Streets of Liverpool

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.

I am not going to make a habit of quoting chunks of poetry but I have taken a few lines from one of America’s favourite poets to make a more eloquent description on this Francis Frith photograph (c1875) than I could ever write. Whitman never left American shores, as far as I know, but his poem, written in 1865 could not have been more apt for this view of the Liverpool waterfront:

City of ships!
(O the black ships! O the fierce ships!
O the beautiful sharp bow’d steam ships and sail ships!)
City of the world! (for all races are here,
All the lands of the earth make contributions here;)
City of the sea! city of hurried and glittering tides! City whose gleeful tides continually rush or recede,
whirling in and out with eddies and foam!
City of wharves and stores – city of tall facades of marble and iron!
Proud and passionate city – mettlesome, mad, extravagant city!

Just a brief post to add some missing images of lost buildings. The photographs supplement the previous posts and give a better idea of why I have included these buildings in my blog. They are

Canada Dock hydraulic tower (photographed 1875)

Kent Square c1935

Goree and Overhead Railway 1947

Cotton Exchange 1907

Following on from yesterday, my next choice is a building that has got progressively worse each time it has been rebuilt:
8 Exchange Buildings. The smaller photograph (taken in 1860) is a view of James Wyatt’s elegant building (1803-9), in perfect sympathy with the Town Hall (for which he was partly responsible). Tastes changed and, in the 1860s, the building was replaced by one in the more flamboyant (and less sympathetic) Gothic style (top photograph, 1886). Needless to say, the modernists had their way in the 1930s – replacing it with the current vaguely neo-classical building.
9 Duke’s Dock Warehouse. Built in 1811, this was one of Liverpool’s most grievous losses according to Quentin Hughes – who gave it considerable space in his seminal book Seaport. A magnificent early six-storey warehouse, it was demolished for no benefit by an insensitive Mersey Docks and Harbour Board.
10 Cotton Exchange. Another example of trying to modernise unsympathetically. The original building (1905/6 by Matear and Simpson) was a grand Edwardian baroque statement of the importance of the cotton trade. Its replacement is unintentionally a weak nod to the post-war decline in confidence.
11 Canada Dock hydraulic tower (1858). Perhaps Jesse Hartley’s weirdest building – a medieval castle on the banks of the Mersey.

I have often tried to picture what Liverpool would be like if it had kept some of its finest buildings. Does it matter if buildings are lost? To quote William Morris:
‘It has been most truly said that these old buildings do not belong to us only: that they belonged to our forefathers and they will belong to our descendants unless we play them false. They are not in any sense our property, to do as we like with them. We are only trustees for those who come after us …’ . Clearly not a message that had any sway with several generations of politicians and planners in Liverpool.
I have by started listing my ‘worst losses’ in some sort of league table. They are:

1) The Custom House (1828-39) by John Foster the Elder. Photographed above in 1875. To me, the greatest architectural loss the city has suffered. What a magnificent compliment it would have made to the Albert Dock. Firebombed in the Blitz, it was left a shell that could have been renovated had the will been there.
2) The Sailors’ Home (1846-52) by John Cunningham. An eccentric building modelled on an Elizabethan mansion. The less said about its unnecessary demolition the better.
3) Liverpool Overhead Railway (1893). Not so much a building but a unique and exhilirating experience. Today, cities spent millions on so-called ‘landmark’ buildings that rarely deliver because they usually fail to deliver any useful benefit. Here we had an iconic ‘building’ that would have thrilled generations of tourists (and natives). Demolished 1957/58 for economic reasons.
4) St John’s Market (1820-22) by John Foster Junior. Not just the market but the whole area of tightly packed streets which fed into the main market (including the Theatre Royal and Williamson Square/the Stork Hotel and Queen Square). The kind of ubiquitous concrete malls are dead in the water. Planners now argue for keeping street patterns and a human scale. A bit too late!
5) Goree Piazzas (1787- rebuilt 1802 after fire).The first moden warehouses to be built (at the same time as George’s Dock. With its magnificent arcaded pavements it unfortunately occupied a key site in the post-War Shankland Plan mentality and made way for a road that lets us get to our destination 10 seconds faster.
6) St Michael’s Church, Pitt Street. I could add St George’s Church, St Paul’s Church and a dozen others – but this is my favourite. In an area now bereft of good architecture, it would have been an uplifting sight. Bomb damaged beyond repair.
7) Kent Square (and surrounding area). Charles Reilly wrote of the area ‘it contains some very fine houses and the finest square in town, Great George Square. It also contains that jewel in an ancient setting, Kent Square. Fragments exist but the character of this early Georgian area was destroyed in the 1930s for municipal housing. Imagine a fine cluster of Georgian housing with St Michael’s Church at the centre – a sad loss.

The next seven to follow – but please add your own ‘worst losses’, it should make interesting reading.