Gardens, Tenements and Courts

[Spike]

Its true burkhilly that communities lost that special feel with the demise of these buildings. I never lived in one, but my relatives still talk about them now.

I remember the Prefabs, and how sorry some people where to leave them.

[Ged]

Hello Burkhilly and Spike and how right you are. Yet another screening of Gardens of Stone took place last week in the old National Giro in Netherton. This concerns Liverpool's tenements and yet again, the people who lived in them and visited family there had only good memories to talk of.

One lady mentioned to me that she recently moved from her street after 10 years (after previously living in the odl tennies), she said tara to just 2 people that she got to know there as everybody kept themselves to themselves, didn't mingle and you never saw them after they were behind their front door. A world away from the old times of people standing on the landing jangling about nothing in particular as they watched the world go by and their kids play below in the square.

[Waterways]

George Orwell, a brief visitor to Liverpool, labelled the newly built Bull Ring flats as 'slums of the air'.

[Ged]

Then he was wrong wasn't he if you think about what the new residents of those flats had come from, they were pure luxury.

[Waterways]

Then he was wrong wasn't he if you think about what the new residents of those flats had come from, they were pure luxury.

They clearly were better than where they came from. I think George Orwell was about right Ged. The odd gardens block was OK, but many of those tenements, and much of the later tower blocks, ended as he described, 'slums of the air'. Very prophetic.

[Ged]

Only because council policy at the time was to allow them to go to wrack and ruin when very few wanted to move out of these communities and set up petitions to stay (even though the councils had practically withdrawn maintenance and repairs so they could be put of their misery.

You should really see the gardens film documentary 'Gardens of Stone' and see the strong audience reaction from ex residents from all over Liverpool at how discraced they were at this policy, even none ex residence come to that.

I know you talk elsewhere about Thatcher's greed obsession for which we now pay the price. In communities such as these, even during her reign, that truly didn't exist, each had the same as their neighbour. Not many wanted the new houses with all mod cons and gardens to maintain and the facelessness that went with being behind your own fence or hedgerow.

I know you also talk elsewhere about fuel poverty. A number of these tenements still exist in the likes of Clubmoor, Wavertree, Upper Warwick st, Nelson st, St Anne street, Myrtle st and Copperas Hill (as pictured) and all are gated private communities which have been well incorporated into the 21st century with little bother and no one dying of the cold in the process. In fact I know of a number of people who paid good money to live in the ones that are not student based and visited one recently and very warm and comfortable they are too (though I really do appreciate how small the old back kitchens were now and how narrow the landings are - my rose tinted glasses did kick in as I always remembered them as being wider, but I was narrower too back then)

It's funny how these 5,6,7 high blocks are now back in vogue in the city centre and at what a price too.

The tower blocks are something different. Mis-managed. Isn't Beetham tower a glorified St. Georges Heights after all with security and car parking making it a difference. Take a look at view 146 and what was done with them.

[Waterways]

Ged, I went into many of them as an engineer, and it was clear many were social dustbins. In many of them you never took a vehicle inside for fear of damage or being broken into. There were some exceptions, Wavertree was one, but few.

Fuel poverty affects mainly the poor. Those private residents can afford the fuel to heat those largely uninsulated structures. The poor council tenants shivered and only heated one room.

If they were such a social success they would all have still been intact.

In the broader sense, much of Liverpool over the past 150 years, social housing has always been an emergency stop gap - that is what the gardens and the later tower block were. The city has always been in a housing crisis. It got so bad the city was virtually a large council estate. Getting people independent and owning their own homes is the best way. Then no continually pouring large sums of public money into housing schemes that will not be there in 40 years time.

The city should concentrate in getting the Merseyrail transport infrastructure extended as a priority, especially the underground sections which run under inner-city areas. This will attract private investors. They lay the rails for private industry and housing to roll upon - provide the firm base. Then no bottomless pit suburbs, that the private sector will not touch with a barge pole, that consume billions over decades.

[Ged]

Yes they did become run down in the end, prematurely due to council policy like I said. Many had the playgrounds until the 1960s, the idea was to keep the kids in view. I've already mentioned that those that were spared are still intact and not one to my knowledge lies empty.

A 1950s reburb masterplan was touted and as recently as just a decade before demolition the corpy poured money into re-roofing Gerard Gardens and putting new WC's and Robinson Willey gas fires in all 400 flats. Hardly the actions of stop gap developments.

It was militants fight against Thatcher and the mass borrowing for new housing that many blame for Gerard Gardens demise but in actual fact, it was for a new ring road - the widening of Hunter Street to link Scotland Road with New Islington which was being formed, it'd been on the cards for years, first with looped flyovers at Lime st and Scotty/Leeds st junction.

The four squares tenements site was never built on, it still lies as a derelict lump of greenery now. Lawrence Gardens went on theloop site due to the Kingsway tunel approach road isolating it.

Less than half the residents got new housing out of it anyway.

To look at real failures you don't need to look at tenements or high rise - look at a model village based on a Cornish dream - it lasted less than a decade - The Radcliffe estate. Look at 60s pebble dashed flats that also provided rat runs and escape paths with no access for emergency vehicles such as the Grizedale estate off Robson street and the Easby estate in Kirkdale.

These, unlike the art deco monuments with gothic arches, ornamental lighting, stone pots and wrought iron railings were characterless.

[quincyg]

Hello Burkhilly and Spike and how right you are. Yet another screening of Gardens of Stone took place last week in the old National Giro in Netherton. This concerns Liverpool's tenements and yet again, the people who lived in them and visited family there had only good memories to talk of.

One lady mentioned to me that she recently moved from her street after 10 years (after previously living in the odl tennies), she said tara to just 2 people that she got to know there as everybody kept themselves to themselves, didn't mingle and you never saw them after they were behind their front door. A world away from the old times of people standing on the landing jangling about nothing in particular as they watched the world go by and their kids play below in the square.

didn't know it was being shown there I could've gone to see it.

will there be any more showings of this film Ged?

[Ged]

Hiya qg. Yes there are a few lined up but don't know all the dates yet, one at the aethenaum I think but possible only to members. It's had over 30 now city wide, there's bound to be others so I'll keep you posted and the forum in general. The giro one was for employees only as they have quite a few as you'll know.

[Spike]

My Dad lived in Kings Gardens for 10 years, and he used to say that if he could have got a flat there when he was married then we would all have been brought up there. My great grandma lived in Ashfield Gardens from just after the war until her death in 1978. she loved the place. My dad would always say that the bulldozer broke the communities. until his death, he would still meet up with old friends from scotland road and the Dingle. he loved to talk about the people back then with great fondness. My dad was born in St Martins Cottages.

I never lived in these flats, i lived in a house with a garden, boring as anything. but i had mates who lived in the flats, they loved the place.

[Ged]

Nice memories Spike.

My mate's mum and dad moved to Old Swan in the late 60s, to a house with a front and back garden after living in the Gerard Gardens area and what a testament to the adventure of the lad and his commitment to his old area that he'd get up out of his pit long before any of us to endure the bus ride down to St. Joey's school each morning and hang around with us in the square of the tennies and he'd sometimes stay down in his uncles in Gerard Crescent over the weekend.

I don't know anyone i've ever spoken to who has said they couldn't wait to get out, it's all been positive stuff, well they knew no differently did they, it was their lives and they were happy with their lot.

With the break up of communities and the greed culture of the 80s came the beginings of the troubles we see now. No parochial clubs, corner pubs with pool and darts teams diminishing. Ron Formby of the Scottie press put forward a very plausible case for what's gone wrong during a talk/Q&A session after one of the Gardens of Stone screenings, the audience was captavated and it would have been very hard to disagree with much he said.

[geo]

The Scottie Press the longest running Community Newspaper in the country say's it all really.... people moved away from the neighbourhood to the four corners of the globe but the press maintained the links... a community paper in every sense of the word.

[Spike]

The Scottie Press the longest running Community Newspaper in the country say's it all really.... people moved away from the neighbourhood to the four corners of the globe but the press maintained the links... a community paper in every sense of the word.

Well said

I remember St Andrews Gardens as i used to cut through there every day on my way to work, they have turned out pretty nice. I also remember how bad the Wavertree Gardens where, so bad in fact that they used it to film that tv show about the nuclear survivors, The place looks pretty good now, just shows what could have been done with other blocks. i like them.

We had a mate who lived in Gerard Gardens, we would go to call for him now and again, did not go there very many times as Ged and his gang would threaten us im joking ok.did know a lad there though, went there about 4 times.


My cousins lived in Caryl Gardens i think? near to the docks in the Dingle.

[Ged]

I think I may have mentioned before about the misconceptions surrounding these tenement squares which have been largely generalised as bad by those wishing to bad mouth them. It was one of the reasons behind Paul's film, to dispel the myth as it were, especially to those who he worked with who were largely from the northern posher suburbs of Sefton, they laugh at the ridiculousness of it now.

Many of the residents had relatives living in other tenement blocks, blocks that might have been perceived as rival during the build up to bonfire night or during footy matches or deserving of being swerved for the long way round when planning your route somewhere.

In actual fact, I found them all welcoming and children from the same year at school lived in many of the different ones and so hung around together afterwards.