Wapping Cutting, from the 1890 OS Map of Liverpool

It’s good to see that one of the disused platforms at Edge Hill station has found a new function. Edge Hill has had two stations, and the earlier of these was the first passenger station in the world, along with Liverpool Street in Manchester.

The first of the two stations opened in 1830, and sat in a sandstone cutting with three tunnels at one end. The passenger terminal at Crown Street lay at the end of one of these tunnels, but was rarely used. At the other end of the station sat a stationary steam engine which was used to power the system which brought trains up the hill from Wapping Dock station.

The new Edge Hill station (and the one benefitting from the new ‘creative space’) opened in 1836, further north-east than the original. This was connected by a tunnel to the new Lime Street Station, which was built as a more central passenger terminus for Liverpool than the Crown Street one.

All that’s left on the ‘surface’ are the fascinating ruins of the Wapping cutting, and a small stretch of track which still sticks out into the green space between Overbury Street and Smithdown Lane. Below ground the new tunnel still takes passengers from the new Edge Hill Station to Lime Street. The tunnel and cutting now blaze an impressive streak across the inner city.

Welsh Streets in Anfield, from a 1960s street map

A hoo-har is brewing over the proposals to demolish the small terraced housing on Madryn Street and streets nearby. The controversy arose because Madryn Street is, of course, the birthplace of Ringo Starr.

Whereas the childhood homes of John Lennon and Paul McCartney are massively popular tourist attractions, George Harrison’s and Ringo’s homes don’t get so much as a blue plaque. But is Ringo’s birthplace really of any historical merit?

It depends on how you judge it, of course, but as Ringo only lived there for 5 months of his life (moving to Admiral Grove, and also spending time in the Children’s Hospital in Myrtle Street) it can hardly be claimed to have had any influence on his musical abilities.

The idea that a house should be preserved because of who was born there is a common one, and these links indeed form the basis for many of the blue plaque schemes which operate across Britain. It also becomes a consideration in the listing process too, but rarely tips the balance on its own.

For a building to be listed requires that it had architectural importance, or uniqueness. If other buildings like it are rare, under threat or not often found in that part of the country, then the building may be listed.

It looks like none of this applies to 9 Madryn Street.

And yet the streets around Madryn are of interest from a landscape history point of view. They are the ‘Welsh Streets’ and were built in the Victorian period. Liverpool is well known for its Irish immigrants, and to some extent its Scottish. But the Welsh also left a legacy on Merseyside (and of course still do!). The Welsh communities produced a high proportion of builders, both in the brick-layer sense as well as construction companies. Madryn Street and the houses of the area were built by Welsh hands.

Welsh communities established themselves in Anfield and Kensington too. Look closely at the map of streets from Oxten Street to Arnot Street near Goodison Park, and from Makin Street to Nixon Street just across County Road (see map above). The initials spell out ‘Owen and William Owen’, the father and son who built those streets.

So while it will be a shame to lose Ringo’s birthplace, it will take more than this to destroy all traces of Welsh builders and the traces they left on Liverpool’s history.

Further Reading

The Liverpool Welsh, BBC – http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/northeast/sites/history/pages/liverpool.shtml

Clayton Square just before demolition in 1986...

I’ve often written about researching local history, either through maps, books, or old photos. But what’s been highlighted for me recently is that eventually all this feeds back, and you can occasionally use your knowledge gained through research to apply to a particular problem.

Most maps have dates on them. I don’t know about you, but I find a map’s publishing date of absolute importance, to the same extent as it is on a photograph. As becomes clear when you try to trace the changes in an area over time, the best results come from having the smallest possible gap between two maps in terms of their date.

So when I recently bought a couple of A-Z style street maps off eBay, I was disappointed to find no evidence of a date on them. I could tell they were more than a few years old by the paper they were printed on, and the price (“3/-”). I could also tell that they were (only just) post-Second World War (the Customs House was gone, but South Castle Street still ran straight through where Liverpool Crown Court now stands). But as a landscapophile (there’s that word again) and a cartophile, I really needed to know.

The dates of these maps turned out to be c.1962. How did I know? The progress of the Otterspool Promenade happened to be something  I’d been researching for my post on the history of Knott’s Hole. The promenade was already started, but incomplete, and the extent to which this was mapped pointed to the exact date. Cross-referencing this with a few other features (suburban development, dockland changes) confirmed the likelihood of this point in history.

So, you may use maps to increase your knowledge of local history, but you can also use your local history knowledge to feed back on the things you see in photographs and maps (and the photos and maps themselves).

Here are a few other key points in Liverpool’s history that may help you spot when your source was created:

• Otterspool Promenade opened: 1950
• Football stadia (both Goodison Park and Anfield): 1892
• Norris Green and other suburbs: 1920s – 1930s
• Filling in of St George’s Dock: 1899
• Seaforth Container Port built: 1960s – 1972
• Slum clearance in Toxteth: 1966 – 1972
• Catholic Cathedral completed: 1967
• Anglican Cathedral completed: 1978
• St John’s Market destroyed: blitz – 1941, demolished 1964
• St John’s Shopping Centre (and beacon) built: 1969
• Clayton Square redeveloped: 1986
• Garden Festival site built: 1984
• Queensway Tunnel opened: 1934

Are there any others you can think of? Remember, these are the things that remodelled acres of the cityscape – things that, quite literally, redraw the map!

Liverpool: a port of world significance, on ViewFinder

There are many sources of information we can use to investigate Liverpool’s history. There is the local Historic Environment Record (HER), the many libraries, and the local record office.

On a national scale, and a counterpart to the HER, is the National Monuments Record (NMR) in Swindon, which has been part of English Heritage since 1999. The NMR holds millions of photos, plans and other documents, some of which it puts online.

When I first started work for the NMR I played a small role in the expansion of ViewFinder, and this is still my favourite English Heritage site. One of the best, but little-known features are the entrancingly-titled Photo Essays, one of which is called Liverpool: a port of world significance.

This is a short introduction followed by 12 images taken from the NMR’s archives, with captions written by Keith Falconer, one time Head of Industrial Archaeology for English Heritage.

It was written a little while ago now, and some of the pictures feel a little out of date (the view across from the Albert Dock to the Pier Head seems to be missing… something) but it’s refreshing to read about the city’s history and architecture from an author who doesn’t appear to feel the hot breath of passionate Scousers looking over his shoulder. He gives the city its due without hyperbole, and acknowledges that it was, indeed, a city of world importance.

As well as the Pier Head and Stanley Docks, Falconer takes in civic buildings like the Town Hall, and the under-appreciated Oriel Chambers, one of the first iron-framed buildings in the world.

Once you’ve read that, there are a couple of other Photo Essays which might take your fancy, but don’t forget to look at ViewFinder’s entire collection of Liverpool photos. There’s stuff from over 150 years of history, including photos that aren’t that old, but are already becoming important records of Merseyside’s past.

Found any gems?

Liverpool Waterfront by Jim Media via Flickr

It seems only yesterday that I was bemoaning the uncertainty of the future for Liverpool’s built environment (oh, wait… it was).

Now, on the same day that we can celebrate the historic Stanley Park and 16 other Liverpool parks getting a Green Flag award, there are confusing rumours of Peel Holdings’ plans to transform Merseyside’s docklands.

English Heritage have expressed their concern that the schemes – which originally wanted to erect dozens of skyscrapers across both waterfronts – would damage the context of the World Heritage site, centred on the Three Graces.

In response, Peel have scaled back the plans, now with just two groups of tall buildings between Princes and Clarence Docks. The number of tall buildings is lower than was planned in 2007, with the group at Clarence Dock being reduced from 15 to seven towers.

Meanwhile however, more success for Peel over the Mersey, with the Wirral Waters project expected to be granted planning permission by councillors next week.

In other news…

OK, if all that was a bit much for one day, here’s a more… lovely story.

This and That, by neill.shenton via Flickr

I can’t help feeling mixed emotions about recent developments for Liverpool’s heritage.

Yesterday the first object – a carriage from the Overhead Railway – was due to move in to the new Museum of Liverpool (although it was delayed by the weather). But then today we hear that the ever-present ‘current economic climate’ (my, am I getting more sick of that phrase every day) means that the National Conservation Centre, a favourite of mine, and Sudley House are at risk from closure.

The shutting down of the North West Development Agency isn’t looking like good news for our museums and other cultural institutions either. Though they plan to continue their previously NWDA-funded projects.

What is your point of view? Will our heritage projects be nipped in the bud? Or can the museums, galleries and theatres come out of this stronger?

What are the long term implications?

Another Graceful View, by Max/マックス via Flickr

It’s nearly here. You don’t like it, I don’t like it, but the controversial Mann Island development is forever nearer completion. The Liverpool Echo were granted exclusive access inside.

There’s mention of exhibitions, which must be good (though whether this will be a compliment to or a conflict with the new museum remains to be seen), and then there are the “half a dozen top restaurants and … major chains”. What Liverpool waterfront certainly needs are more major chains, right?

But this blog is about history, development and change, not economics (and certainly not shopping). What it’s also about is landscape, and it’s the context of this building which troubles me and plenty of other people.

As modern architecture goes, I quite like it. Sleek, modern, shiny, it’s like a big iBrick. It’s easier on the eye than the One Park West apartments across the Strand with their spidery framework on display.

But as news reports have highlighted recently, and other bloggers too in more personal channels, it has cut off expensive views from other buildings in the area, and destroyed the best, possibly most iconic view of the World Heritage Site from the said Strand.

Plans are afoot to turn the north docklands into a new Shanghai, and the area towards Stanley Dock in the north is a bit cut off, though development is moving in that direction. If this building had been put further north, although it would have clashed just as horribly with the massive brick warehouses, it would have been the right height for the city, keeping that intimate, human-scale feel that we all enjoy about our town, and increased the modern variety that those docks are getting.

However, keeping it away from the Three Graces would maintain that area’s all-important coherence, of proud architecture which has stood the test of time.

What do you think? Is this the right building in the wrong place? Where would you prefer to see it? North Liverpool? Kirkby? Shanghai?

Knott's Hole, from the Ordnance Survey Edition of 1908

The former site of Liverpool’s historic Garden Festival was back in the news again in February, as work gets under way to restore the parkland and kick-restart the building of flats on the site.

This is just another phase in the varied life of this part of the Mersey waterfront, and so in a similar way to the township pages on Historic Liverpool, I brought out a few maps and looked at Dingle through the last 160 years. What I found was a pretty part of town – a real beauty spot – subsequently filled with rubbish and contaminated with oil, then rescued somewhat in the late 20th Century.

Perhaps the new developments will do more than previous ones to restore the pleasant air of Knott’s Hole, but I think you’ll agree that something special was lost long ago.

Dingle Point in the middle of the 19th Century

As readers of Historic Liverpool may know, the earliest Ordnance Survey maps for Liverpool were drawn around 1850.

Knott's Hole, where the Dingle flowed into the Mersey

At this time the Dingle area was purely rural. Liverpool lay to the north west, but this was an area of large houses, vast gardens, babbling streams and a long beach.

The large houses included West Dingle, the Priory and Dudley House, which sat back from Aigburth Road along narrow lanes. The beach was known as Jericho Shore and stretched from Knott’s Hole in the north west towards Garston in the south east. Knott’s Hole itself was a narrow bay or inlet next to where the Dingle flowed out to the Mersey. On either side were steep rocky cliffs, with Dingle Point to the south west.

By the time of the next map, published in 1894, Herculaneum Dock had appeared to the north, marking the continued expansion of the docklands across the Toxteth waterfront.

Along with this came rows of terraced houses to the north east of the docks, and two hospitals had been built just inside the County Borough Boundary.

The lanes down which the large houses sat had developed into a more formal settlement – St. Michael’s Hamlet, including Alwyn Street, Allington Street, Belgrave Street and St. Michael’s Road. The Jericho Shore remained a wide beach.

Urbanisation in the 20th Century

With the increasing urbanisation of the area, by 1928 the stream known as the Dingle had been surrounded by allotments and the area had become quite an orderly part of the grounds of West Dingle, the large house on the hillside.

Dense terraced housing was filling in the gaps not already taken up by the large villas, as Toxteth and Liverpool slowly encroached on the rural outskirts.

It’s on the 1928 map that the south pier at Dingle Point is marked, and it is this structure which heralds the start of a complete transformation of the landscape, and one which we still look upon today.

Dumping household waste at Otterspool

The first development was an application which was submitted to Liverpool City Council for the dumping of material dug from the Queensway Mersey Tunnel along the river front. It was then that 20-year-old plans to reclaim land from the river were resurrected, and the filling of the land began. In September 1929 thousands of tonnes of rubble and household waste began to be dumped.

The concrete sea wall was complete by 1932, and the land behind it full by 1949.

After the War: Dingle from 1949

By the time of the 1949 map, a handful of gas storage cylinders had been built behind the pier. This area of the south docks was gradually becoming more and more industrialised, and what had once been a popular fishing destination now found its waters contaminated with oil, andits fish stocks disappearing.

Also by this time the houses on the hill had been demolished, Dingle Head having been demolished before 1909.

Dingle, 1947 (left) and 1964 (right)

More gas storage cylinders were built in the period up to 1960. Extensions to the promenade (which had opened in 1950) were being made northwards, and the long beach of the Jericho Shore was being reclaimed for building land. The 1960 map shows the Otterspool river wall creeping northwards in preparation for the promenade extension. By 1964 the beach had totally disappeared, and the area was marked as Sand & Gravel.

By the late 1970s the sand and gravel too had gone, along with the gasometers. The railway remained, as did the pier, but nothing more than an embankment marked the area once covered with allotments and cut through with the channel of the Dingle. By the 1980s the whole are had been filled with household waste.

Unemployment, Riots, and a Garden Festival

This period was a low point in Liverpool’s history. The docks were falling empty as trade moved elsewhere. At the beginning of the 1980s the Toxteth riots had put the eyes of the country on to the social and economic problems in the inner city.

For this reason Michael Heseltine, Margaret Thatcher’s ‘Minister for Merseyside’ ushered in another new use for the Dingle. The International Garden Festival took place in 1984 in an attempt to showcase what Liverpool could do when it pooled its resources, and to spark regeneration in the area. Whether or not this was a success, it completely reshaped the landscape.

The area recently landfilled was developed into extensive gardens. Where the shaded bay of Knott’s Hole once looked out on the Mersey, the Garden Festival Hall provided the focal point for the event amidst the lakes, statues and artworks. Then the Festival ended, and once again the Dingle waterfront fell into disrepair.

The derelict Garden Festival site in 2000

The years from 1984 until the turn of the Millennium were ones of little change. As planned, new housing was built in the area to replace the dense terraces built in the early 20th Century. A new waterfront drive took drivers quickly from Garston to the city centre, past the high fences and trees of the former Garden Festival site.

In the mid 1990s Pleasure Island occupied the site, which meant a new use for the Hall and the Gardens themselves until the centre closed in 1999.

Campaigns have run to help preserve or save the Garden Festival site from ruin or unsympathetic development. Finally in recent months plans have been submitted and accepted to build new houses and, more importantly, parkland on the site. So perhaps what began history as a secluded beach surrounded by the genteel houses of the wealthy will enjoy new life in the 21st Century as a green space for the people of Liverpool to enjoy.

Further Reading

The following sources were used to research and write this article:

Otterspool – Port Cities

Yo Liverpool – a great source of photos from its members:

• Dingle Glen in old photos
• Dingle Paintings

Otterspool, by Mike Royden

Cunard and Liverpool Buildings, Liverpool, Lancs., from UK Photo Finder

The National Archives have produced UK Photo Finder, a map-based tool for finding historic photos in your area.

The free tool is one of their ‘Lab’ projects, and so is open for comments and queries, though you may find a few bugs here and there (one user found it doesn’t work on Firefox for the Mac, and I’ve found it can occasionally refresh at annoying moments). Nip on to the site and have a play around.

There are 31 photos of Liverpool City Centre (although there’s a sneaky one of the Sefton Park Peter Pan statue in there); 5 attached to Huyton; and 18 on the Wirral.

The images are also shown attached to their record cards, keeping the photos ‘in context’ as archives, not just as photographs.

The photos at the moment are exclusively from the important Dixon-Scott collection, although I suspect that if this pilot is successful, they will extend it to other collections. I hope they do, as this is a really great site. Dixon-Scott is of great interest to readers of this blog, as he saw and recorded the changing landscape of Britain with the expressed aim of preserving what he saw as the disappearing landscape.

It’s also quiet similar to the independently produced (and ‘crowd-sourced’) Historypin project, which I also recommend you have a look at (and which also has a few bugs to iron out).

Bombed-out Church, by Litlnemo via Flickr

English Heritage are currently building up their catalogue of advice for those involved in the care of historic buildings. The latest guides concern places of worship.

EH’s first ever sample survey of England’s 14,500 listed places of worship, suggests that some 90% are in a good or fair condition but 10% are potentially in need of urgent repairs. In response to this research, English Heritage has produced a practical guide, DVD and website: www.english-heritage.org.uk/powar.

On this page are also links to case studies, so you can see what others in similar roles have done.