The photograph shows Liverpool waterfront at the height of its economic prosperity. A radically different townscape to the one we are used to, although St Nicholas’s Church and the dome of the Town Hall (on the right above the ferry) are two surviving buildings. Everything else has long since disappeared, from the warehousing lining the dock road to the elegant, colonnaded public baths designed by John Foster and opened in 1828. The baths served their purpose for the best part of 80 years before being demolished to make way for the filling in of George’s Dock to create land for what we now call the Three Graces (the Royal Liver, Cunard and Port of Liverpool buildings). To the right of St Nicholas’s is the Tower Building, which was replaced by W. Aubrey Thomas’s white tile clad building in 1908. Thomas, the architect of the Liver Building created a building with crenelated turrets in an allusion to the original tower.
What is particularly noticeable about the photograph is the height line of the buildings. The scale is modest and in complete contrast to today’s approach of building high. It is interesting to speculate on how the skyline will change in the next century, especially with the potential impact of Peel Holdings’ Liverpool Waters development. It is only when you look at the photographic record that you really understand how much has changed in a relatively short period. After all, in 1785, the Liverpool skyline was unrecognisable from the photograph above.

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.

George’s Dock c1875

New Brighton c1875

I have almost given up on John Sergeant’s television series. Four programmes in and Francis Frith has almost vanished from sight. Whoever conceived this vanity needs reminding that the central figure should be the pioneering Victorian photographer not a presenter showboating his amateur photographic skills. Harsh comment, perhaps, but I can only make comparisons with Michael Portillo’s excellent Great British Railway Journeys, in which he puts the subject before himself and reveals the magnificence of the Victorian railway system.
To further my research on Frith, I need to visit Birmingham Public Library, where the Frith archive is held. I want to get some handle on his negative numbering. I have in the region of 100 of his Liverpool photographs plus another 50 of ships in the Mersey.
Many are of familiar subjects, particularly St George’s Hall, which have limited appeal because they are places and buildings covered by many other companies. There were serious competitors such as Scottish firms James Valentine and Washington Wilson, as well as local Liverpool photographers. Their photographs were the postcards of the time and the popular attractions were the most saleable. Frith realised that liners were a good market and produced hundreds of the great Cunarders, Inman Line and other familiar ships. How active Frith was personally is difficult to ascertain, his company had grown substantially and he was in his late 50s when the real growth occurred.
The earliest photographic book on Liverpool I have come across was published by Philip, Son and Nephew in about 1875. It features some of the great buildings in Liverpool including the Custom House, Exchange Flags, the old Adelphi Hotel along with a liberal assortment of the new churches that were being built. The photographs, all by Frith, are hand-tipped in (this was before photo-mechanical printing was invented) and are rather lonely, uninhabited images (the exposures were so long that movement appears as a blur, as in the New Brighton photograph above, so the photographer chose to avoid people in the photograph whenever possible). I have reproduced a number of photographs from the album previously but here are two new ones, of George’s Dock and New Brighton.

The Beeches, c1930

Allerton

Carnatic Hall, 1937

My post on Booker Avenue stimulated some interesting responses. I overlooked Liverpool-born JG Farrell, who won the Booker Prize for The Siege of Krishnapur. Farrell in his acceptance speech made a cutting reference to Booker’s history of exploitation, which did not go down well with the sponsor. Another connection I overlooked was that one of Liverpool’s most famous comedians in the first half of the century. Billy Matchett – the Mirthquake, lived at 165 Booker Avenue from the 1930s until his death in 1974. A forgotten performer today, Matchett was mentioned by Ken Dodd as one of the two men who had most influenced him (the other was Arthur Askey). The Mirthquake (what a great name) claimed to have performed on every music hall stage in Britain.
Leading on from the mention of the Booker family, I have selected three photographs of now-demolished mansions that once dominated the local landscape. Allerton is probably known to golfers because the colonnaded facade is still standing after a fire gutted what was the club house (of Allerton Golf Club) in 1944. Designed by Thomas Harrison of Chester in 1815 (whose two remaining buildings in Liverpool are the lantern tower of St Nicholas’s Church at Pierhead and the Lyceum at the foot of Bold Street), it was the property of Jacob Fletcher, son of a privateer and slave-trader.
The Beeches was a later building by that great architect Norman Shaw (designer of the White Star building, James Street). Built for Sir Henry Tate, the sugar magnate in 1883/4, it was demolished in 1939. The road, The Beeches, is off Allerton Road, facing Calderstones Park.
Finally, in Mossley Hill rather than Allerton was Carnatic Hall, built by Peter Baker in the late eighteenth century following his successful capture of an unarmed French ship, the Carnatic in 1778, which was carrying a valuable cargo including a box of diamonds. The Hall was demolished to make way for the University halls of residence in Elmswood Road.
It is hard to quantify the loss of such buildings to Liverpool’s heritage. In many cases, they were built on the proceeds of either slavery or privateering, two trades which stain the history of the city.
They were also part of a millionaires’ belt of exclusive properties that covered much of the outskirts of Liverpool. The 1881 Ordnance Survey gives some indication of their privileged living conditions compared to the hundreds of thousands squeezed into the inner city.

Liverpool in 1881 had more millionaires than any city outside of London and, like today, the disparity between rich and poor was an increasing source of concern. The removal of their large estates was inevitable in the face of suburban expansion, although a good chunk of public green space fortunately survives.

Morning Star, Scotland Place c.1900

Patrick Byrne Fountain before removal, 1971

Patrick Byrne Fountain after removal to Pownall Square, 1973

In my last post, I bemoaned the apparent loss of the aluminium statue that once graced the Palais de Luxe in Lime Street. It might not have been a masterpiece but its disappearance is in keeping with the loss of a number of statues and ornaments that could have been saved with a more respectful approach. The single greatest loss is the sculpture by Charles Cockerell that once filled the tympanum on St George’s Hall. In their lack of wisdom, the Council decided it was unsafe and had it removed and, scandalously turned into hardcore. Another loss was the fine basalt pillar that once graced the entry to the Mersey Tunnel. Fortunately, the pillar at Birkenhead survives.
The fountain to Patrick Byrne does survive in a very much reduced form in the graveyard of St Anthony’s Church in Scotland Road. The base was rescued and turned into a memorial, although the handsome pillars were lost in the 1970s. Dandy Pat deserves much better – and his story is an essential part of Liverpool’s Irish heritage. His relatively short life (1845-1890) was full on achievement. Arriving penniless in Liverpool from County Wexford at the age of 17, he found work on the docks. Saving any spare money, he bought his way into the licensed trade, soon owning the lavish Morning Star public house in Scotland Place. His sobriquet, Dandy Pat, was in recognition of his smart and somewhat ostentatious dress sense.
A shrewd businessman, he was also a strong figurehead for his community, becoming an Irish Nationalist councillor for one of the two Scotland wards in Liverpool. He was a constant fighter against injustice and a benefactor to many Catholic charities. The fountain was erected from public donations and it is a sad reflection of the lack of care for his contribution to Liverpool that this important monument was treated with such a lack of respect. There is precious little to show of that great wave of Irish immigration that changed the character of Liverpool so fundamentally. I worked on an Irish Heritage trail some years ago – but it was eventually abandoned because so much of it had been destroyed, such as the birthplace of James Larkin, a revered figure in contemporary Irish history), or the original wash-house built for Kitty Wilkinson in Upper Frederick Street.
It’s all too late now but what a draw an Irish heritage trail would have been as part of the tourist mix. There really is a lack of imagination in the corridors of power.

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.

Cartwright House, 1975

Prince Albert Gardens, St James Street, 1974

Kent Gardens, 1970

St Oswald’s Gardens (on left) and Hurst Gardens (on right) 1979

My last post on Liverpool’s inter-War tenements created a lot of interest, so here are a few more photographs of now-demolished blocks.
I have been referencing an interesting book Housing: A European Survey published in 1936, which included local authority housing in Paris, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Stockholm and Barcelona as well as Liverpool, London, Leeds and Birmingham. The survey was of progressive schemes to improve the housing conditions of the working class and it heralds the unprecedented efforts made since the War ended in 1918 to tackle the slum housing and overcrowding prevalent in all of the cities covered.
Sir Lancelot Keay provided the information for Liverpool and it was under his guidance that the city pioneered both the tenements and what he named cottages (the council houses still standing along Queen’s Drive, in Dovecot, Speke and elsewhere), His plans were for 5,000 cottages and 16,000 flats.
The cottages were preferred by the younger generation whilst the older generation were happier being rehoused in the city centre neighbourhoods they were familiar with. The need for city centre tenements was primarily to provide proximity to the docks for workers.
It would be hard to underestimate what moving into a new flat must have been like for the fortunate tenants. For the first time, most would have running (and hot) water, an indoor toilet and bathroom, dry and spacious living areas and a kitchen fitted with a gas cooker. By the time the photographs were taken in the 1970s, they were no longer modern and needed considerable renovation to bring them up to standard. As we know, the agreed solution was to demolish them – so we are only left with a photographic record of a major housing initiative.

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

Peacock Inn by William Gawin Herdman

In earlier blogs, I have lamented the scarcity of pre-1880 photographs of Liverpool. I have the odd image but they hardly represent a substantial body of work. However, the occasional early gem surfaces from time to time and I am grateful to Coin Weekes for allowing me to post this fascinating photograph of the Peacock Inn, which once stood on Park Road, near to High Park Street. Once thought to have been the residence of the keeper of the Ancient Park of Toxteth when it was a royal hunting park, it was probably constructed in the early seventeenth century. Judging by the top hats and also the dress worn by the girl on the right, I reckon the photograph dates to about 1870. Why the group is gathered is not clear but it is the earliest photograph of a Liverpool pub I have come across. By way of contrast, I have also reproduced an earlier painting of The Peacock by WG Herdman.
The building was of a style once common in Liverpool. The artist Brierley painted many such cottages in the 1830s but all were demolished in the town centre with the last one surviving well into the first half of the twentieth century.