Eh Dave - u and Waterways the same person? Softlad :Colorz_Grey_PDT_16:Quote:
Originally Posted by scouserdave
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Eh Dave - u and Waterways the same person? Softlad :Colorz_Grey_PDT_16:Quote:
Originally Posted by scouserdave
They are all my creations, Kev. Or are they?
:)
I can merge all your posts into one user if u want? :PDT_Aliboronz_24:Quote:
Originally Posted by Cissie Braithwaite
LOL!:PDT_Piratz_26:Quote:
Originally Posted by Kev
Well done Kev you have left me speechless for once!Quote:
Originally Posted by Kev
:celb (23):
Makes you think eh :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by Kev
You again!Quote:
Originally Posted by victorialush
Thank you to 'The Gardens' for resurrecting this thread and adding his input into what it was like living in these environments into the 1980s which still doesn't seem that long ago to me because they are remembered fondly.
It was indeed an environment too, a community and not just a faceless flat. If someone hadn't seen say an elderly neighbour for a couple of days or something they would confide in the next neighbour about their wellbeing and maybe knock, i've known this happen time and again and we all know the old joke about the net twitching but it wasn't being nosey, it was being neighbourly - would it happen now - nobody see's any 'wrongdoings' - fear of recriminations. The older brothers, cousins and mates living in these areas would keep the younger one in check, a clip round the ear if necessary and you wouldn't dare answer back. With the demise of the communities in the likes of the Four Squares in Soho Street, Gerard Gardens and Fontenoy Gardens, dwindling church congregations partly resulting in Pastoral reorganising also meant the closing of the likes of St. Mary of the Angels (The Friary), St. Joseph's and Holy Cross churches, two of these sadly demolished.
I know also that one of my uncles couldn't even manage the garden of the bungalow he was given and two other families he was friendly with were put out in Kirkby and Nossis Green respectively and hardly saw each other again. It was even hard for them getting to know bus routes and times they hadn't previously needed to be concerned about, being on the city centre doorstep which I now realise many took for granted, how much would City centre living in these arty farty 'apartments' - mainly for students, cost you now?
Like myself, throughout the 1980s, my old neighbour in Grosvenor street, Joe Devine went around photographing some structures that were about to be demolished.I think Freddy O'Connor may have been an influence with 'it all came tumbling down'
Here you can see various shots of Fontenoy Gardens. This is where the first 'British Restaurant' opened during wartime to ease energy supplies in the home and offer affordable meals, it was called the Byrom Restaurant.
It can be seen in the film Violent Playground and has been pictured in the background many a time when both EFC and LFC have come down Scotland Road with their spoils on the open top bus. Lawrence Pecichino's sweet shop, Harpers fruit and Veg shop which many years later became a chippy and Scott's store served the local community for many a year.
Those pics remind of the old Ugly block of flats they had In Old Swan which Is now Tesco.
Thanks Ged.
Great photos.
The Sally Army's Arden House is on the first pic.
Max, they probably looked ugly to you because they were derelict, but I think it was a shame that Tesco didn't build their store with the same dramatic curve, and put the car park at the back.
Ged, these pics are fantastic mate!
Thanks:PDT_Piratz_26:
Tesco looks like heaven compared to those kind of building.Quote:
Originally Posted by PhilipG
Give me brick built community based housing over bland corporate tin sheds any day of the week.
Or even worse, a great big car park in front of it.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Gardens
A big empty space like that has completely ruined what was once a vibrant built up area.
They need a great big boring concrete car park for it because they shipped the people out that far and wide from St. Oswalds house and gardens and Hurst gardens that you'd need a car to shop there.
This artwork is just outside the 'Bullring' and reads:
THE EYE CANNOT SAY TO THE HAND 'I HAVE NO NEED OF YOU' NOR AGAIN THE HEAD TO THE FEET 'I HAVE NO NEED OF YOU' ST. ANDREW'S GARDENS 'THE BULLRING' EST. 1935
I must reiterate my comments here (I ate a dictionary for breakfast ) :DQuote:
Originally Posted by lindylou
... after watching the video about the tennies I have to admit that they did look smart when they were new. The lady watering the plants which lined the balcony - it reminded me a bit of the apartment blocks in Spain with the plants tumbling from the verandas, and the design of communal living being a bit similar.
... but the tennies I remember were in their latter days and were deteriorating. They became drab and ghetto'ised for want of a better word.
The remaining ones that have been refurbished, like the old Bullring and the block in Old Swan (can't think of the name - opposite Tescos) look great now.
The Tennies when they were brand new reminded me of something like this : (Spanish apartment blocks having similar landings, stairwells and communal entrances) :)
As Paul points out in his film though, it was council policy at the time to neglect repairs and the updating of these properties and he describes this best when he says: 'it's as though the council wanted these properties to be put of 'their' misery' - their meaning the council's. If they were once fit for kings in the 30s (and remember, people were still using outside toilets in the 70s) then there's no reason why a spruce up including central heating and possibly security / gates as in Wavertree Gardens, Gt Richmond st or the Bullring couldn't have been a vision for the future, especially when some were only demolished to leave vacant land (Chaucer House, The four squares, Lawrence Gardens) or for a supermarket (St. Oswalds House and Gardens) or a petrol station (Wilbraham House) or a road widening scheme (Gerard Gardens and Crescent)
Many petitions sprung up to save these communities that were being uprooted and dispersed. The Scottie Road action group, The Vauxhall Neighbourhood Council and The Eldonians are the ones that spring to mind and the films Us and Them and Homes not Roads show the residents saying how they like living where they are thank you very much. The Eldonians preserved most of their community in the end, over the other side of Vauxhall Road.
I personally think it was such a vibrant time and place to live and even some of my mates who lived in houses in Old Swan, Norris Green and Huyton used to come down to play in these squares as it was what they knew and loved.
Great Spanish pic Lindylou. Wish I was somewhere hot and relaxed just now.
Although noisy when filled to the brim with kids playing, once inside your 'house', you couldn't hear anything as I remember it or perhaps my ears had been conditioned to such over time :)
You probably were conditioned as you said Ged, when I was a kid we lived alongside the Cheshire Lines railway and never heard that.:037:Quote:
Originally Posted by Ged
These, known locally as the 'Buildings' just off Melrose Road looked very tired and haggard towards the end of their lifespan. Of the earlier railing landing style, they particular ones had no communal square as such and seem cramped and too near the back yards of nearby street housing.
However, so as not to upset any of the proud communities borne out of this particular development, i'm sure there will have been many who developed close knit links to their surroundings that I enjoyed. Perhaps better aestethic planning of these particular blocks could have resulted in a modernisation programme instead of demolition for a couple of new streets of low level housing.
Has anyone got any of St Martins Cottages or Kew street in the Vauxhall area?
Tony, loads of St. Martins Cottages on the Port Cities and Mersey Gateway Liverpool council sites including the insides of them. Also some on the Scottiepress site and my books as you'll know. How's tricks, did you catch any of the match, I believe Dudek didn't get home last night until after 6.
Most of the Liverpool tenement blocks were modeled on the 'Karl Marx Hof' built in Vienna in 1927. Gerard Gardens even had statues over the arches.
The Karl Marx Hof is still standing, and is a tourist attraction.
The Liverpool residents cannot be held responsible for the overall maintainence of the blocks, that was the councils job.
Yes. Lancelot Keay was also a known fan of the Britz Horseshoe estate that was commenced in 1925 in the NeuKoln district of Berlin. The design of this development is very much incorporated into St. Andrews Gardens (the Bullring)
Anyone remember Beacon Bedworld in London Road, possibly still there I think but Taffy's Carpets in St. John's precinct isn't.
The first pic is of the Lord Mayor and councilors perusing a model of the 312 new flats which were St. Andrews Gardens. The venue is George Henry Lees store which hosted the public Health Exhibition from 13th to 18th May 1935.
The Rt Honourable Sir Kingsley Wood M.P. the Minister for Health laid the foundation stone for these flats on 21st June 1935 on the same day as that for Gerard Gardens.
The 2nd pic shows a model of CarylGardens created by Liverpool Corporation designers Robson & Marsden.
Does anybody know where these model are now. For the record, the National Museums Liverpool, the city architects dept and the Central libraries and records office don't seem to?
This is a copy and pasted email I sent to Dr David Flemming, head of the National Museums Merseyside, the reply will follow next.
I have read with interest the proposals for the new museum of Liverpool life and was a massive fan of the previous one in Mann Island albeit it was too small.
I believe the new one will increase the availability of the large objects you have currently in store from 3% to 6% even though I and many others would like to see 100% of our heritage on show and even a charge to the public to look around the Bootle holding warehouses would surely be viable.
The main reason for my email though is because I have made a 2m x 2m scale model of Gerard Gardens tenement block which was the ‘Jewel in the crown’ of Sir Lancelot Keay’s rehousing development scheme in the 1930s. These Art Deco castle like structures were home to around a quarter of a million people over their 50 year lifespans and of course around half a dozen of these developments still exist in one guise or another, the most notable being the Bullring on Copperas Hill.
As housing will always continue to play a large part in peoples memories as we all need it and still use it. My idea is that there should be an exhibition either permanent (if possible) but definitely a one off, dealing with this issue.
There could be a walk through the ages, starting with the courts, recreating the one that was at Mann Island, bring back the old cobbled street that was in Liverpool museum throughout the 1970s (where you could press a button to the sound of old music and children playing) At this point, St. Martin’s cottages, the first municipal housing in Europe was built, followed by Victoria Square which won an award for their architectural advanced design and then we have the worlds first reinforced concrete prefabs made of clinker, built in Eldon street by John Alexander Brodie.
Next could be the pre WWI era, and you already have a model of Eldon Grove which was and still is in the Vauxhall area with it’s mock tudor designs and railing landings, many of these being built between 1910 and 1914. We then move on to the long boulevards that were the ideas of James Newlands and John Alexander Brodie with the idea of trams down the central reservations and the selling off of land to builders with a frontage tax for having the pleasure of selling houses with such stunning rural like views.
We then move onto Keay’s developments – Homes for the workers. 35,000 new houses built during his reign at the helm of Liverpool Corporation. The art deco tenements sprung up all over the city after a mass slum clearance project. Vauxhall, Kirkdale, Everton, City Centre, Edge Hill, Toxteth, Dingle, Clubmoor, Old Swan, Wavertree, Speke – they were all there, luxury with an inside toilet and electricity as well as gas. Keay also built new townships at Norris Green and Speke which were self contained communities with wash houses, libraries, shops –all integrated. During the war, British Restaurants were introduced to save lighting, heating and cooking in the home. Three of the first four in Britain were built in Liverpool and were situated in these tenements.
After the war, with the chronic housing shortage. Prefabs were all the go. Britian’s largest single development was situated in Netherley though there were many in the city centre area, those in Prince Edwin street only being finally cleared in the 1970s. With land at the premium, the way to go was up in the 1950s and 60s. High rise sprung up all over the city, the first being Coronation Court on the Sparrow Hall Estate. Lots of them built in blocks of three, such as the Piggeries and Sheil Road – they brought stunning views and blow central heating. (HAT last year had an exhibition at the MOLL with a mock up interior of a typical high rise) The 50s also saw the birth of the Unit blocks with their central arch doorway and maisonette type blocks though too. The 1970s saw low level housing estates which were as bad in plan and design as the much maligned high rise. Estates such as the Radcliffe, Gleave Square and the Netherley blocks off Brittage Brow were only to last a decade as they became rat runs and escape routes for criminals.
The 1980s saw a modern slum clearance programme of sorts as the 30s tenements and the more recent high rise, with low level density housing being built to replace these. With all mod cons and front and back gardens, it is this type of housing which is still in favour with the city planners, the inner city high rise being back in vogue, but only by private developers who sell them off as apartments to the wealthy.
David. I feel it is too good an opportunity to miss and indeed a social history that cannot be ignored and would be a massive attraction.
Dear Ged - many thanks for this, which looks really interesting (I've seen your second email too). The model looks fab! I'll send on to our content team for the Museum of Liverpool, who are looking closely at Housing among other topics. I'm sure they will be in touch with you shortly. Many, many thanks for your interest - one of the keys to creating a successful Museum of Liverpool is to engage people such as yourself, who have such a wealth of knowledge about and enthusiasm for the city and its history.
As far as I am concerned this new museum is a Team Liverpool effort: our young staff need all the help and support we can find from people like yourself. You'll find us very "collaboration-minded". It's been frustrating so far to find the architecture of the building so prominent in discussion, when actually it's the museum content which is truly exciting. I think that will dawn on the city as time passes and as the thing begins to take shape at the Pierhead.
Best wishes,
David
If anyone has any ideas for the new Museum, perhaps they won't just fall on deaf ears, though words are cheap and i'll make sure I follow up on this favourable reply.
It would be a shame for us to see the contents of the new museum and say, 'yes it's good but could've been better if this or if that...'
An imput early on from people who care might just make the difference. I see it's mentioned that local groups will be sourced for information - does anyone know of this already, or perhaps it's too early stages just yet?
Ged.
Very interesting history, Ged.
One of my neighbours works at the Maritime Museum and he says that anybody can make arrangements to visit the Large Objects in Bootle.
So that might be worth following up.
Re suggestions:
I went to the Housing Exhibition at the Museum of Liverpool Life, & thought there should have been a lot more.
For example, there were hardly any photos.
I think i'll have to check that out Philip, thanks mate.
Thanks for all the great stuff you are posting Ged. Your pictures and info are very interesting. :celb (23):
June 1986.
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/134/3...c8ea49f0_o.jpg
June 1987.
Under demolition.
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/137/3...fbb6145a_o.jpg
June 1987.
The new houses were for some of the tenants of Gerard Gardens, but most of the occupants of the 300+ flats were dispersed far and wide.
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/143/3...32f03a57_o.jpg
:) these are great photos philip
As you can see from the two lads pictured here. You could even fish near Gerard Gardens.Quote:
Originally Posted by PhilipG
Great Pics Phil.Quote:
Originally Posted by PhilipG
My auntie was the 1st Child born in Gerard Gardens after they opened,She now lives in one of them Houses on the right.
Hey up Gerard. You lived directly above the Hod Carrier and I lived in 8D,directly above the architect.
That bedroom of ours which had the three little windows had that one looking out over the Ponny on one side and a window in the same room, opposite, looking out into the square, ours being the only two.
Lovely photos, Gerard.
And your captions really personalise them.