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.
I have just returned from a few days break – so straight back into the 1960s. The photograph was taken before Byrom Street was widened- removing the buildings on the right. What catches the eye is the amazing art deco street light that was positioned in front of the Queensway Tunnel entrance. Herbert Rowse, the architect of India Buildings, Martins Bank and the Philharmonic Hall, was commissioned to put the style into Basil Mott’s great engineering achievement. He wasn’t too happy about it, complaining: ‘the engineer too often feels he can cover up his mistakes by calling in an architect to add pretty things to hide them.’
Whatever Mott’s mistakes were, Rowse, who was inventing a new decorative style for the modernist movement, did a brilliant job including designing the lining of the tunnel with a dado of black Vitrolite glass framed in stainless steel. (Les Cooper, ex-Stewart Bale and one of the partners of Elsam, Mann and Cooper photographers was very proud of his kitchen which he fitted out with left-over Vitrolite panels. I wasn’t quite so keen on it but it would have looked incredibly modern in the 1930s when he fitted it).
The lighting pylon was a particular feature which marked either end of the tunnel (the Birkenhead one survives). Another own goal for Liverpool when the one in Haymarket was unceremoniously pulled down sometime in the 1960s. Rowse, Liverpool’s finest architect of the twentieth century, deserved better.
The history of hospitals in Liverpool is one of constant change and renewal. The building photographed here was the third Northern – the first opening in 1834 in Leeds Street. The influx of Irish immigrants into the area soon put it under pressure and the badly overcrowded hospital was replaced by a new hospital in Great Howard Street (the site of the old Pig Market) in 1844. (The architect was Edward Welch – whose best known building is Birmingham Town Hall).
The opening coincided with another huge influx of Irish escaping famine. 90,000 entered Liverpol in the first three months of 1846 alone and 300,000 in the following twelve months. No town in England was so densely populated and unhealthy and, again, the hospital struugled to cope. Finally, in 1902, a new hospital opened on a site bounded by Old Hall Street, Bath Street, Sutton Street and Brook Street. The architect was CW Harvey – an outsider much to the annoyance of local architects. The closure of the Northern in 1978 brought to an end nearly 150 years of medical care for the impoverished neighbourhoods of Vauxhall and surrounding areas.
One tragic story was the murder of a young nurse, Alice Jones. An American soldier, Joseph Hutty, had enlisted in The Canadian Expeditionary Force, and had been admitted to the Northern suffering from shell-shock. He became infatuated with Nurse Jones but, rejected by her, shot her dead outside the hospital entrance. He was found guilty but the jury recommended mercy on the grounds of his acute mental condition. Sentenced to death, Hutty was finally reprieved after a petition signed by the Lord Mayor amongst others persuaded the Home Secretary to commute the sentence.
Church House stood on the corner of Lord Street and South John Street (on the corner facing Debenhams). Built in the then fashionable Victorian Gothic, its red-brick and terracotta contrasted strongly with the Regency plasterwork which surrounded it according to Professor Charles Reilly. I have struggled to find more about when the building was erected and who was the architect. It has strong suggestions of Alfred Waterhouse, who was responsible for many of Liverpool’s best Gothic buildings including the Seamen’s Orphanage in Newsham Park, the North Western Hotel on Lime Street, the old Royal Infirmary and the Victoria Building (for the University). I am guessing it was built in the 1880s but, hopefully, someone can fill in the details. It was bombed in the War and replaced by an office block which, in turn was demolished to make way for Liverpool One. At least its replacement, a rather garish coffee bar, has a bit of character.
Two photographs – a before and after. The first was taken in about 1964 and shows a lively St George’s Place with the famous Guinness Clock. The architecture may not be first-rate but the setting has lived long in the memory of many I have talked to. This is where many had their first Chinese meal (at the Empress on the far right of the block). The two hotels – the Washington and Imperial – were landmarks which brightened up the entrance to Lime Street station.
The second photograph, taken about a year later, captures the last moments of a much-loved corner as the building of the new St John’s Market gets underway. It is interesting to see the old Lime Street station approach before its demolition to make way for the recently demolished tower block and shopping arcade. At least there is some ground for optimism – the new station entrance gives, at last, an appropriate setting for St George’s Hall and William Brown Street.
A depressing image for anyone who cares about Liverpool’s history. The Overhead Railway officially closed on December 30th 1956. Subsequent rescues failed and, in September 1957, the dismantlers moved in.
The photograph was probably taken at the beginning of the demolition process – although it might have been as late as 1958.
The cigarette booth is still trading but the scene is a melancholy one (the Goree Piazzas are in the background awaiting their fate). As I have mentioned before, the fate of the Railway was probably inevitable. Its original function of servicing the docks no longer was viable when set against the rapid growth of car ownership. Tourism was not an option and the cost of repairing the whole line was prohibitive. The 1950s was not a time for sentiment – the vision was of a shiny new city of concrete and steel with rapid transit road systems based on the American model. The Overhead was the past and although the campaign to save it was vociferous, no solution other than demolition could be found.
I have just returned from a few days in the North East, including a day spent wandering around Newcastle. Walking past Eldon Square, once one of Europe’s finest squares, it seems inconceivable that a magnificent Georgian townscape could be so ruthlessly destroyed for a concrete replacement. Much of the town centre was the work of architect John Dobson, the Newcastle equivalent of the Fosters (father and son) who dominated Liverpool’s emerging townscape in the first half of the nineteenth century. The Fosters had similar grandiose plans to reshape Liverpool and were responsible for many of the public buildings including the Custom House, the School for the Blind, the Oratory and St James’s Cemetery, St Luke’s Church, St Andrew’s (Rodney Street) and St John’s Market. The Market, regarded by the much-travelled artist James Audobon as the finest he had seen, was widely admired for its fine Classical detail, advanced lighting and engineering. Sadly, its fate was, like Eldon Square, to be replaced by an ugly concrete shopping centre which, like its Newcastle equivalent, had nothing in keeping with its surroundings.
I must admit I do not have much background on Bunneys store. It had long gone by the time I arrived in Liverpool. Henry Greenwood, the outfitters, apparently bought the site (if not the business) in the late 1950s. Their new store was opened on the site in 1958 – so the photograph was taken some time before that. Bunneys building was slightly eccentric – a bit of Edwardian baroque in the high street. The 1950s building that replaced it is one of our better post-War buildings, although I imagine most readers will feel more strongly about the more characterful original.
As a publisher, I am surprised that there is so little written about shops, considering how much a part of lives they are and have been. (Although the same could be said about schools – where is the definitive tome about Liverpool schools?). Anyone up for the challenge?
In the forty years I have lived in Liverpool, the city has undergone remarkable changes. Of course, if you take any forty year span in its history, change has taken place. The town of 1840 was substantially larger than that of 1800, and over the following forty years there were even more significant changes. What was perhaps remarkable about the greater part of my forty years here was the shrinking – rather than expansion – of Liverpool as it struggled to tackle inner-city blight and a rapidly declining population.
I particularly noticed the piecemeal reduction in the old warehouses that once lined the streets around the city centre. One by one they were demolished, leaving their surviving neighbours sticking out like the odd tooth. This attack on our heritage by stealth – removing less important buildings in architectural terms but important as a group within an urban landscape until there is no longer any cohesion – had already diminished the Georgian stock (although whole terraces were still disappearing well into the 1980s).
Islington is a case in point. I can remember the street still had some shape and character when I arrived – but bit by bit it was pulled down for road improvements and other developments. Today’s photograph, taken of the corner of Christian Street and Islington (showing the Wellington pub) shows something of what was lost.
When people talk about ‘lost’ Liverpool, it is individual buildings that usually come to mind – such as the Custom House or Sailors’ Home. Their loss is relatively easy to assess in terms of their architectural and historical merits. The Theatre Royal in my last post is one such building but it also illustrates precisely what was possibly an even greater tragedy – the destruction of the mainly Georgian context in which it was a key part. The whole area around St John’s Market, through Williamson Square and across to Queen Square remarkably survived serious war damage. Here were dozens of small businesses, pubs and shops – with very active markets spilling out into the surrounding streets. Their loss – for a soulless 1960s shopping mall – ripped out the character of an area that, had it survived could have been a Covent Garden of the North.
This photograph, taken on the corner of St John’s Lane and Roe Street, gives a small hint of some of the buildings lined up for demolition. (Possibly not the most dramatic photograph but one that has not been published before).
