LIVERPOOL It all came Tumbling Down

I still recall the first time I read Freddie O’Connor’s, It all came Tumbling Down. And 25 years later it still gets to me just what we have lost. Post 2008 it continues and won’t stop. I am not sure how or when it happens or how you feel a sense of loss watching old times that were tough and hard change and we roll into a plastacine characterless paradise lost that we are all suppose to be eternally grateful for.


It was about 20 years ago that I wandered into a derelict forlorn church ‘Our Lady’s’ on St Domingo Road and saw part of the rude screen on the floor the place was a wreck, pieces strewn all over the place. I had been born two streets away in poverty in a damp ridden rabbit hutch. A two up, two down. All around were bomb craters we called the debris. I played war in streets abandoned by owners because they were worthless. The industry was leaving and there was no work. No we don’t want to go back to that but it is something to say that there was character in the poverty, people were different, skills were abound. I remember the beautiful stain glass windows of that Church smashed to smithereens and I decided to rescue the wooden carved structure. I went to ask the priest who quickly said to me as I pleaded to take a childhood memory before it goes. “Do what you want mate, I am the Vicar and that’s a catholic church”. Well the old Irish rivalry still seemed to be there all those years later. We used to team out the football game Protestants against Catholics. I read in Freddie’s book 15 years later that it was a Pugin Church that was to the original Chancel Chapel to what was to be the biggest Cathedral in Christendom as it was on the peak of St Georges plateau and could be seen for miles. The site was abandoned for the current place and Lutyens was brought in and in turn he only got as far as the crypt and decades after the war we ended up with the Oscar Neimeyer copy by Gibbard instead. I really felt that I had saved something a little piece of history. I later found out there were three other Pugin Buildings in the same short space in between the Grade I listed St Georges to which was attached to our school with its old fashioned headmaster with his old fashioned values. They are all gone now and the poverty is still there only it is flimsy and character-less. Our Street is in Freddie O’Connor’s book a picture of the house I grew up in. It reminds me of how I lament the passing of a spirit, a link to the past. Because if you build on your past you keep the simple senses happy, those of security and pride and belonging… that’s what came tumbling down, and its still happening, when will it stop. http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/03/save-exhibition.html

Liverpools Baltic Triangle. More than a 100 Properties Rotting. Does Anybody Care.

After the recent press release from the Daily Ghost regarding the upbeat story of how wonderful it all is about the Baltic Triangle considering some properties are being renovated by a North Vested Interest Development Agency grant. ( Its a shame none of the people who work in Oldham Hall Street do not go and take a look at the place). http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/10/liverpools-baltic-triangle-to-become.html

Well maybe it’s a start but the full reality, is this. We counted 100 properties in serious danger of crumbling, within a couple of hundred yards of each other, in the Baltic Triangle, and in serious decay.
This group of properties in Bridgewater Street are available to view from Louise Ellmans the "Dame of Dereliction" place of residence. It is my opinion she has become oblivious to the dereliction in her constituency. There are another 100 properties on the periphery of the Baltic triangle in the death throes, unless investment is made…..and it won’t be, unless people like her who are oblivious to decay take notice. I am not even to start with Berni Turner. As with this clutch the owners most are prepared to let them fall down. Why is there no one around to fight for them to be saved. The owners don’t care nor the polititions. Why?
The picture above shows the Anglican Cathedral and its proximity to abject rot. The Chairman of the council manipulated "Stop the Rot" campaign, that never stopped any rot, and was run by the Oldham Echo, was Bishop James Jones who wants to now dig up 7,000 bodies in St James Church just in point of the Baltic Triangle.
Where are the planners who rubber-stamp boring and bland blocks of flats in the same location and have no plans for good solid listed warehouses.

Where is Chris Griffiths, the dozy Buildings at Risk Officer funded by English Heretics Manchester Office. What about Glynn Marsden and Steve “Ronnie” Corbett at the Conservation(sic)office…nowhere to be seen? Hiding ducking below the parapets. Where is the Merseyside Civic Society? Where are the local press?

This block in Bridgewater Street at least part owned by Ebeneeza Selwyn, who I think is a disgrace to my proffession, is being used as mobile phone masts. Who passes a listed structure to be used as a mobile phone receptacle? Yes, its the Reichmarshal Nigel Lee our vainglorious planning manager and the leader in the heritage disaster that is Liverpool.
Seven thousand pounds a throw, the rent is for each mast that’s 21 grand a year in rent to keep it in the state of decay until they fall down and then coin it on the land. Its like a reward. They cant go wrong.
Hey but its alright the NWDA are in and investing in the area, just like they did in the World Heritage Site and those grey suited clowns don’t know how to balance the past with the future. So on the tail of this will be Frank McKenna’s Downtown Liverpool in Business Vultures ready to feed off the carcasses of what remains, ready to leave us with another mini Milton Keynes-On-Sea. I bet on it. 250 yards away from the Grosvenor-pool shopping Precient its a tale of two cities.

Riechmarshal Lee Strikes Again

Here is what will be left of Garston Hospital. After Nigel Lee sends in the squadrons.
While Glynn Marsden, the Mr Mannering of the Conservation office and Steve"Pike"Corbett stand by and .........don't panic.


I was sent this letter from someone who wishes to remain anonymous.

You might know all about this, regarding the Sir Alfred Jones Memorial Hospital in Garston which the planning committee have granted approval to demolish (meeting was 21 April) so that the NHS can build a larger facility in the shape of a lumpen Gehry-esque monster. As you can see, the existing building is a rather fine Queen Anne building of 1915, and in a prominent elevated position. Richard Pollard gave it 6 lines in his Lancashire Pevsner - the architects were C. J. Anderson and R. S. Crawford, who also did a library in Crosby - The architect's rendering of the new building shows a tiny porton of the old facade retained: http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2009/02/09/first-images-of-15-5m-south-liverpool-mini-hospital-64375-22889001/ According to Florence, the planning manager Nigel Lee said there was no point in doing a facade retention scheme since EH do not like preserved facades! best wishes.

http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2009/04/22/new-mini-hospital-for-garston-given-approval-92534-23441516/

The Riechmarshal Strikes again.

This has to be the most misguided planning officer in the History of Liverpool.

I think that If we did a facade job on The General Lee it would be letting him off lighty as you can not change the inside character of a man who is, in my opinion no more than a butcher of Liverpools architectural history. And it is the inside lack of character that would still be retained no matter how his teeth were re-arranged.

Florence Gersten did her best to fight a rear guard action on this front to no avail.