Posts tagged ‘maritime’

Apr 17

Entering new eras in history

Two of Us, by Eric the Fish via Flickr

Welcome back to the Liverpool Landscapes blog! I do hope you came checking every day while I was away ;-), but even if not, you’ll be glad to know I’m rested, relaxed and raring to go to bring you the most interesting bits of news concerning the history of Liverpool. The theme of this post seems to be milestones, in a way, so let’s start with politics…

The general election and history

The first occasion on the horizon is of course the General Election. As a civil servant, I should probably be careful what I say in the run up to May 6th, but it’s worth pointing out that the Museums Journal this month contains a short analysis of what the main parties intend to do should you vote them into power next month. (You’ll need to register to view the article, or pick up a copy of MJ in the local library).

All the parties seem to agree on free admissions to museums, a move away from targets, and on increasing access to arts and cultural institutions. However, Louise de Winter of the National Campaign for the Arts notes that Labour’s reliance on free admission to help with increased access is not enough.

The Conservatives emphasis on helping people to help themselves (“Big Society, Small Government”) may extend to the cultural sector, with an ‘arm’s length principle‘ being applied to supporting museums.

The Liberal Democrats also want to enable museums to be more independent and enterprising, and want to generate more arts and heritage money from the National Lottery through tax changes.

At the time of the Journal’s press, the Labour manifesto had not been released, but it noted that the party wanted to ensure all Britain benefits from the digital revolution, and to build on earlier schemes such as Find Your Talent.

English Heritage publish heritage protection paper

Even though the Heritage Protection Bill did not make it into the Queen’s Speech last year, work has continued on reforming the way the historic environment is cared for.

All you professional archaeologists out there will know about PPG15 and PPG16, the two documents which make rescue archaeology (and so the vast majority of professional archaeology occurring in this country) possible. These documents are both almost 20 years old, and have been replaced by Planning Policy Statement (PPS) 5.

The long term aims with heritage protection reform (HPR) are to replace the current system of listed buildings, scheduled monuments and other designations with a single, hierarchical system. This would make it easier to protect historic sites and buildings, as well as make it simpler for owners of such assets to find the information they need to effectively protect them.

The new document also covers such topics as approaches to planning, climate change issues, and the monitoring of the historic environment. It’s available to download from the Department for Communities and Local Government Planning for the Historic Environment page.

Somewhat related to this is the Government’s Statement on the Historic Environment of England 2010, which has a lovely picture of Canning Dock on the front (minus the new Mann Island developments it seems, but we’ll skip round that issue…).

In the rest of the news…

Well, those are probably the big stories of the day, but there are a few more tidbits to cover.

It’s International World Heritage Day tomorrow (18th April)! Now, I’m assuming that anyone reading this post is somehow interested in a certain World Heritage Site, and now’s your chance to raise awareness of where it is, and the work it takes to preserve and look after it.The Global Development Research Center (sic) has a few suggestions on what people can do to celebrate and commemorate.

Liverpool City Council have organised five tours of parts of the city which fit in with this year’s theme, which is the Heritage of Agriculture. Now, you may argue that Liverpool’s WHS has little to do with agriculture, but as the foremost port of the empire, merchants in Liverpool oversaw a huge proportion of the transport of the world’s agricultural produce. For details of the tours, download the leaflet from the Liverpool World Heritage web site. Places are limited, so get in early!

Speaking of mercantile heritage, the Old Dock is finally to be opened to the public on 4th May. As the BBC report, the remains of the dock wall were carefully preserved during the construction of Liverpool One, and can be seen through a window placed in the floor at the bottom of the steps from the Liverpool Wheel where the Liverpool Wheel used to stand [cheers for the correction, Adrian!].

From next month, there will be a “visitors’ facility” to allow you to view objects found during archaeological excavations there, a computer reconstruction fly-through, and the east section of the dock which has a tunnel suspected of linking to Liverpool Castle. More details are available on the Maritime Museum Liverpool web site.

And finally-finally, architects Baca have another masterplan to ruffle the feathers of the Liverpool Preservation Trust et al. This time the south docks are in the picture, and Baca want to “bring an interesting new approach to waterspace design that will unlock the potential of these wonderful docks and the World Heritage Site”.

As you know, I for one consider that the World Heritage Site needs its potential unlocking. It’s so… tied up there in those creaky old buildings.

Dec 11

Impacts of Capital of Culture

The University of Liverpool and John Moores University are assessing the impact of the 2008 Capital of Culture year in a project called Impacts 08. Research has gone on since 2005, and is now at the stage of judging the effects the year had on the city of Liverpool.

Already a whole load of reports are available divided into themes of economics, taking part, culture and the arts, as well as others. My eye was naturally drawn to Liverpool 08 – Centre of the Online Universe, which covers the web and social media (unfortunately my own sites don’t get a mention :)).

You can follow Impacts 08 on Twitter, or on the Impacts 08 blog.

I was going to pick and choose a couple of read, but to be honest, these all look like interesting stuff! Let me know what you think of these in the comments section below. Do they reflect your experience? Did they miss anything out?

Trading Places: A History of Liverpool Docks

Trading Places - a history of Liverpool's dock system

Trading Places: A history of Liverpool docks

This looks like a fairly old corner of the Liverpool Museums site, but Trading Places is a simple and informative interactive map of Liverpool’s dock system and its history. The left-hand menu highlights the docks involved in trade with different parts of the world, as well as the docks’ names and the very reason for the dock systems construction. There’s also a timeline of significant dates along the bottom.

This is a great little tool, and its slightly old-fashioned look and pop-up windows just reflects the simplicity of getting the information across. I’ve been playing around with interactive web maps for a good few years now, so it’s great to see what can be achieved very simply. There’s even an accessible version (click on “begin the voyage”)!

Kudos to Laura Davis’ blog on the Daily Post website, whose advent calendar pointed me to this site, and which has been an lovely little source of historic websites over the last week! Trading Places is the destination behind door 11.

Sep 27

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I saw three (or more) ships…

Mersey Ferry Snowdrop turning into Pier Head, by Boilerbill via Wikipedia

I’m currently doing a little bit of research for the River Mersey page on Historic Liverpool, and have come across a quite anoraky, but truly amazing site about shipping. It’s called ShipAIS, and is run by “A group of ShipPlotter enthusiasts”. The site, like my own I suppose, is based around a map tracking all the shipping (or as much as possible) in UK waters, from Orkney to the coast of mainland Europe. The site built up from one man experimenting with motion detecting photography from his own window, and now includes the AIS information (identification and callsign info broadcast over the radiowaves). The ships are plotted on the map, including a couple of tracks (I noticed a track for the Mersey ferry Royal Iris when I was on the site today).

My recommendation for readers of this blog would be to look at the map of Liverpool Bay, then click on one of the ships you see in the port for a detailed view of that area. In many cases you get a small photo of the ship in question, and in all cases you get the name of the ship, its speed, type, tonnage and a couple of other details.

The site could do with a few more controls to zoom and pan round the map, but this is a fascinating insight into Liverpool’s current role as a port, and the national context in which it sits. I could quite happily while a way an hour or so each day just exploring the map, and the site as a whole clearly has Merseyside origins and a Mersey focus. Go and have a look!

Feb 1

Liverpool.com salutes Port of Liverpool Building

Liverpool.com have a short but detailed article on the Port of Liverpool Building, one of the Pier Head’s Three Graces. With a few photos, and details of restoration by the building’s current owners Downing, the piece includes details of the interior and maritime decor. There’s also an artist’s impression of what Mann Island will look like from the bottom of Water Street when the new developments next to the Port of Liverpool Building are completed. Not as bad as I’d imagined, to be honest. What do you think?

Jan 7

Liverpool as blueprint for British culture capital

Although officially no longer the European Capital of Culture, Liverpool’s success in 2008 has led to it becoming the blueprint for an ongoing series of similar, British-based awards in the future. Culture Secretary Andy Burnham (a Blues fan, it has been noted) announced today that the new award would be presented every two years. Liverpool 08 mastermind Phil Redmond will be drafted in to lead a working party to explore the idea, which hopes to stimulate regeneration and investment in other parts of the country, in the way it did in Merseyside.

The impact of the Capital of Culture year will be debated at the University of Liverpool. Called Impacts 08, the event will be attended by Burnham and Redmond, and will discuss the effect of events like the Tall Ships Race and Paul McCartney’s concert Liverpool Sound, which brought in £5m. Along similar lines, Edwin Heathecote in the Financial Times examines the legacy of 2008 in terms of the built landscape, giving a fairly positive view of such developments as the Blue Coat chambers and the massive Liverpool One centre.

Finally, what English Heritage suspects is Britain’s first mosque is being regenerated, over 100 years after it fell out of use. It is hoped that this centre on Brougham Terrace, West Derby Street, will show the age of the roots of British Islam. The mosque was founded by and Englishman, Henry William Quilliam, who converted to Islam in 1887.

Independent – Britain’s first mosque to be reborn – after more than a century

BBC News – Revamp for England’s first mosque

A few more things for those of you who like your online resources:

English Heritage’s Heritage Explorer website includes a page on Liverpool as a case study for how to use their educational resources. The site concentrates on West Derby, and the project carried out by a Year 2 class to look at the historic environment around their school. The page includes a lesson plan, and some tips on how to get the kids studying. As well as this case study, the Heritage Explorer site is full of other historic resources for use in the classroom.

Another of English Heritage’s projects is featured on the Council for British Archaeology’s new website. The Aerofilms collection is a massive number of aerial shots of the whole of Britain, spanning nearly 100 years. Only a handful of images are currently available, including one of Liverpool’s old customs house and surrounding bomb devastation in 1946, but plans are afoot to get this amazing resource online in the future.

Also, for those interested in the archaeology hidden under Liverpool Bay, Wessex Archaeology are conducting a pilot scheme to investigate this body of water as part of their England’s Historic Seascapes research, in association with English Heritage. There’s a great summary of all the exciting stuff that should be found on the seabed on their site, and I’ll try to keep you up to date with their findings.

Nov 21

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‘On the Waterfront’ conference addresses heritage in a fading port

A conference currently taking place in Liverpool is the first of a series to look at the problems facing ports where heritage is often at odds with the needs of development in a city past its shipping heyday.

The three day event, On the Waterfront, sees speakers such as English Heritage’s Chief Exec Simon Thurley, as well as its former chairman Sir Neil Cossons, and Culture Company international director Sir Bob Scott.

Organiser Louise O’Brien stressed that “It’s not a conference about Liverpool“, and indeed future hosts of the conference include Shanghai, Lagos, Niagara, Gdansk, and next year’s hosts Marseilles. She is part of the Historic Environment of Liverpool project, a partnership between various Liverpool organisations and English Heritage which is coming to a close, and hopes to draw together the issues that have been discovered, and the common factors threatening the historic cores of world ports. O’Brien stresses that, although there have been a number of regeneration conferences this year, this is the first to put heritage at the core.

Today is the last day fo the conference.

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 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.

Apr 16

Liverpool’s Docks and Railways

Although Liverpool is famous for its docks, and (criminally, to a lesser extent) the railways, taking a wider view reveals the interlinking threads which join the two transport systems, and gives a few insights into the buildings nearby. The recently revealed Manchester Dock (once under the car park of the old Museum of Liverpool Life) was one of the earliest docks on the river front, having originally been no more than a tidal basin connected to the river Mersey. The dock was used to hold the barges of the Shropshire Union Canal Company, and later the Great Western Railway, in order to transport goods between Liverpool and the rail terminal at Morpeth Dock in Birkenhead. In this way Manchester Dock played a role as a go-between, from the national rail network (connecting Liverpool – via Lime Street – to the industrial centres of Britain) and further ports of call on the other side of the river. The warehouses standing next to Canning graving docks – until recently the home of the Liverpool Museum field Archaeology Unit – still bear the name Great Western Railway on the canopies at the front.

Time Team are showing a’ Special’ on the Manchester Dock on the 21st April. Although the adverts would have you believe Phil uncovered this crucial piece of Liverpool’s (and indeed the world’s) maritime history, excavations have been taking place for a while. Read Liverpool Museum’s blog to stay up to date. Also check out their Flikr site.

Michael Palin is coming to Liverpool to open an exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery on art and railways (Art In the Age of Steam, Walker Gallery, April 18 – August 10).

Liverpool history, online sources and local history on the web