Necropolis, West Derby Road, 1913
Grant Gardens, West Derby Road, 1916
Following my last post about the future of Calderstones Park, I was surprised to learn at the Planning Meeting that Liverpool ranks tenth in the amount of parkland per city. Instead of looking at how to redress this situation, the City Council seem hell-bent of removing even more of this priceless resource.
It got me thinking about how to remedy this situation. I regularly drive into the city centre along Smithdown Road. On the left is the sprawling Toxteth Park Cemetery. A typical Victorian urban cemetery, it was opened in 1856 but is now a little visited and somewhat intimidating place. I understand the sensibilities surrounding burial places but there is a well-established precedent for decommissioning cemeteries in Liverpool and turning them into parkland. St John’s Gardens, below St George’s Hall, was once a cemetery that was created at the turn of the twentieth century following the demolition of St John’s church. St James’s cemetery, beside Liverpool Cathedral was tidied up (although many felt adversely) to make it safer and more attractive to visitors. Similarly, Necropolis on West Derby Road, pictured above, was converted into Grant Gardens, again in the early years of the twentieth century. In the latter case, the buried were left undisturbed.
In the case of Toxteth Park Cemetery, there are important monuments that need to be maintained, including war graves, but I do question why cemeteries must be seen as sacrosanct. With careful thought, this could be an attractive and welcoming park in an area undergoing considerable transformation.
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