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Posts from the ‘Analysis’ Category

Dec 5

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Liverpool Central Village – a lesson from history?

Nighttime aerial view of how Liverpool Central Park will look

Liverpool Central Village, development by Merepark

This week the developer Merepark unveiled a slick video showing the world what the new Liverpool Central Village will look like. Central Village is the name given to the array of shops and flats which is to be built to the north of Bold Street, and which will take in the vacant Lewis’s building on Ranelagh Street.

The thing which struck me was how similar Central Village will look to Liverpool One. The architecture is modern but not brutalist (much). Random colour schemes and harsh corners, but no 60s Piggery nightmare. The brands are all familiar too, with Odeon Cinemas being the most prominent.

But the question raised by the video is ‘Does Liverpool need another (mini) Liverpool One?’ Joe Anderson rightly hails the thousands of new jobs which this development will create (during and after construction), but what can history tell us about how this may pan out?

The last great wave of investment

During the Second World War Liverpool was seen as a great place to site Royal Ordnance Factories (ROF), where munitions were produced for the war effort. It was away from the dangers of bombing which London suffered from, and out of town sites like Speke, Aintree and Kirkby were away from the bombs falling on the docks, yet well connected to those docks by rail, so easing the transport of raw materials coming into the port.

When the War was over the ROF sites adapted to become part of the new economy of the mid 20th Century. Tax incentives encouraged large companies to site factories in these areas which were unrestricted in their growth – there were few neighbours in the area and the land was flat.

There was also a ready-made labour force in the form of the thousands of people who were being moved out of central slums into new council houses, maisonettes and high-rise flats.

There were many problems with these out-of-town estates, and none more famous than the layoffs during the 1970s and 80s. Even then Liverpool was starting to develop its reputation as a city of strikers and protesters, and of a self-pity growing from a feeling of victimisation. Liverpool often asked itself: ‘Why always us?’

Part of the answer presents an interesting dilemma to those who are championing this new development. The problem with the closing factories was that they were branches of multinational corporations. These corporations ‘always’ chose Liverpool because it was the easy choice. There were no vested interests in the city, no love for the place or its people. They were here for the money, and when that left, so did they.

I don’t blame Joe Anderson for celebrating the continued surge in development in the city he loves (and this blog isn’t going to turn into an anti-Anderson moan despite the tone of recent posts!). You certainly can’t take the jobs away from the people who will definitely be employed to build the Village, and who will be staffing the shops and shiny cinemas once it’s complete.

But if history can tell us anything about our own time (and this is what this blog is about) then it’s that investment in an area is strongest when the investors have a stake in the place they’re coming to.

Having lived in places as diverse in beauty as Oxford and Swindon I’m well aware of the standard arguments against the effects of ‘clone towns’ on the quality of life in a place. One of the Liverpool’s strengths has always been its range of independent – and locally based – shops which make a trip into town an often rewarding one (think News from Nowhere, Hairy Records, Quiggins and even Wade Smith). The area around Bold Street is one of the best areas for this.

But the appearance and choice in clone towns is not the only issue, and the architecture is not in question here. The experience of those protesters at the gates of the automotive plants brings home the fact that, for long term success, a local economy must not be reliant on the continued interest of outside money.

What do you think? Will the new developments be unparalleled successes? Or is history doomed to repeat itself as Liverpool continues its transformation into a modern shopping destination?

Nov 4

Poor architecture, not heritage, is preventing investment in Liverpool

Photograph of Liverpool Pier Head looking north up the new canal extension

New development hand in hand with heritage, by Radar Communication via Flickr

Council Leader Joe Anderson has hit out at English Heritage for what he sees as the over-reaching influence and meddling of the ‘heritage lobbyists’ in the future development of Liverpool.

Anderson’s current gripe is related to the Liverpool Waters project, which English Heritage advised to be reduced. Since their input, the number of tall buildings has been reduced, and the centrepiece Shanghai Tower moved back from the waterfront.

The Daily Post has a balanced editorial stating that heritage matters should be considered hand in hand with development progress, and points out that many historic buildings have been brought back into use successfully in this and other cities. Coincidentally, part of the current Biennial art festival concentrates on the re-use of derelict buildings for public enjoyment.

So does heritage hold back development? As Naomi Peck, project manager of Peel’s Liverpool Waters development team said: “English Heritage would most probably be happy to see everything as it is, because that is what they do – they preserve old buildings… The scheme could have been perhaps a little more magnificent, but obviously we had to take into consideration it is a World Heritage Site.”

So, English Heritage preserve old buildings, and World Heritage Site = no magnificence, thank you very much.

Yes?

Developers preventing development

Looking at this from the other direction, is heritage really the stumbling block? Is the Albert Dock a less ‘magnificent’ development because of all the heritage? Or is the heritage key to its attraction? (OK, enough rhetorical questions.) The flats at the King’s Dock and in the former warehouses at the Waterloo Docks are massively successful examples of historic buildings reuse which have not harmed the historic environment. There are other developments – the very magnificent Great Court at the British Museum and World Museum Liverpool, for example – which have added modern architectural elements to historically important buildings.

However, Joe Anderson shouldn’t be surprised or dismayed when ‘heritage lobbyists’ kick up a fuss about wrecking a World Heritage Site with modern ‘ego architecture‘ (subscription required) – massive developments which are all about money and prestige, and nothing about quality of life in the long run. Anderson may have a different point of view, but I don’t want Liverpool to turn into the Shanghai/New York of the West/Europe. I want Liverpool to be The Liverpool.

The solution to Anderson’s problem is not to stop groups like English Heritage and the Civic Societies from airing their views. Rather it is for the architects to produce creative, attractive modern designs keeping in scale with the current landscape. Even completely new builds like Liverpool One can achieve this, and the Echo Arena for another great example: it’s unashamedly modern (and I’d say attractive), but it doesn’t try to take over the whole skyline.

Compare this imagined scenario to the original article:

He said: “The Wellington Rooms, in Mount Pleasant, and other listed buildings are lying derelict because of the poor designs by the architects would have trashed the building.

“The former Irish Centre was the subject of a planning application, which was even supported by the Bishop, to attach some sort of hotel on it. The architect, supported by the leader of the city council, stopped it going ahead by failing to produce a decent building, and now it is deteriorating in front of our eyes.”

OK, so that’s a bit of fun, but remember: it’s not investment that English Heritage are blocking, nor development. It’s poor architecture. There’s one easy way to get development going, and that’s to design something creative, with life-span and beauty, and which adds to, and doesn’t replace, the amazing architecture we have been left by those who came before us.

Note: all views in this post are my own.

Jul 27

Heritage in a tough climate – what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger?

Photo of University of Liverpool and the Cathlic Cathedral, by Neill Shenton

This and That, by neill.shenton via Flickr

I can’t help feeling mixed emotions about recent developments for Liverpool’s heritage.

Yesterday the first object – a carriage from the Overhead Railway – was due to move in to the new Museum of Liverpool (although it was delayed by the weather). But then today we hear that the ever-present ‘current economic climate’ (my, am I getting more sick of that phrase every day) means that the National Conservation Centre, a favourite of mine, and Sudley House are at risk from closure.

The shutting down of the North West Development Agency isn’t looking like good news for our museums and other cultural institutions either. Though they plan to continue their previously NWDA-funded projects.

What is your point of view? Will our heritage projects be nipped in the bud? Or can the museums, galleries and theatres come out of this stronger?

What are the long term implications?

Feb 8

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Maps for Local History Research (part 1: Modern Maps)

Extract from a map of Lancashire, by Robert Morden, 1695

Liverpool, from Lancashire, by Robert Morden, 1695

This is the first in a series of posts which will hopefully help you research the local history of your area, whether it’s Liverpool or elsewhere. It’s about maps, as my own main site, Historic Liverpool, is based on maps. Part 1 will focus on late 19th and early 20th Century maps.

Beginning Map Research

Maps are an amazing way to research local history. For one, you can start with a recent map, and then by looking at increasingly older editions you can see in reverse the changes which have happened over time. You start with something very familiar, and gradually work your way back. Sometimes, an unbelievable amount has changed in very little time.

But whether you are researching Liverpool, or another city or any rural area of Britain, you’ll need to know what maps have been made of your location, and when they were made. Luckily, in this day and age it’s not hard to find them.

For every local historian, the first port of call must be the Ordnance Survey maps. You can pick up the current version for around £8, or a recent second hand copy off eBay for a fiver. Get a 1:25,000 Explorer map – these show individual buildings but cover enough area (unless you’re really unlucky!) for your needs.

That’s the easy part!

Now you have your anchor, your reference point for all the other maps you’ll be looking at. This serves as the base for your next step, which is known by the professionals as ‘map regression‘. This just means that you collect as many maps as possible, and work your way back through them and noting the changes. I’ll work through an example of this in a future post.

Getting a recent map of your area should be easy enough, but slightly older ones are going to be second hand, so you need to be aware of where to get them.

Second-hand and online maps

eBay

Your first choice for buying paper maps has to be eBay. I’ve bought almost all of my OS maps from this site, each for about the price of a pint of beer. eBay seems to be strongest with the years between 1930 and 2000, particularly 1950 – 1980. OS maps from across this period repeatedly appear for a couple of pounds. Keep an eye on this site so you’re ready when the right map appears, and also you’d do well to keep an eye on what you’ve already bought – more than once I’ve nearly ended up with two maps from the same year!

The list I have for Liverpool includes: 1947, 1952 (last revision 1947-9); 1961 (last revision 1958), 1964, 1978 and 2000. (For an excellent overview and samples of all the OS map series, see http://www.charlesclosesociety.org/osseries).

Older OS maps are a bit harder to find (see below), although occasionally a great find pops up on eBay. Luckily, there are ways you can get a look at OS maps without leaving the comfort of your own home. There are a couple of web sites which let you view old OS maps, and some of these are very nifty mapping sites in their own right.

Old OS Maps

Old OS Maps is a simple name belying an amazing little tool. Unfortunately there’s a big black hole where Liverpool should be. I’d scan in one of my own maps to donate it if only I had a big enough scanner! However, the site’s well worth a look, as it overlays a small modern Google map extract over the centre of the screen, overlaying an OS map from around 1925 to 1945 (depending on location). Have a look if your area lies outside Merseyside.

Leverpoole.co.uk

Leverpoole.co.uk used to be one of the best sites for Liverpool maps. However, most of the maps have been removed now due to ‘unauthorised use‘. This, like the much-missed Toxteth.net, used to be a fantastic resource. It’s a great shame that the owner, Tony Swarbrick, felt this action necessary, and a shame that his stuff was being used without his consent.

However, there is still the 1930s Philips Street Map of Liverpool on there. This is divided into squares, based on the original map gridlines, which are scanned in at a high resolution. There’s also a text index below the map if you know the rough area you’re after but can’t spot it on the map. And then you can click to enlarge the image, which is a great bonus!

Sites of interest on this map are the Overhead railway down the Strand, and the Chester Basin still open in front of the Dock Board Office.

As an aside, Leverpoole.co.uk also has a huge number of photos of Liverpool, which are great for researching listed or historic buildings.

Commercial map sellers

Getting maps off eBay, and viewing maps online are the cheapest ways to get the most common editions, but the following sites will sell you brand new reproductions of old maps. This includes difficult-to-find early editions.

Alan Godfrey Maps

This site publishes a huge list of maps of Liverpool and elsewhere. They’re paperback maps about A3 size, and extremely detailed (though that means they cover a small area). The strange thing about this site is the lack of illustration, and that once you click on links the text turns yellow, making them very difficult to see! However, the maps are an unparalleled resource, and are also sold all the time on eBay.

Cassini

Cassini are a large commercial map company, slightly reminiscent of the National Archives web site, and sells highly polished map products of all types. You can get downloadable or printed maps, and specify the area and period you want. There’s also a boxed set of maps of Liverpool, which comes in useful for the wide-ranging form of map exploring!

David Archer Maps

In many ways David Archer’s is a strange site. Again, a site with little in the way of pictures, and a shop which appears to take orders exclusively over the phone. Still, it’s these quirks for which I have a certain admiration. Take a look at the informal blog “A nice cup of tea and a chat about maps”: it’s quite a rambling but entertaining diversion into other map sites, Christmas cards and exhibitions. It also reveals that David’s a fan of free and open source software, which always gets the thumbs up from me!

There’s a massive list of all the maps they stock, but if you don’t know what you want, or can’t find it, then they encourage you to contact them.

Last Words

This has been a fairly lengthy overview of map sources. There are many more online, but these are the few I keep going back to. In the next part of the series, I’ll have a look at older maps, which are often a lot harder to find.

Of course, if you know of better places to get hold of old maps, share it in the comments!

Nov 26

Liverpool’s Redundant Buildings (or, What future for Stanley Dock and friends?)

Stanley Dock, by Tim.Edwards

Stanley Dock, by Tim.Edwards, via Flickr

There has been a certain amount of interest in my post on re-using Liverpool’s derelict buildings and in particular the derelict tobacco warehouse at Stanley Dock, which many (me included) would like to see regenerated. A few questions remain, such as the problem of too-low ceilings (are they too low? How low is too low?). If this is a problem, are there any other uses to which the huge building could be put (See ‘Stanley Dock Tobacco Warehouse below)?

There is also of course the larger problem of the isolation of the warehouse and other buildings down that part of the city. It’s handy for the town centre, but a little too far to walk, but possibly not worth driving in.

We could sit around here all day discussing the problems of regenerating the warehouse area, but I’d like to keep the focus on the wider issue of the redevelopment and re-use of derelict buildings, of which there are many around Merseyside. There are other cities in the country who have already taken up the challenge. Four of them are mentioned in the English Heritage (EH) publication Making the Most of Your Local Heritage: A Guide for Overview and Scrutiny Committees, downloadable from the HELM website (and which actually has a photo of our own fair city on the cover).

Although the booklet is aimed at those already involved in local heritage and planning issues, any of us can take its advice on how to make the most of our historic landscape and the buildings in it. Of particular interest is Case Study 3, Wolverhampton and Heritage at Risk: Protecting the Irreplacable (can you see where this is going? ;)).

A quote:

Wolverhampton City Council recognised the considerable potential of redundant historic buildings when in 2004 a scrutiny panel was established to investigate how an increasingly uninhabited historic environment could be used as an effective impetus for regeneration. The review attracted widespread attention amongst the local press and community as the Panel sought to establish how new uses could be found for a significant number of historic buildings…

Their report found that a crucial factor for success was the partnership between the City Council and developers, and recommended a set of character appraisals for important sites and other areas at risk. Could this be a solution for Liverpool? Does Liverpool have a similar process or committee? And what role can local residents play in the absence of such organisations? (Check out the advice for Heritage Champions on the HELM website).

Stanley Dock Tobacco Warehouse

I’ve found an old Liverpool Echo story referring to plans to regenerate the whole warehouse area from Dec 8th 2003, with “1000 building and permanent retail jobs” by 2008. I think we all know what happened to that optimistic scheme. Originally, owners Kitgrove had planned to demolish the building and keep the north west supplied with bricks “for the next decade” (the warehouse is the largest brick building in Europe). Luckily heritage groups and the city council opposed the plans.

Another scheme to regenerate “starting in 2009” was reported in June 2008 (scroll down to Stanley Dock).

A problem both articles mention is that little light manages to make it into the centre of the building, requiring that it be cored out to create a central atrium, something akin to the entrance to World Museum Liverpool. Also the general complexity of the building means options are limited for re-use. Nevertheless, past projects were ambitious: “There will be an exclusion zone on part of the roof to provide a nesting area for peregrine falcons.”

Useful Resources:

Ownership of buildings in the Liverpool Mercantile City World Heritage Site (see p3): http://www.liverpool.gov.uk/Images/tcm21-32550.pdf
World Heritage Site Management Plan: http://www.liverpool.gov.uk/Leisure_and_culture/Tourism_and_travel/World_heritage_site/Management_plan/index.asp

Oct 6

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Exclusivity: which parts of the city are Yours?

Quiggins Brooke Cafe, by Indigo Goat via Flickr

Quiggins Brooke Cafe, by Indigo Goat via Flickr

Nina Simon, a museum blogger I greatly admire and enjoy reading, recently posted on the topic of ‘exclusive’ places, and the odd way in which people find them more welcoming than more public spaces. She was referring to museums, which can be both public spaces and yet sometimes seem exclusive (to ‘museum-y people’), but everywhere in the landscape can have a sense of exclusivity, to a greater or lesser extent. There’ll be parts of Liverpool you love going to, and which you like because you know ‘your’ people will be there: those with similar interests, from similar backgrounds, of similar age or profession, even people dressed similarly. There’ll be other places which you’d never set foot in: either you simply never go to that part of town, or you avoid drinking in that pub, going into those shops/restaurants. These places make you feel awkward, out of place, nervous, or it may be that they just don’t ‘do’ what you like. Then there are places which change from one type to another over your lifetime: perhaps you grow into them (that pub again) or out of them (playground, playing fields, the street where you grew up).

You may go with friends, or alone, but they are all places which reinforce your feeling of who you are, and who you aren’t. You can share these special places with the right friend; you get that glow from sharing an exclusive place and introducing someone new to something cool.

When I was but a young geek, my friends and I would go to Palace on Slater Street, for all our collectible card game needs! The place was full of other weird and wonderful shops: antiques, piercings, records, books, junk… Quiggins, in its School Lane incarnation, was similar: I loved the cafe on the top floor, and exploring the darkest, strangest recesses of the other shops. Both those places I knew my parents, and my more ‘mainstream’ classmates, would never go. They were my places, and my friends’ places.

Then there is the garden behind Blue Coat Chambers. I was first taken there by a Geography teacher while on a field trip (with 29 other lads, I’ll have you know). It was a little-known backstreet oasis, with a couple of benches, plants and trees. Neglected, maybe, but not overgrown, it seemed like a bit of a secret getaway. This year I went back, possibly for the first time in (yikes) ten years, with my fiancée. It’s had a complete makeover, along with the Chambers themselves, but still maintained an air of quiet solitude, somewhere to escape the massive and modern Liverpool One just over the wall. I felt that sense of showing someone that place for the first time, a place which had been shared with me and a handful of (slightly rowdy) others years before.

There are countless other places which are ‘mine’: parks at Croxteth, Springfield, Sefton, Calderstones (and the corners within them), where I spent parts of my childhood, and which I still visit. If I choose to share these places, at the same time I want to keep them secret, and not to share them with too many people lest they lose that exclusiveness, that specialness.

Which are your ‘exclusive places‘? Are they, like in Nina’s examples, museums? Exhibits? A corner of a gallery? Or one of Liverpool’s parks, or independent shops? Are they big places, or small? Do you share them? Where do you feel you are most you, and how does the location of that place in the landscape affect this? Is it near home? Far from home? In a side street? Right in the limelight with the other trendy people?

Will you share it with the readers of some archaeology blog? 😉

Mar 23

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Another voice in the debate: is Liverpool changing for the better?

Hope Street

Hope Street, by SideLong (from Flickr)

We’ve seen how the debate is continuing over recent changes and development to Liverpool’s city centre. For a couple of years people worried that the centre was getting preferential treatment – and money – compared to the more needy suburbs. Now that change has swept across Chavasse Park and Hope Street, the moans are more concerned with how the old is being swept away to be replaced with the bland, average new. Today Ed Vulliamy comments in the Guardian how Hope Street, “one of Europe’s great boulevards, connecting the eccentrically massive gothic Anglican cathedral with the 1960s Catholic one” is being wrecked by new development. He also singles out the Maghull Group, and their ‘Hope Street Portfolio’. Personally, I find their slogan – “Invest. Develop. Construct.” – quite terrifying, along the lines of Veni. Vidi. Vici. And now we find that they bought part of the Liverpool College of Art complex from John Moores University, and are now renting it back to them, having not been able to do anything with the site in, as usual, these economic climes.

Check out the article, and let me know what you think. The Maghull Group have some awful practice behind them, and don’t take lightly to criticism.

Is Liverpool experiencing the ‘wrong type of change’? And what do you think of the Lime Street gateway? The buildings there were indeed an eyesore, but has Liverpool lost some hidden gems as the bookshops and greasy spoons of this world get moved on? Or are we freer now to admire some of the greatest Victorian architecture Europe has to offer? Are these little shops opening elsewhere? Comment is, after all, free.

Aug 21

Liverpool’s comic past – defying the cynics

I just watched A Comics Tale, narrated by Alan Bleasdale. It’s part of the BBC’s Liverpool season, and concentrated on Liverpool’s comic past, and was filmed in 1981. Throughout, it trumpeted Scousers’ humour, how it brought them through the bread strikes (“aweful tha’, everyone down the Pier Head in pigeon suits”).  Even though it maintained that tone throughout, always highlighting the problems (Toxteth, unemployment), right at the end, Bleasdale’s narrative suggested ‘we’re dying, but at least we think we’re going out in style’. So it seems that whatever other people think, we thought it first! What’s more, it shows that whatever people say, they’ll always be proved wrong by Liverpool’s determination and stubbornness.

Now on BB4 is a programme about the men who run the Magical Mystery Tour, which is the psychedelic rainbow bus I used to see driving past my school a decade ago.

Apr 8

The joys of a landscape website

As there hasn’t been a lot of landscape-related news involving Liverpool lately, I thought I’d take this chance to discuss the joys and frustrations of creating the Liverpool Landscapes website. The site uses MapServer, a piece of software that draw the maps to show you where the listed buildings and scheduled monuments are, along with other points if interest. Using a series of layers, I can tell MapServer how to draw the maps, and the user – you – can have some control over how those layers are displayed. The points and shapes representing the monuments are free to use and easy to come by on one of English Heritage’s websites. The boundaries of the townships were traced from an old map I found Googling around the ‘Net at Christmas. However, I think the map has limited use until I find decent street-level map. In Britain, mapping is produced by the Ordnance Survey, and that organisation has very protective rules over the re-use of its data, despite opposition to this. Despite the fact that they seem to be creating some more permissive licensing, I’m still a bit wary over how I’m allowed to use any maps I can find, unless I shell out more money than my salary allows. I’m still researching the best way to get MapServer compatible maps of Liverpool to use as a backdrop, without breaking the bank. Considering I’m not making any profit from this site, I’d be fascinated to hear of any suitable ways of getting hold of this data. Meanwhile, the best option looks like New Popular Editions.

Anyway, apart from the problems of creating the maps, there are the small details that come out when looking at the landscape of Liverpool. Recently looking at the development of Everton, and the Welsh community that grew up in the area during the 19th Century, I came across a row of streets built near Goodison Park by the father and son team Owen and William Owen. Read the initials of the roads starting from Oxton Street, heading north.

More interesting snippets on the way!

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