, India Buildings, Martins Bank, the Philharmonic Hall, the Mersey Tunnel and the Anglican Cathedral) were all positive additions. The photograph illustrates three key losses: the Goree and Custom House (to wartime bombing, although salvageable in both cases) and the Overhead Railway (through financial pressures). A real tragedy for Liverpool.
Princes Dock 1976
Paradise Street 1978
Sea Brow/Strand Street 1975
Three more panoramas of central Liverpool in the 1970s. The photographs were taken by Stan Roberts, who, in each case, pieced together several images to extend the street view.
All three show how much Liverpool has changed in the past forty years. Virtually all the buildings in the photographs have been demolished – the last act being the removal of the Mersey Mission to Seamen (on the corner of James Street and Sea Brow/Strand Street: the white modern building on the far left) this February. The warehouse with the Golden Shred advert is on the corner of Redcross Street.
This is the Liverpool I remember well from my early years in the city with warehouse after warehouse dominating the streetscape.
Princes Dock retains its perimeter wall but all the sheds were lost in the 1990s. The dock had long since ceased as a working dock although the sheds were used to house Liverpool Museum’s Large Objects Collection for many years. The change of use to hotels and offices is logical but the architecture of the new buildings is mundane and not of a high enough standard to reflect the importance of its World Heritage setting. No doubt, within a relatively short time, they will be replaced, hopefully by better buildings.
The car park in Paradise Street is included as an example of the nadir of Liverpool’s fortunes. With virtually no inward investment and little incentive to spend on quality, this shocking bus station-cum-car park was hastily assembled just yards from the premier shopping area. How did they get away with it? A truly shocking example of disrespect for the fine architectural tradition of the city. Fortunately Grosvenor had better ideas for the site and I doubt any tears were shed as it was reduced to rubble.
Not the sharpest photograph in my collection but a fascinating one, nevertheless, of the dock railway’s final days in 1962.
In an earlier blog (April 28th, last year), I posted another photograph of the dock line, which ran underneath the Overhead Railway. By 1962, the Overhead had been dismantled, leaving the line below exposed and quite clearly in the way of future plans to modernise the road. What an amazing sight it must have been – a steam engine being led along one of the city’s main thoroughfares by a man with a flag.
Early photographs of dockers at work are quite rare, which is surprising considering their contribution to the growth of Liverpool. They were a tough breed, surviving on casual labour which was rarely more than a day’s work at a time. The second photograph shows dockers ‘on the stand’ at Alexandra Docks (I think), going through the ritual of being picked by a foreman for a day’s work.
I have just finished reading a new book, Our Liverpool, by Piers Dudgeon (published by Headline Review), which is a marvellous oral history of the people of the city and their memories of work, the war, community and life in general. Piers quotes ex-docker, Bill Smathers about his days on the docks:
You had to ‘get on the stand’, and if your face fitted, you got a job. You had to form a stand, inside the dock gates then. The boss would come out and put his hand on your shoulder. Well, when he done that, you were employed. You might get half a day’s work, a day’s work, or you might get a week’s work, which was very, very seldom. Only the bosses, like the office staff, were employed permanent. The ordinary dockers were all casual workers.
You got eight shillings a day. That’s all and you had to work very hard for it. You had no mechanical gear. Everything was hand-balled … you worked any kind of cargo that came along … grain, hides, sugar, tea. cotton, asbestos, carbon-black. You were glad to do the day’s work to get the money.
This is just one of many such sharp insights into the Liverpudlian character and is the real story behind the photographs posted today. Without the oral accounts, they are diminished in meaning. The words give us an account which truly brings history to life.
Two photographs from the same collection taken in the 1870s. Frustratingly, I cannot identify the photographer although there is a barely visible blind stamp on one photograph. The presence of the blind stamp suggests a professional photographer – and there were a number in Liverpoolat that time making a living selling local views. There are 36 photographs in total – showing familiar and unfamiliar Liverpool landmarks but all taken from slightly unusual vantage points. The two of the Custom House are cases in point – for the focus seems to be the pump house to the Albert Dock (which of course survives). The bottom photograph gives a clear idea of the height line of the buildings along the dock road – with the prominent spire of St George’s Church standing high above surrounding warehouses. The rows of barrels along the quayside have markings – but nothing clear enough to identify their contents.
Are there any other collections out there from this period? I have a rare copy of Francis Frith’s album of a similar period but surely there are other collections of photographs pre-1875. I have stereo views and the odd individual image going back to the 1860s but I still think that there are images out there which will bridge the gap from c1850 to 1875 which will add significantly to our knowledge of how Liverpool looked at the height of its economic power. If anyone has knowledge of these rare images, I would be grateful for the information.
I was reliably told by a member of English Heritage some years back that there were about 30 equestrian statues (i.e statues with someone on them) in Britain. I have forgotten the exact number (33 springs to mind) and an internet search has been of little help. Liverpool has four of them (Victoria and Albert on St George’s Plateau/King Edward VII at Pier Head and George III outside TJ Hughes on London Road).
Now we have another statue of a horse (although without a rider) down at Mann Island (to be revealed once the new Museum of Liverpool is opened. This one is in tribute to the role the working horse (and carter) played in the vital transporting of goods to and from the docks. Today’s photograph celebrates their contribution and looks as if it was taken in the late 1940s or early 1950s. Once a familiar sight, their days were numbered as motorised transport took over their role.
As for the statue, I have only seen press photos so far – so I will have to reserve my judgement until I see it in situ. I hope it is better than many of the recent ‘school of realism’ efforts that have sprung up over recent years. It is interesting that the two most popular sculptures (Superlambananas and Antony Gormley’s Other Place) are far more abstract in concept than the literalism of most of the others. Perhaps an indication to those who commission art that people are more adventurous than they are given credit for.
Pier Head 1911 (the Liver Building is minus its Liver Birds)
Pier Head 2000
Pier Head, May 2010
It is easy to cast oneself as yet another moaner who is always finding fault with any changes. I’d like to think I have a positive attitude to change and I have welcomed many of the recent developments that have transformed the city. I am a big fan of the new Museum of Liverpool and see it as a graceful addition to the waterfront along with the Arena. However, the destruction of one of the best cityscapes in the country makes my blood boil.
The waterfront has always been restricted to the people of Liverpool and the first view taken in 1911 shows a scene that would have been enclosed by storage sheds along the Dock Road. However, the opening up of the vista, particularly from 1984 with the landscaping around Albert Dock, created a magnificent view that lifted the spirits as you walked or drove past. The view through the arch became a favourite photo opportunity – framing the Pier Head in all its glory. My view taken in 2000 captures a scene that must have impressed any visitor to the city. (I used a similar shot for the cover of Quentin Hughes’ Liverpool City of Architecture to highlight the best view in the city). So what have they done? Taken away an iconic view that sold the city for three blocks of black glass-faced speculation that have changed the waterfront for generations (or at least until they pull them down). Why there? Why black when virtually every building in Liverpool is either brick or white stone? We talk about listing buildings. The space around Mann Island should have been declared public open space and landscaped accordingly. Shame on all those who voted for the development (which only got through on a casting vote).
The public are treated with derision by decision-makers. Remember the Fourth Grace fiasco when the public were asked for an opinion and then completely ignored. The obsession with filling every space with commercial buildings is wrong-minded and damages the city’s heritage. We need more open space not less. We have been palmed off with a little patch of green in Liverpool One when what we should have are swathes of green across the city centre. Whoops – I have turned into a typical moaner in three paragraphs.
