Exchange Flags

[Ged]

Most, if not all of us would have walked past the Nelson monument in Exchange Flags which is situated to the North (behind) the Town Hall.

It is a monument to Admiral Horatio Nelson, designed by Matthew Cotes Wyatt and sculpted by Richard Westmacott. It was unveiled in 1813.


http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/7061/nelsonmonumentconserved.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/41/nelsonmonumentconserved.jpg/)

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Exchange Flags holds a place in my heart as it's where of an evening and some quiet Sundays in the summer my dad would take me with my bike to learn to ride it. There was a little slope leading into the flags from Exchange street East that would get me up a head of steam and then my dad would let go of the back of the seat and off i'd go.

While my dad sat on one of the wooden benches reading the echo, I would use the rows of flags as a make believe street. The only embarrassing thing about it was I was 24 at the time, no, only kidding.

A decade later i'd be walking through the square on my way to lodge bills of lading in Sefton House and Derby House as part of my shipping clerk job. I'd also be playing drums in a band in the Schooner Inn which was built into the building.


Not many people would have seen it looking like this though. Pictured on 21st June 1956, the war ravaged original ornate buildings had been razed to the ground and here we see the steels being put in for the underground car park to the new development. The monument actually acts as an air vent and as kids we used to try and look down the opening in the monument.

You will notice in this pic, the workmen have put protective boards around the base of the part of the monument that you see from the flags up.


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Here is another view.

http://img862.imageshack.us/img862/3876/exchangeflagscarparkcon.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/862/exchangeflagscarparkcon.jpg/)

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[GNASHER]

Great pics Ged.The boss statred worked in the Flags,in the building behind the monument in 1973.In 2009 she moved back there but in the building on the left,now Walker Ho.Still with the same outfit.

[Ged]

Great stuff to still be trading for that length of time Gnash. I wonder why they changed the names of the two 'houses'.

[GNASHER]

Great stuff to still be trading for that length of time Gnash. I wonder why they changed the names of the two 'houses'.

She is a civil servant, so if they had stoped trading I think we would be in the s**t.
I names were chanced by the developer.It was the same lot that had the P.O. on Victoria St and the Liverpool 1 site.

[lesley1]

Great pics Ged, very informative, love the history of Liverpool, can't get enough.

[dazza]

Well I never!!!

Excellent pics Ged, who'd have thought there was a podium was beneath the monument? I almost had myself thinking ... amazing, a carpark dating from 1813 ;-)

Cheers, Daz

[collegepudding]

1813 Daz ?. what was there in that era

I know it wasant cars ;)

collegepudding.

[dazza]

Yes, exactly, collegepudding, haha... it was a two-storey parking lot for horse-driven carriages. The smell of horse manure was over-powering - that's why they needed the ventilation. :rolleyes:

[Ged]

;) I rather think the underground car park being created here in the 50s after the wartime bombing was a 'new' idea. :)

[dazza]

I was just joking guys. :PDT_Piratz_26:

Still, I bet the paranormal folks will want access to that vent chamber, for their night tours. It would be a brave person to stay down there with the lights off.
:PDT_Xtremez_42:

[ChrisGeorge]

Great pics and memories, Ged! Many thanks. :handclap:

When Donna and I were there in October, I walked her through Exchange Flags on our way back to the Crown Plaza Hotel after an evening meal. The monument is great and means a lot to me not only because it is Nelson but because it was created in the era of the War of 1812 which is the topic of the book I wrote. I also wanted Donna to see the Town Hall and to walk her down the side of what used to be the main branch of Martin's Bank (Barclay's) where I worked in summer 1968 in the "Cash Centre."

[GNASHER]

Great pics and memories, Ged! Many thanks. :handclap:

of what used to be the main branch of Martin's Bank (Barclay's) where I worked in summer 1968 in the "Cash Centre."

So 'that's ' why you moved to the U.S.

[collegepudding]

So 'that's ' why you moved to the U.S.

lollol

love it Gnasher !

collegepudding

[Ged]

I also rather suspect there was always a basement to Derby House etc anyway as the Western Approaches/Citadel was based there.