Liverpool from above and around

This week (fortnight?) I’m looking at the historic city of Liverpool from above, and from raised perspectives both literal and metaphorical.

Firstly, A Sense of Place gets a full-on two-part exploration of the south docks of Liverpool. The blog often revolves around walks across the city and its waterscape, and this one explores how the dockland landscape of Toxteth and Garston has been developed since the docks became obsolete. Ronnie even makes use of my favourite old map reproductions – The Godfrey Series – to discover what was there before the flats and mariners. Both parts of In Liverpool: the South Docks are on A Sense of Place now.

I’ve been directed to an absolutely amazing interactive mapping website maintained by the National Library of Scotland, along with the David Rumsey map collection. There are a handful of old map layers available, with some stunning 1:1056 maps of London. Still, even if you’re interested in nothing beyond the bounds of Merseyside you’re still in for a treat. Try this beautiful view of 1900s Woolton, for example, complete with windmill.

Julian Dobson has appeared on these pages once or twice, in relation to town planning, society and community. His most recent slideshow is entitled The new historic city: high streets, heritage ad knowing our place, and it won’t take regular readers long to see why I found it so interesting. In it, he looks at different ways of treating our historic town centres, how they deal with pedestrians and cars, and how best to make the most of the resource that they are. Liverpool gets a mention or two, but its the overall message that’s important, questioning the way we approach economic growth, and the problems that arise from it. The slideshow on developing historic cities is available to view on Slideshare. Perhaps Liverpool Council should take a look.

Archive of the Fortnight

I’m trying something new here, as I know you like pictures, and there are plenty of brilliant ones out there. Let me know if you see something worth sharing.

This photo is from English Heritage’s ViewFinder website, which puts a number of their photo collections online. I used to work on this website (in a non-coding capacity) and could get lost for hours browsing photos of Liverpool. The photo below is from the Bedford Lemere collection, and shows Church Street as seen from an upper storey of one of the shops. The subject of the photo is the Bon Marche shop and the Avondale cafe. Bedford Lemere would have been hired by Burmantofts (a construction company and presumably the builders of this fine edifice) to show off their handiwork.

The photo, and many others like it, can be seen on ViewFinder.

53-63 Church Street, Liverpool, Merseyside