Entrance to the Liverpool Club 2, by iirraa via Flickr

Liverpool is looking to add to its huge box of musical awards (Birthplace of The Beatles, official World Capital of Pop – boasting 56 No1s – and the UK’s Most Musical City) by putting together a bid to become UNESCO City of Music.

The designation is enjoyed by only four cities at present (Bologna, Ghent, Glasgow, Seville), and as far as I can see, adds more of a pop flavour to this mix.

Part of the bid attempt will be to begin “a massive four month mapping exercise of the city’s music”. I hope they’ve seen Liverpool University’s work on music and landscape. (Also check out the associated music downloads available from the Liverpool University web site).

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One of those days when several interesting stories come along at once!

Lowlands, the Grade II listed merchants villa in Hayman’s Green, West Derby has just reopened following  a £1.2m restoration project. The villa was designed and constructed by Thomas Haigh (architect also of  Marks & Spencer’s building in Church Street) and was owned and occupied by a succession of wealthy merchants and  financiers. Vast areas of West Derby were occupied by similar men in the Victorian and Edwardian periods. The Inland Revenue occupied the buildings following war damage to the India Buildings on Dale Street in Liverpool city centre. Since 1957 it has been owned by  the West Derby Community Association, and in the 1960s was a centre for the emerging Merseybeat scene, witnessing performances by the Quarrymen, Herman’s Hermits and Billy J. Kramer in the basement Pillar  Club or the main hall upstairs. This history places it on similar ground to the Cashbar, the more  famous club and coffee house just along the road at number 8.

The Garden Festival site is a place filled with memories for generations of families who all descended on it over the space of five months in 1984 (I distinctly remember the Postman Pat exhibit being centre of my attention). After lying derelict for many years (with the exception of Pleasure Island which occupied the site in the 1990s) £2.1m has been released to allow the redevelopment of the site to  commence. The North West Development Agency have put up the cash which will see a project to restore  the Japanese and Chinese gardens and pagodas, as well as the streams, lakes and woodland which cover  the site, which will become another green area for the people of Liverpool. Owners Langtree maintain  their ambitions to build 1300 homes on the site, a plan which was approved after a public enquiry last  year. A further £1.6m is being sought from the North West European Regional Development Fund. No real  mention of Pleasure Island on the news sites though…

The Main Bridewell on Cheapside, just of Dale Street is going for auction and is expected to fetch up  to £500,000. It’s proximity to the magistrates court on Dale Street means it was used to house  defendants before trial, and was originally built in 1866 to hold petty criminals. The building closed  in 1999.

for more information on why the Bridewell was so named, see the Encyclopedia.com question on the Bridewell.

Finally, in a mysterious and disturbing story, original Victorian features are going missing from the  area of Kensington in west Liverpool. Cobbles, cast-iron railings and original street signs are  disappearing from the streets around Edinburgh and Leopold Roads, but no one (residents or the Council)  seem to know who is pulling up these features. Rumour has it that the items (including stone setts  taken from ships which used them as ballast on voyages from Turkey) are being sold on the black market.  Areas removed are being replaced with tarmac. Anyone with information is being asked to contact the  council.

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.

“The massive plan would see links between:

The huge Post-Panamax container terminal at Seaforth.

A bigger John Lennon airport, with a runway extension and world cargo centre.

An improved Weston Docks with better road and rail links.

A new and improved Port Wirral at the entrance of the Manchester Ship Canal.

The 3MG road and rail depot at Ditton.

The proposed new rail freight terminal at the former Parkside Colliery, St Helens.

A new Port Salford to allow container ships further down the Mersey.

The massive Liverpool and Wirral Waters developments.

The second Mersey crossing.”

The North West Development Agency, Mersey Maritime, Peel Holdings, Merseytravel and Sefton Council have all put their weight behind the plans. However, at this stage such an ambition is very much hypothetical, and it remains to be seen whether Merseyside can overcome the infighting it seems to suffer from when working together, to achieve these grand designs. Of course, Liverpool’s Victorian greatness was built on it’s maritime foundations, and it would be a fitting future to recover that status. Let’s just hope they don’t trash the old stuff in their rush for the new.

In other news, Ringo Starr’s birthplace,  9 Madryn Street, will not be listed, after English Heritage judged the building not worthy of the protection. The house, mentioned in Ringo’s awful song to celebrate the Capital of Culture, is one of a row of Victorian terraced houses. 10 Admiral Grove, the house he grew up in (between the ages of four and 22) is open to the public, who are shown round by the current owner, Margarent Grose. The homes of the other Beatles (inlcuding first drummer Pete Best) are listed or protected in some way.

A new Mersey Observatory will replace the radar tower at the mouth of the Mersey, near Crosby. The winning design, by Duggan Morris Architects, was chosen from a shortlist of five from 92 entrants, and will include a viewing tower, cafe, and exhibition centre.

Vasily Petrenko, the conductor of the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, has backed plans to move to a new, purpose-built home on the waterfront. The long term ‘dream’ would be “amazing… It could be part of a real cultural hub for the city.” The move would solve increasing problems over lack of space.

Liverpool University has invited researchers from Liverpool, Edinburgh and Lancaster to explore the origins of Liverpool’s unique accent. Dr Andrew Harmer, from the School of English, said “The Merseyside accent was first identified in the late 19th Century, and it has been argued that it came about from a blending of Lancashire and Irish speech varieties. If this theory is correct, we might expect Scouse to have been at its most distinctive at the time when having an Irish background was at its height among the people of Merseyside. This has not been the case, however: instead of becoming less distinctive as our kinship with Ireland decreased, the accent has become stronger.” For more information about the event go to AlphaGallileo.org.