130 Liverpool buildings - SAVED

[Kev]

SIX years’ work by Liverpool City Council’s “stop the rot” team is paying dividends in protecting the city’s heritage, according to a new report,

A progress update on the Buildings at Risk project shows that action has been taken on more than 130 buildings which were in poor condition.

The project, which started in 2001, uses legal powers available to the City Council to deal with historic buildings in poor condition to help bring them back into use.

It became part of the Historic Environment of Liverpool Project (HELP), an initiative for heritage-led regeneration in the city, involving English Heritage and other partners.

Buildings at Risk has received £1.4m in funding through the City Council (£424,500) NWDA (£968,000), English Heritage (£45,000) and the Heritage Lottery Fund (£24, 900).

Among the buildings it has successfully helped bring back into use or restored are:

* The Albany, Old Hall Street

* St Peter’s Church, Seel Street

* West Derby Courthouse

* Fleet Street warehouses

* Nelson Memorial , Exchange Flags

* Eldon Grove (on-going)

* The Post Office, Victoria Street

* 3, Ivanhoe Road

* 12 Rodney Street

* Back Berry Street stables

* 80/82 Seel Street

* 98-102 High Street, Wavertree

* Parliament Street Warehouses (Buddleia Building)

It has also helped retained facades of buildings to allow for developments at 30-33 Great George Street; 71 Shaw Street (on-going) ,64-72 Seel Street and Stanley Buildings on Hanover Street.

A report to be considered by the council’s Executive Board on 21 December is recommending that to keep the momentum of the project going an approach be made to the NWDA to use funds from expenditure reclaimed from owners after the council carried out work on their properties for the Buildings at Risk scheme to see it continue until 2010.

Cllr Berni Turner, Executive Member for Environment and Heritage, said: “The Buildings at Risk project has been a success story for the city. We have targeted some of the most neglected but significant buildings in the city and have helped to bring them back into use.

“Our commitment to preserving the city’s unique architectural heritage is not just words – we have backed this with action. This programme has helped restore the West Derby Courthouse, St Peter‘s Church, the Albany and many other historic buildings.

“But there is still much more to be done. Unfortunately some owners do not accept their responsibilities as custodians of the city’s heritage and this programme tries to ensure that their attitude does not result in buildings being lost.”

Daily Post

[Cadfael]

Just launched my new website @ Buildings at Risk (http://www.buildingatrisk.co.uk)

It's still an ongoing project as a, I need to put some better video's up and b, I've got about 4 pages to go.

But you get the idea :PDT11

[disco]

Hello cadfael
One of the building on your At risk site is Kiln Hey.
Here is a picture of the fireplace in the drawing room dated 1888.
There are a few more of the interior i have found on the English Heritage site
http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk226/scousedisco/kilnhey.jpg
(Picture) English Heritage

[Ged]

Wow - great find. I'll take a look at your site now Cad.

[Cadfael]

Hello cadfael
One of the building on your At risk site is Kiln Hey.
Here is a picture of the fireplace in the drawing room dated 1888.
There are a few more of the interior i have found on the English Heritage site
http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk226/scousedisco/kilnhey.jpg
(Picture) English Heritage


Aye, you'll find the link to the pictures on the top of the page of Kiln Hey :PDT11

Me mum used to work in that building when it was Alder Grange and had I not been seriously ill when it closed down, I'd have gone along to take lots of pictures :disgust:

[fortinian]

Nice website Cadfael with some very good and high beliefs behind it... (not to mention pictures) but I fail to see what it hopes to achieve.

With the exception of Sandfield Tower, St James and St Lukes there is minor historical merit to the other buildings listed. Sure they are nice buildings but are they important to the heritage of the city and the country?

St John's is a relic of a congregation that is not there, it is not of particular note for either it's architecture or it's status, it is simply now an impediment to progress and regeneration.

A similar thing may be said of the Edge Lane Houses... although there are many political and practical claims for their retention it would be wrong to class them as 'at risk' in the same way as noteworthy buildings such as St James or St Luke both of which are on the English Heritage Buildings at Risk Register already and will probably never be allowed to be demolished.

Sandfield Tower is a noteworthy and important building but is already a listed building meaning it cannot be demolished or developed without consultation. It's a shame it is in such a state but I believe you already have a website about it - why another?

As for the others... whilst the Smithdown Lane stableyard is important the remaining parts are in terrible condition and cause an unslighly eyesore in the local area. Also part of the stableyard complex has already been saved and restored (as the Williamson Tunnels Heritage Centre) and has had a horse resident for the past four years or so, your website fails to mention anything about that.

Kiln Hey has nothing noteworthy about it save it's Cookson Window whatever that is, (Google has nothing) and you infer that plans are underway to turn it into apartments thus preserving the staircase and window - so it's not really at risk is it?

Like I said, a nice idea, well executed but I can't see much of an overall aim behind it.

I think that with your talent as a web designer you would be better off creating websites that instead of soap-boxing for public outcry gather, preserve, digitize and publicise the information, images and documents that relate to these buildings - creating an archive that - even if the buildings are lost - can serve to show us an in-depth insight into our past.

Sorry if this seems like a rant - it isn't meant to be, and please take everything i've said with good grace as constructive criticism rather than an attack.

[Cadfael]

Not at all, it's a forum and everyone is entitled to their opinion.

The website serves two purposes really, a, for me and b, as a gateway to some of the websites I have created on our buildings in liverpool.

The website isn't there to rant at the City Council nor is it there to try and fix the problem, it is simply going to be an on-going project highlighting our building at risk. I'm not giving out solutions, I'm just letting people see what I have done and where I have been on locations and hope to share what I have filmed and taken pictures of in an easy to read website.

You get out of a website what you wish, there is no rant behind it, simply directing people to places that they may not have been in to before and giving them the chance to see what goes on behind the scenes. With the exception of a couple of pages, all of the pages have a website link to my main website which highlights what I believe to be the problems and solutions with each project.

The website is not an exhaustive information portal, simply setting the scene of which the website links directs you to the main page.

If it doesn't interest you or you don't agree with it, then simply move on. :PDT11

[ghughesarch]

"St John's is a relic of a congregation that is not there, it is not of particular note for either it's architecture or it's status, it is simply now an impediment to progress and regeneration."

Precisely the argument that was used through the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s to clear away a lot of stuff we now rather wish we'd kept.

And it must be a very small "regeneration" site that can't make room in the overall layout for a church tower with a footprint only about 30 feet square.

[fortinian]

Ha ha, I can't believe you have used that hackneyed argument! Read it again,

"the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s to clear away a lot of stuff we now rather wish we'd kept"

So you would rather the world as it was in 1950? With tenements and courts? With grinding poverty in poorly built sub-standard Victorian ruins? You cannot compare the destruction of St Johns to the mass-redevelopment of the 1960s.

Yes, mistakes were made and often buildings that could have been saved were demolished, important ones (Sailors Home - an architectual marvel, Customs House, ditto, Overhead Railway - historical as an early light railway system, Cavern- they must have been on drugs to demolish that!), but who remembers the hundreds of crap Victorian warehouses and slums they demolished? Who laments them? No-one because they were architectually and historically unimportant on their own. They were just empty relics of the past.

It is only now, when we are running out of Victorian warehouses that we must take care to preserve the important/significant ones, ditto with St Johns church. Unlike the developers in the past, modern builders have an obligation to record and preserve the facts about whatever they destroy, they are much more sensitive to local issues and I feel the fact that the tower has been saved as vindicating this fact.

[taffy]

Plans are afoot to demolish this delightful building in Garston and to replace with a modern stainless steel and brick building. Surely some way can be found to save the facade of what is one of the few remaining buildings of architecural merit in Garston.

[Norm NZ]

"Too True"! Taffy, There is no reason why the main (and I believe only!) block can't be saved and used as a administrative area! wards and other services can be built adjoining this block, surely there is room for that?

[gregs dad]

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3453/3213638056_fc3ebab579_o.jpg
Don`t forget the small buidings too.
This is 28 Gateacre Brow designed by Aubrey Thomas,built in 1889 who also designed the Liver Buildings.

[Paddy]

I have walked past many times as a binman,never forget to tip.:034:

[ItsaZappathing]

Good pic GD:handclap:
It's about time someone stepped off the bulldozer too :PDT_Piratz_26:

[Paddy]

There is plenty of dereliction to be getting on with.

[Ron B Manderson]

Very true the old saying.
Throw it out ,and you need it within 3 weeks.
Old buildings should be saved as it's what the tourist wants to see.
When I visit a town thats what I look for .
The history and the heart of the city.with proud history.
And lets face it Liverpool has lots of that

Don't let them do what the council did in Dundee.
In The 60's the way it worked was evil.
As contracts for demolition up to a certain price did.nt have to go to tender, the city ended up with buildind missing here and there . The town was spoilt.
Yes certain council knobs were sent to prison.
But alas. It was too late.
So I would support your council and stop the demoliction people .
Ron

[gregs dad]

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3095/3218464600_1abfc5ccda_o.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3099/3218464476_dbf790b377_o.jpg
Once they were stables built by Andrew Walker, son of Sir Andrew Barclay Walker(Walker Art Gallery) for his polo ponies in 1885 and now they are mews
These are on Grange Lane,Gateacre

[ghughesarch]

Ha ha, I can't believe you have used that hackneyed argument! Read it again,

"the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s to clear away a lot of stuff we now rather wish we'd kept"

So you would rather the world as it was in 1950? .
On a purely aesthetic level, yes (well, about 1930 actually).
Which is how it is in a lot of other major European cities.
The courts, tenements etc needed (to simplify things a lot) decent plumbing, and a reduction in the number of occupants per acre, not wholesale clearance.
The combination in the townscape of warehouses, courts, tenements and the rest was what gave Liverpool as a whole its special character (and combinations of other locally-distinctive but not individually-special buildings and building types) again, just as in Edinburgh or Prague or anywhere else with a strong architectural identity (where a particularly local take on the universal need for shelter generates a distinctive architectural language), not a handful of masterpiece monuments in the city centre.
So the local landmarks, and a rich and identifiably local tradition of "ordinary" building and design, are important to a wider sense of civic identity, and just preserving a few buildings that you happen to think are of major importance is the pathetic argument that was used for decades to justify wrecking Liverpool, and that you've swallowed hook,line and sinker.

[fortinian]

I see where you are coming from... but I still disagree. Just how much of the city do you want to preserve? How many tourists go out into the suburbs? Have you ever been to Prague's suburbs - they are not medieval cobbled streets, nor Paris. The city centre may have a 'look' or an aesthetic that indentifies it but that is not maintained through the rest of the city, nor should it be.

We have the 'Georgian Quarter' which is a really nice way to preserve a swathe of our Cityscape, we are in no danger of losing late-victorian terraced housing, in fact we have a super-surplus of them which can still be lived in (a travesty in its own way). I fear you are imagining me as some sort of wrecking ball that wants to destroy the fabric of your city for the mere sake of it.

I am not of a generation that remembers the courts, tenements etc... I have grown up in a Liverpool devoid of 'the docks', yet I still love Liverpool and can appreciate its heritage and feel it is somewhere different and special.

[ghughesarch]

I see where you are coming from... but I still disagree. Just how much of the city do you want to preserve? How many tourists go out into the suburbs? Have you ever been to Prague's suburbs - they are not medieval cobbled streets, nor Paris. The city centre may have a 'look' or an aesthetic that indentifies it but that is not maintained through the rest of the city, nor should it be.

We have the 'Georgian Quarter' which is a really nice way to preserve a swathe of our Cityscape, we are in no danger of losing late-victorian terraced housing, in fact we have a super-surplus of them which can still be lived in (a travesty in its own way). I fear you are imagining me as some sort of wrecking ball that wants to destroy the fabric of your city for the mere sake of it.

I am not of a generation that remembers the courts, tenements etc... I have grown up in a Liverpool devoid of 'the docks', yet I still love Liverpool and can appreciate its heritage and feel it is somewhere different and special.

How many tourists (or potential investors) enter or leave the city through its suburbs? (answer: all of them) - and what sort of impression do they create? And what sort of impression could they create if we only thought of them as being and integral part of an greater "whole", rather than just the stuff round the edge of a very limited version of "Liverpool", which starts at Lime Street and finishes at the Pier Head?
I can remember getting the bus into Liverpool in the late 70s / early 80s when the huge (and well-designed) 1920s and 30s council estates round Dovecot and Old Swan were just falling victim to "modernisation" (based on what was cheapest) and the "right to buy" - random bits of stone-cladding etc etc.
They'll never be a "tourist attraction" in their own right (except for a handful of people who are interested in the achievements of Sir Lancelot Keay, City Architect at the time they were built), but Liverpool's suburbs (with a bit of litter picking, some careful refurbishment, and probably far less wholesale demolition that has been envisaged recently), could be a worthwhile introduction to the more important delights of the city centre.
And yes, have seen the suburbs of Prague, and of Paris, and they look and feel nothing like each other, or like Liverpool's suburbs.

[danensis]

Well, I drove into Liverpool the last time from Runcorn bridge. It used to be quite an interesting drive, past the Halewood plant, and then in through little places like Garston and Aigburth. But now its just cowboy town - dual carriageway, with the same old burger joints and big steel sheds as any other city. When I tried to get nearer the river I ended up nearly wrecking the car with stupid "speed bumps" which give you whiplash at 20 m.p.h. All the old streets I knew - which were perfectly serviceable housing once the lofts were insulated and the kitchen bathroom extension added, had been replaced with houses that looked as though the architect had been deprived of his construction kit when a child, and was making up for it.

John

[fortinian]

You over simplify what I am saying, I am not for the wholesale destruction of Liverpools cityscape and replacement with steel and glass - that would be awful. I am merely trying to retain some sort of realistic vision in an area that can get horribly swamped with trite nostalgia, sentimentality and general demagoguary.

Liverpool is looked upon as a bit of a joke in the building world... no one can do anything because of the complaints. Look at Mann Island, we could of had an interesting building there in the shape of the cloud... but what do we have now? Some boring 'contemporary' buliding which is exactly the same as every other post-1990s building.

Now, I freely admit, I was against the Cloud at first... but now we have such a boring unimaginative building in its place I wish it was here.

We must preserve our heritage, but not at the expense of our future.

[ghughesarch]

I was against the Cloud, and against what's been built now - I don't see what was wrong with leaving the site empty. But there's the point - the site was, for whatever reason, empty, so building on it didn't involve sweeping something else away. There are lots of empty, or genuinely underused, sites in the city that could and should be filled, preferably by good, sensitive, modern buildings, or by the repair and reuse of what is currently derelict and decaying, before we start spouting about functionally redundant but visually important church towers and the like as "an impediment to progress and regeneration" - your precise words, and the ones that sparked my ire. Equally, there are a few empty sites that would be better left as open space.

[Waterways]

Wayne in the Times:


January 31, 2009

Liverpool?s heritage
Liverpool Preservation Trust speaks out on the effect of recent redevelopment to the city

Sir, Those who live in Liverpool have had to endure traffic chaos while the massive Grosvenor Estate scheme was built (?Liverpool One, brutal developers nil?, Jan 24). We were told it would be worth the wait but then, on opening day, we go into recession, making it more miserable for small businesses that have not been priced out by the ensuing Klondike-style land grab, fuelled by Liverpool One optimism.

Walk around the periphery of the new estate and you will see the disaster that has befallen our city with bad planning. Planners have done more damage than the Luftwaffe by finishing us off with brutal architecture, and Liverpool One is such an example. Grosvenor may have a few good points but it?s a group of average shops thrown together quickly. It could have been so much better if the European Capital of Culture had not been hijacked and turned into Culture of Capital.

The Liverpool Preservation Trust has fought to cling on to the historic fabric of the city while 46 listed buildings were destroyed. In Liverpool One the oldest merchant?s house in the city was buried under a car park and the first purpose-built dock in the world, Steers Dock, has been replaced with Milton Keynes on Sea.

It is architecturally criminal what they are doing to a World Heritage Site.

Wayne Colquhoun

Chairman, Liverpool Preservation Trust


Wayne does have a point. He is regarded as a Luddite, but all is trying to do is preserve what we have and any new buildings adjacent conform to the old.

OK, many modern buildings have blended in with the old, however in Liverpool modern architecture mainly has been a disaster with few decent examples. So Wayne's view is understandable.

He is spot-on regarding the old Steers Dock and Liverpool One shopping mall. This historic dock should have been partially excavated with boats in the dock accessing from Canning Dock, then a well designed shopping centre built around it - what an attraction for shoppers!!!! Too easy is isn't it!!! Did they do it? No.

[Waterways]

Liverpool is looked upon as a bit of a joke in the building world...


After this was rejected, yes. It would have been completed a few years ago if they gave it the go ahead:

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/watercity/BrunswickQuays-3.jpg



no one can do anything because of the complaints. Look at Mann Island, we could of had an interesting building there in the shape of the cloud... but what do we have now? Some boring 'contemporary' buliding which is exactly the same as every other post-1990s building.


http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/6760/fromdocktl0.jpg

I would not say those buildings are, boring 'contemporary' buildings which are exactly the same as every other post-1990s building.



We must preserve our heritage, but not at the expense of our future.

Quite the reverse. We must forge the futures, but not at the expense of our heritage.

We must value what we have and work the future around that.

[Waterways]

I was against the Cloud, and against what's been built now - I don't see what was wrong with leaving the site empty. But there's the point - the site was, for whatever reason, empty, so building on it didn't involve sweeping something else away. There are lots of empty, or genuinely underused, sites in the city that could and should be filled, preferably by good, sensitive, modern buildings, or by the repair and reuse of what is currently derelict and decaying, before we start spouting about functionally redundant but visually important church towers and the like as "an impediment to progress and regeneration" - your precise words, and the ones that sparked my ire. Equally, there are a few empty sites that would be better left as open space.

Mann Island could have been clearly left empty. The only section of the proposed urban ring motorways built was the Dock Rd section, the Strand. Thank God it never happened. This can be got rid of and a park/leisure area around Canning Dock up to Liverpool One shopping centre can be made. It would have been even better if the Old (Steers) Dock was partially excavated and parts of the park left. a few single floor low rise leisure buildings could have been built to serve the needs of people. Naked Lilac mentioned how removing the park was real bad move when she visited the city in the summer.

[gregs dad]

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3356/3246867871_7104b1c4bd_o.jpg
House in Church Rd Wavertree in 1909(photo courtesy Liverpool Record Office)
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3517/3247698034_9087ba5fd0_o.jpg
The same house today the only difference is the chains have been removed from the garden posts

[Waterways]

The top of the chimney pot has had work done to it.

[Waterways]

but who remembers the hundreds of crap Victorian warehouses and slums they demolished? Who laments them? No-one because they were architectually and historically unimportant on their own. They were just empty relics of the past.


Liverpool had late 1700s/early 1800s 13 floor warehouses with palladium fronts. All demolished in the 1970/80s. OK, they probably didn't know you could convert them to flats. But I'm sure they knew that. ;)

Why would anyone with half a brain pull this down? What a beauty. Like Chicago.

http://www.yoliverpool.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=6337&d=1209934889


Look at all the wonderful buildings that could still be here today and converted to flats. What a waste - that's all the city ever does, is have no vision whatsoever and fail to value what it has. The Victoria Dock is seen before they filled that in as well.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2302/2460433032_8fdda1e6b4_o.jpg

[Ged]

That Riverfront building and ones like it should never have been demolished.

[Waterways]

Yep. The tall warehouses should have been kept - they were atmospheric. The ramshackle sheds are demolition stuff.

The north end, had many of these, yet most that have survived are predominately in the south end around Jamaica Street/Baltic Triangle running into Duke Street. Around Dublin St in the north end, a few have survived.

[fortinian]

I agree, that is a beautiful building. If you read my post you would clearly see I am for the preservation of nice and important buildings... you take my post slightly out of context Waterways.

I hate the new Liverpool One 'Steers Way'. That is a travesty, with a badly placed fogged up hole to see the dock... One good thing though is that the fabric of the dock has been preserved and protected, if it had been left open it probably would have crumbled to the elements, but more should be made of such a vital part of our heritage.

Ok, you might be right Waterways, they might not be 'boring' but they are pretty unimaginative. They look far to much like, dare I say it, 1960s bunkers for my liking. I think they will date, very quickly. The cloud... was original. But as has been pointed out, the ground could have been left as a car park... no problem with that at all. All I am saying is that if it had to be built on i'd prefer the cloud to those lego blocks.

I suppose the problem lies with balance.

[Waterways]

Article in The Times



Liverpool One shopping centre beats out brutal developersMarcus Binney, Architecture Correspondent
Nothing chills the blood quite like the prospect of a ?shopping development?. There is hardly a town in Britain where handsome, happily working buildings and streets have not been bulldozed and hideously concreted into a spirit-numbing uniformity of chain-store shopping centres and multistorey car parking.

Liverpool is a city that has, over the years, suffered more than its share of such depredations. The latest large development there, however, offers hope that shopping schemes can be carried out, on a large scale, in an imaginative and humane fashion.

The Grosvenor Estate?s grand Liverpool venture involves more than a dozen leading architects in reshaping 42 acres of the city centre. Remarkably, this project has involved almost no loss of historic fabric ? instead it has even opened up old streets closed off in 1960s developments.

The starting point was an enlightened brief from the city?s planners that stated that it was ?keen to avoid inward-looking structures? presenting ?bland, lifeless facades? to surrounding streets.

The master planners, BDP architects, have not made the Modernist mistake of insisting that everything conforms to a grid. Instead kinks, set backs and curving corners provide informality and variety.

Shopping developments usually need ?anchor? stores to bring in the other tenants. Here they are John Lewis and Debenhams, but not given dominating positions. John Lewis, on one corner, subtly attracts attention with streamlined horizontals sweeping round a grand curved glass wall. This is the work of John McAlsan, who masterminded the makeover of Peter Jones in London.

Paradise Street, the spine of the sheme, has been re-created to its former width, the more generous as it is now pedestrianised, just like Lord Street, which it crosses. Even in winter the sun can stream in. Rod Holmes, Grosvenor?s development director, says: ?We conceived it in 2000-01 when everyone was focused on the new urban agenda, on how city centres could fight back against regional shopping and leisure centres and business parks. Despite the attraction of out-of-town shopping centres with abundant parking, the evidence was that people felt more comfortable out of doors than in an enclosed air-conditioned environment. High street rents remained persistently higher than those in covered shopping centres.?

The hoardings round Liverpool One, as the new centre is called, came down last autumn, coinciding with Liverpool?s year as European City of Culture. Though there could hardly be a more testing time to open a new shopping centre, almost every unit was let. The crowds before Christmas suggest that Grosvenor?s aim of attracting shoppers from prosperous areas of Wirral and north Cheshire is working.

Covered shopping centres in big cities include shops on different levels. In traditional city streets something more dramatic is needed to tempt people to higher levels. This is provided here by architects Allies and Morrison, with a giant zigzag stair ricocheting between adjoining buildings. Just as you are wondering how much puff it will take to get to the top, an escalator comes into view behind making the 50ft ascent in a single flight.

At the top you emerge in a piazza ringed by bars and restaurants that forms the roof of a car park for 2,000 cars. To make the point you can stand on glass panels in the middle of a lawn to inspect the cavernous void below.

The upper walks are cleverly aligned on neighbouring towers and spires but the big thrill is the stupendous panorama of the great warehouses around the Albert Dock with the Mersey behind. The view is framed by curving, slanting apartment blocks by Cesar Pelli, architect of the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur. There is also Liverpool?s own version of the Spanish Steps, a cascade of stairs swelling out like a wave that acts as an impromptu auditorium.

Liverpool One is true civic architecture addressing public spaces, streets and vistas as well as commercial gain. Better still, it is public realm open 24 hours a day. And as Grosvenor has invested so much it is likely to be kept both clean and free of litter, safe and well lit.