Posts from the ‘News’ Category

Aug 13

Leave! Before it’s too late!

Although according to one report, it already is too late. Policy Exchange, a ‘right-of-centre’ Think Tank have branded Liverpool (among others) as beyond help. All the regeneration efforts are wasting money – this city on the north west coast will never be as rich as London, so what’s the point? Well, rather than telling us Merseysiders to do ourselves a favour and take a long run off the Pier Head, Tim Leunig and James Swaffield suggest we pack our bags for London. They go on to say that Liverpool has lost the very reason for its existence now that the port is no longer in its Victorian heyday.

Messrs Leunig and Swaffield have concluded that there is no other reason for continuing the rich adventure of life if you are not making as much money as possible. Now that the port of Liverpool is not what is was, Liverpool should just bite the bullet, and shut up shop. Then we can all move to London and start raking in the cash. Of course, Mr. Leunig is London based, but did come to Liverpool once, when researching “cotton towns”, so clearly he knows what he’s talking about…

The Liverpool Echo details the story, as I’m sure will many other sites who object to Bradford, Newcastle, Manchester and Sunderland being dismissed so easily. They also publish his email address: t.leunig@lse.ac.uk. Let him know what you think.

Jul 31

Two Liverpool landmarks go head to head with a Texan toilet in architecture awards

The Liverpool Blue Coat Chambers building and the Liverpool Echo Arena have made it to the shortlist of the first World Architecture Festival Award, after winning the Royal Institute of British Architects (Riba) North West awards this year.

Jul 31

Liverpool hosts Tall Ships Race

Over the weekend of 18th to 21st of July, Liverpool played host to a fleet from all over the world, preparing to take part in the 2008 Tall Ships Race. The boats sailed down the River Mersey on the Monday, but not before filling the old and new dock systems with vessels like those which graced the Empire’s second port over the course of the last 200 years. Up to 800,000 people visited the city over the four days, 200,000 of which thronged the shores of the Mersey to watch the Parade of Sail on the Sunday. 50,000 actually boarded the boats to look around for themselves.

The Albert Dock, Canning Dock, Canning Half-Tide Dock, Sandon Half-Tide Dock and Wellington Dock were all full of ships, including training vessels for Brazilian and Mexican crews, as well as more home-grown vessels such as the Glaciere of Liverpool, raised from the bottom of Collingwood Dock.

The ships’ journeys can be followed from Sail Training International’s website.

Liverpool Quay by Moonlight, by John Atkinson Grimshaw

Jul 26

New address, same old stories

This is the new location of the blog formerly known as the Liverpool Times. The name coincided with another website and news source, and I fancied a change! The posts below are the same as those you would have found on the old blog, and the topics I cover will be the same, ie. the changing face of Liverpool and Merseyside. If you’ve been here before, I hope you continue to enjoy it; if not, then welcome!

Martin

Jul 10

Liverpool’s Heritage At Risk

This week English Heritage released a list of historic sites, wrecks, parks and landmarks they deem most at risk from demolition, development pressure or vandalism. Numerous sites in Liverpool and the surrounding county feature on the list, as detailed in this Liverpool Echo story

Jul 9

Plans for Port Merseyside, and Ringo’s house not to be listed

Great plans are afoot to turn Liverpool into a port to rival New York, Dubai and Singapore. The plans take the form of a document stating that – if several current projects are pulled together in the right way – Liverpool could once again enter the “Top League” of international ports. From the Liverpool Echo site:

“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.

Jun 26

A new look and a new name

We’re entering a new era for the website and blog (!) as the site formerly known as Liverpool Landscapes is now called Historic Liverpool, and resides at Historic-Liverpool.co.uk. A lot of work has gone into the site recently, although there’s still a hell of a lot to be done. However, now you can read plenty of information about each township, and how it has evolved over the centuries. This will be improved over the coming months, and there are a handful of pages labelled as ‘Under Construction’. Feel free to explore these, though, as there’s a brief explanation on each as to what you will soon be able to find. At the moment I’m working on the Before Liverpool page [Edit 24/01/09: this has now been replaced with the Prehistoric Merseyside page), which will show all about how the natural landscape was formed, how it affects the way the city of Liverpool looks today, and follows this with the human occupation of the region from the earliest prehistoric periods up to the time of King John, and what influenced him to found a new town.

My favourite new feature of the site is the map background, which has changed from a dull green and blue to a full-featured 1940s Edition Ordnance Survey map. This is made possible by the Web Mapping Service on GetMapping run by Nick Black, using tiles scanned by the New Popular Editions staff. This makes my site look a hell of a lot better, so thanks to them for producing this project.

So keep an eye on Historic-Liverpool.co.uk for more updates soon!

Apr 24

What did King John do for Liverpool? New Mersey crossing and the Dockers’ Umbrella under fire

The Liverpool Echo has fun suggesting that last year’s 800th anniversary might have been 15 years too late. Deeds have been donated to the city which show that the area was populated as far back as 1192, over a decade before King John granted his charter. However, the evidence of this old habitation is still to be seen in the landscape, in both Liverpool itself and the surrounding areas. Birkenhead Priory has been in existence since the 12th Century. Evidence of Roman trade has been excavated in parts of southern Liverpool and to the east of the city, in addition to Iron Age evidence on the Wirral. The best evidence is in the place-names of Merseyside. Toxteth and Croxteth are of Viking origin, and indicate places where Toki’s and Croki’s people landed (staith = ‘landing place’). Aintree (the ‘lone tree’) has a name of Saxon origins. The last three letters of Garston, Allerton and Walton give the game away – tun started out to mean enclosure, or even fence, but soon came to include such a feature surrounding a farmstead or homestead. So it shouldn’t surprise you to find that people have been living in this area for a very long time. King John just made it official!

For almost 1000 years people having been looking for ways to cross the Mersey, from the monks of Birkenhead Priory, to the tunnel-builders and 20th Century bridge builders. A Transport and Works Order (TWO – planning permission) is being sought by Halton Council to allow purchasing of the required land, and the re-routing of the local road network, and the charging of tolls. Work could then be started on the latest crossing of the River Mersey.

The Liverpool Echo website has a short but very interesting article on the history of the Liverpool Overhead Railway (the “Dockers’ Umbrella”). I’m not sure why they chose today to write this, but it’s very informative nonetheless, concentrating on its trials and tribulations during the Second World War. The only curious fact is that “The bombings also left about 51,000 people in Liverpool homeless and 25,000 in Bootle”. These were certainly poweful bombs the Luftwaffe dropped on the city…

Mar 17

First stage in multi-billion pound Wirral redevlopment

Last year proposals were revealed to turn Merseyside into the “next Shanghai”. Now the first phase of the ‘Wirral Waters‘ project has been submitted to Wirral County Council for approval. This is just the first step, aimed to spark further investment, and will involve the refurbishment of the Central Hydraulic Tower at Seacombe.

Work has started on a controversial plan to build dozens of houses in Edge Hill.

CABE (Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment), the government’s official advisor in all matters architectural, has refused to support the proposals for the redevelopment of Edge Lane, because they would “not meet key objectives“, and crucially would not improve the ‘gateway’ into the city. The scheme has long been opposed by local residents and councillors.

Joint plans by Everton FC and Tesco to build a stadium and superstore in Kirkby face opposition in the form of a political party formed by local residents. The ‘First For Kirkby’ group have put forward nominations in all six wards in Kirkby. A spokesman for Kirkby Residents Action Group (KRAG) said it was ‘an opportunity for people to have their say because our request for a referendum was turned down”.

Mar 6

Banksy not to be covered after all

In a follow up to an earlier story, the Banksy image of a rat on the side of the White House pub will no longer be covered up with hoardings. It had earlier been reported that the Culture Company felt it had “no choice” but to cover the lower part of the image. Visitors to the city had complained at the earlier decision.

Liverpool history, online sources and local history on the web