Streets of Liverpool

I thought I knew most of Liverpool’s churches but this photograph has puzzled me for some time. It is a well-built church (it looks as if it is faced with stone) in a prosperous area (possibly Aigburth?) but there are few other clues. The photograph was one of a set owned by an organ repairer/cleaner. On the reverse he has written “organ cleaned – builder Foster & Andrews’. It was posted in Liverpool on 14th November 1904.
I am working on a new edition of David Lewis’s Churches of Liverpool, which I published in 2001. I thought it was due for an update after ten years (most of them out of print): and I have many new photographs (such as this one) I would like to include. Can anyone recognise the church and location?

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.

Kent Gardens, 1975

St Oswald Street, 1979

Two more examples of how the face of Liverpool was so drastically altered in the 1970s. The bold housing projects of the 1930s led by Director of Housing, Sir Lancelot Keay, was one of the most concerted efforts to tackle slum housing. Whole areas of the city were transformed by Keay’s progressive approach. Much of his neo-Georgian styled housing (including very good examples on Queen’s Drive and Muirhead Avenue) remains but his tenement blocks, including the examples shown above, disappeared in the 1970s and 80s.
The high density blocks were considered a great advance at the time and were a vast improvement on the courts and run-down houses they replaced. With proper facilities – running water, toilet/bathroom and gas – they transformed the lives of thousands. St Andrew’s Gardens (the Bullring) and Myrtle Gardens have survived and, perhaps others could have served the community for longer. Sadly, the cost of building maintenance was considered a price not worth paying. Tastes had also changed and there was a desire from many tenants for a more private kind of housing. Most intensive housing schemes seem to have a limited life (perhaps 40 years) before they have outlived there usefulness – the high rise 50s/60s blocks being a prime example. Perhaps Keay’s smaller scale housing work which has successfully survived points to a less flawed model.

Brunswick Square 1973

Southern General, Caryl Street 1975

Which post-War decade was the most damaging for Liverpool’s heritage. The 1950s and 60s are strong contenders but what about the 1970s? Looking through my photographs, I am struck by how much was demolished and how much the city changed over the decade. Perhaps only a small handful of key buildings were lost, the Sailors’ Home without doubt the single most important, but the general clearance of Georgian terraces, warehouses, churches and other features of the landscape was quite staggering. Here are two such examples taken by Stan Roberts. He took the panoramas in sections which, thanks to Photoshop, I have tidied up a bit.
The first is of Brunswick Square, which I was unaware of. It was directly off Westminster Road, close to the junction with Barlow Lane, and was an unadopted street as the sign indicates. A look at the 1927 Kelly’s Directory shows it to be a ‘respectable’ square with a doctor, police constable, farrier, engineer and mariner amongst the occupants. The 1970s photograph shows a more distressed street in its last throes.
The bottom photograph is the Southern General on the corner of Caryl Street and Hill Street. With opening of the new Royal Hospital both the Southern and Northern became superfluous and two key features disappeared from the skyline.
In my next blog, I will post two more 1970s panoramas.

One of the greatest losses to Liverpool’s architectural heritage was to its city centre churches. In 1899, both St George’s Church (in Derby Square) and St John’s Church in Old Haymarket were demolished (the latter being fairly universally disliked for its rather crude Gothic design). The elegant church of St Thomas in Park Lane was pulled down in 1905 (with the tomb of Joseph Williamson, the “Mole of Edge Hill’ left in the cleared churchyard). St Peter’s was next in line, lasting until 1922. It’s demise was planned for some time. In 1880, Liverpool gained its first bishop, Rt Rev Ryle, and St Peter’s was made the Pro-Cathedral as an interim measure while decisions about a purpose-built cathedral could be made. In the photograph, the poster on the post states ‘Full Cathedral Service’.
Once the decision to build on St James’s Mount had been made, the diocese realised it could only fund the ambitious project by selling off its very valuable real estate in the city’s main retail street. St Peter’s had to go and there was no shortage of takers, including Harrods, who planned to build there only store outside of London on the site. In the end, it was the ambitious American chain, Woolworths, who won through and they maintained a high street presence for over half a century before Burtons/Topshop moved in.
I do find the removal of churches such as St Peter’s sad. Not from a religious standpoint but because city centres need spaces that are not dominated by commerce and retailing. We have too few and need to seriously think about what kind of city we want to live in. Is all our space up for the highest bidder, as always seems to be the case, or can we exert some control over its use for a greater communal benefit? After the disgraceful ‘Fourth Grace’ public involvement, I have my grave doubts although concerted action did help save the Lyceum.

I am guessing that the year is 1965. The John Moores Centre (top left) appears to have been finished, with a nearby crane working on Phase 2. The pub on the corner of Fontenoy Street and Great Crosshall Street (the road running up from Byrom Street the left), is the Australian Vaults with Holy Cross Church prominent just beyond.
The tenements, euphemistically named Fontenoy Gardens, without a blade of grass in sight, are split by the tunnels for Waterloo Goods station, across the road from Waterloo Dock. Further along the docks, the ‘Three Sisters’, the chimneys of Clarence Dock power station are another landmark. With the exception of the JM Centre, all these features have now disappeared in the reshaping of the city over the last thirty years – although the refuse lorry is little different from its modern counterpart (at least some things were designed to last).

A busy view of Ranelagh Place and Lime Street in 1931. The building, partly shown, on the direct left is the original Lewis’s department store which was bombed in May 1941. Nearby Blackler’s store and the facing block on the corner of Lime Street (the building with the strange observation tower in the top photograph) were no less fortunate. The Palais de Luxe (whose awning can be seen just beyond the second tram) was also badly damaged but reopened only a month later. After a further fire in 1951, it was modernised again – only to close for the final time in 1959 to make way for the modern development which is still with us (I have reposted the photograph of Peter Robinson’s store in the 1960s as a comparison and reminder).
Looking at the 1930s photograph, it makes sense of the ostentatious and somewhat unnecessary tower on The Vines public house. It looks as if the architect was trying to balance the streetscape. Against the 1960s modern development, it looks more eccentric than it would have in its original setting.
In the top photograph, the corner block housed John Tyler (shoes and boots), The Fifty Shilling Taylors, Meeson’s (confectioners) and Finlay & Co. (tobacconists). Looking at my 1932 Gore’s Directory, it is surprising how many creative industries (as we now call them) were concentrated in Lime Street. Apart from the four cinemas (the Forum, Scala, Palais de Luxe and Futurist) along with The Empire Theatre, there were all manner of small businesses including photographers (Dorondo Mills and Carbonora), Jazon and Montgomery (theatrical agents), the Variety Artists Federation (agent Ma Egerton), the Cinema Publicity Supply Company (poster writers), Liverpool Press Club (and sundry press photographers), Radio Pictures Ltd (film renters), Walturdaw Cinema Supply Company and North Western Film Booking Agency.
It is sad to contemplate Lime Street today. This lively mix of businesses has been replaced by a very dead thoroughfare. True the buildings on the right hand side have all survived but they look uncared for and are an ugly mix of empty shops and cinemas and fast food outlets. A facelift is long overdue to restore some of its grandeur. As for the facing 1960s block, the less said the better. The marvellous new panorama of Lime Street which has been gained from removing the blocks fronting Lime Street Station is sadly framed by an eyesore which will probably remain for years given current public sector funding. A great shame that it missed out on the spending spree of the last decade.

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!

Here is another fascinating photograph of a Liverpool court which demands a storyline.The young man with his caged bird standing between two grim-faced women suggests impending eviction. Certainly, it was around the time that the street, which backed on to the Walker Art Gallery and the Museum, was demolished in the 1930s slum clearance programme – which saw Gerard Gardens spring up nearby. What tough lives are etched in all their faces! Everything about their demeanour suggests resignation and defeat – but perhaps there was a different storyline (although I don’t think they had just won the Pools).

The Whitehouse, Duke Street

The Oakfield

Two more pubs from Kevin Casey’s new book Closing Time: The Lost Pubs of Liverpool.
The Whitehouse must be the best known closed pub in the city, thanks to the Banksy painting, and the Grade II building sold this week at auction for £114,000 (probably much less than expected when Banksy paintings are so highly valued). Depending on where you read up on the graffiti, the mural is of a rat holding either a machine gun or a marker pen. The big problem is that the future of the painting is in the hands of planners – who must approve of any changes to the front of the building. Possible The Whitehouse will become a pub again – but the cost of renovation will not come cheap.
The Oakfield is a typical nineteenth century pub in the suburbs which has lost its customer base and is no longer viable. Kevin’s book is full of similar cases of once-flourishing businesses left high and dry by recession, changing habits and depopulating neighbourhoods. There no longer is room for a pub on every corner but what becomes of the empty buildings is anyone’s guess.