St Georges Everton.

St Georges Everton.

Everton was once a suburb of Liverpool and in the 1820's hat had a setting of what we would now think of as picture postcard.

Thomas Rickman, St Georges architect did not start out as an architect he had a journey that led him to design buildings that was quite unusual.

He was a pharmacist and a surgeon and also worked in the corn trade.

When he lent money to a friend who could not pay it back, he left his home town of Maidenhead and came to Liverpool looking for work in 1807.

After his second wife and their daughter died he seems to have been free to drift into different studies. Weather, geology, gas lighting, steam boats and drawing all got his attention. He may have been what we would now say, on the autistic spectrum, he was a meticulous accounts keeper. He painted and catalogued a whole army of toy soldiers probably lead.

Collecting engravings he began to study architecture and he studied and recorded Gothic churches and their ruined state.

In 1812 he delivered a series of lectures and was elected professor of architecture at the Liverpool Academy.

His friend Thomas Cragg owned the Mersey Iron Foundry and waxed lyrical about the use of cast iron in architecture.

Rickman sketched architectural details such as windows door frames and balustrades for him.

As simply as two friends talking Rickman began to draw a cast iron church, they were kindred spirits in design. His designs at this stage it could be said were not quite top work and were stiff in design. This was an early stage of iron construction.

Mr Atherton had promised £12,000 for the building of a church on the site of the old Liverpool lighthouse and on 29^th December 1812 a public meeting was called.

Rickman attended the meeting only to be shocked and astonished that Cragg was submitting a design of Rickmans own sketches.

This proved a master stroke as Mr Atherton gave the commission to the pair on the understanding that the exterior be built in stone and the interior be erected in cast iron.

This enabled them to pre fabricate the structure and bolt it together on-site.

One commentator stated that the structure 'exhibited a very marked advance upon anything previously attempted in Liverpool-the tone character and motif of every part being derived from a careful study of ancient examples'.

Gothic architecture at the time had a wide breadth ranging from Norman to Henry VIII.

Architects could do what they liked with it.

Some Gothic structures were a derision of classical wrapped up in a confused fusion of many differing styles.

Iron was cutting edge at the time and when we analyse it, there appears to be that the medieval oak and stone ribs of ancient times were being replaced by slender columns of iron.

With an ease of construction this was being explored well ahead of Ruskin's eloquent dissecting of Iron's pros and cons and how it would fit into the modern forms of construction in his Seven Lamps of Architecture.

The challenge in the blending of the old with the new is something we now take for granted as it all looks old now but the debate would be intense.

Rickman began to publish papers in Liverpool showing his understanding of his work that were to be inspiring to others.

An attempt to discriminate the styles of English architecture from the Conquest to the Reformation, proceeded by a sketch of the Grecian and Roman Orders, with notes on nearly 500 English Buildings was published in 1817.

Years later Ferguson was to write ' by a simple and easy classification Rickman reduced to order what before was simple chaos to all minds'.

So the Gothic was born of Rickmans work and was championed by Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin.

Cragg also built St Micheals in 1814 with even more iron used. Many of the mouldings were from St Georges. The exterior is of brick. Parapets and finials of iron. It was called “the cast iron church”. St Philips in Hardman Street followed in 1816. From these three buildings stems the seed of the prefabricated cast iron church and the onset of mass production so from this little acorn of an idea buildings were shipped all over the world. Some sections could be replicated over and over again, and from a single mould.

At a time of great expansions in cities nationwide it came at a very convenient time to produce quickly churches for the masses. This need was combined by the “Million pound Act” to get ecclesiastical buildings erected quickly to educate the masses coming in from the fields no doubt.

Rickman worked with John Foster junior on a commission for St Martins which is no longer standing.

Foster was not a purveyor of the Gothic style.

I did not realise when as a young boy, along with the rest of the class, as we were led into the church like little lambs, silent lambs, from the side directly adjacent to the school of St Georges how important it was.

It was a solid building that wrapped around you with protective care, friendly and self assured, we didn't know we were poor.

As a small child born into a two up two down, the first sight of a church interior is awe inspiring. The scale those uprights supporting the roof were like giant pines reaching for the heavens.

The play of light through the bejewelling of the stained glass with its storytelling panels was always designed to bring you to a subservient situation. The torch of coloured beams searching, and finding you, in between the columns of pews. I still remember to this day my first sighting of the interior of St Georges with the angelic sound of choristers raising your spirit, bringing you closer to what you were told to believe in. Those pointed arches and the fine and light decorated tracery. I did not know I was in one of the most important churches in the country. I remember my neighbour staring up at me and winking to me as I showered him and his newly married wife with a handful of confetti from the roof of the exterior porch. I remember the christening of my cousins and the crying over the font when touched with that holy water from within.

I don't know if these memories that are torched into my mind are what made me understand that even in poverty you can still look up to the stars, and even though we were poor we were in the middle of an area of St Georges plateau that had great care and fine workmanship bestowed upon it.

I would often stop at Everton Library on the way home, that is still standing and hopefully will be restored soon. Unfortunately The Luftwaffe didn't understand the maintenance programme of our architectural stock, and blitzed the gubbings out of it.

Most of the stained glass was destroyed in the Second World War survivor is a window dated 1863 by A. Gibbs. The glass in the east window dates from 1952 and is by Shrigley and Hunt.

The original chair frame bell was made by Ainsworth of Warrington. It was restored in 1937 by George Eccles but vandalised in the late 1960s. The present clock was made by Smiths of Clerkenwell and installed in 1973.

In the next street to our humble abode was Our Lady's, the beginnings of the church that was to rival St Peters in Rome. The chancel chapel was built, it was going to be massive. It was demolished in the 80's, how sad. It was a Pugin and Pugin design. This was the original site for what Arthur Dooley christened Paddy's Wigwam. St Georges may have been the most prominent structure on Liverpool's skyline prior to Gilbert Scott's Anglican sandstone Cathedral being built. How mariners will have been thankful to see the sight knowing they were safely home. Probably having been press ganged in the Baltic Triangle area, which was renowned for this form of kidnap to keep the seas highways safe for the British Empire.

There were other Pugin buildings that had fallen into disrepair, the wash house was a hive of soapy gargling conversation spun together by the washerwomen within. It was a social thing.

I would sometimes get a treat and be given a tanner and go over to the cubicle d public baths where someone in the next bathtub would sing “My name is Jack and I live in the Bath” as a take on the hit of the day.

The smell was a slightly carbolic one, that of cleanliness and running hot water was a luxury we did not have, nor an inside loo.

Mr Tyson the builder used to run a boys club in one of the buildings behind the steaming wash house.

I did not know we relied on charity and philanthropists. A caged football pitch was built in between the school and the house, on St Domingo Road, as somewhere the kids could play and we played 9 a side football, that was sometimes a little light on one side depending on how many turned up.

The Prodi dogs against the Cats we would all have enough incentive.

It was stupid I know now. How pathetic it seems now that there was such a monumental battle still ranging amongst the Popery and King Billy's lot.

It raged all around you people tried to indoctrinate you at an early age.

Though it did not take long for me to see through all that religious none-sense

And my church, my lovely little church was part of that too.

http://www.stgeorgeseverton.com/

Liverpool The City That Knocked The Cavern Club Down, Then Called Itself Beatles Town.

I was born just off St Domingo Road in Everton, though it was nearer to the hallowed turf of Anfield. 

The proximity to Anfield is what provided me with my pocket money.

 I would mind cars on match day.

 It was great running up and down the street “Can I mind your car Sir”.

I would put my Liverpool scarf on early in the morning and we would have a little bit of territory in our cobbled street with which to work.

People were kind.

 It was a friendly gesture rewarded for the effort and enthusiasm. 

The drivers in would get out in their red and white scarves. They didn't have to give you a few coppers but I think it heightened match day for them.

There would be no cars in our street of a normal day. There wasn't anybody living there whose income could afford to run one.

 It showed you that if you tried a bit and were pleasant, you could earn a little bit. Which in turn made your life a bit better.

 Mainly in the ability to buy football cards that you could collect into an album. I can still remember the team goalkeeper was Tommy Lawrence, right up to Peter Thompson on the left wing. The beginning of collecting, maybe.

It was a friendly place, we knew everyone in the street. I still today can recall most of our neighbours names.

 The surrounding streets were pockmarked with missing houses that had been bombed during the war looking like missing teeth within a pretty girls smile. Other houses were shored up with timber.

We played war games amongst the debris and in the abandoned houses with broken window pains.

Around a similar time I was once showed how to throw a brick at a church window by an older lad.

 It was covered in a grill and made a great noise. I hadn't realised why my so called mentor was running away, until a white collared clergyman came out from a side door running towards me shaking his first. I learnt how to run that day. 

And how to keep away from this tearaway who fell about in stitches laughing.

I didn't think it funny at all especially when a knock on the door came and there he was reporting me to my mother. You grow up quick in the school of hard knocks.

The church was two streets away, the other side of Sir Thomas White Gardens which was quickly becoming a failed experiment into social housing. Its no longer there. Either is the church that became our playground. I used to run errands having made friends with the people inside. 

I never picked up a stone in anger again and soon realized why the beautiful glass windows were covered up.

At that time in Liverpool there was a different mentality, Protestants and Catholics were enemies, or so we were taught. 

We played football matches when we found someone with a ball. The teams were usually picked by religion. I thought whats all this about.

I soon grew up and realized, just as I had been shown to throw a stone, that I was not to listen to my elders, not to be guided by the wrong people.

To form my own judgments by study.

Decades later whilst driving past, I found the same church in disrepair and about to be demolished so I removed some of the fittings before the bulldozers destroyed them and put them in my stores to re use. Then shortly after, while reading Freddy O'Conners “It All Came Tumbling Down” I found a picture of my street, and a picture of a church that was designed by Pugin, well the firm of E.W Pugin. I was a property developer by this time. I then realized that there were several Pugin buildings in the vicinity and I also realized I had felt the gravity of the history in the humble little street that was condemned by the city council as a slum and we were sent to a modern house in the suburbs.

I always regretted the move. The wash house, that steamy place where the washer women gathered to chit chat away was in fact a Pugin building.

If you are born poor you dont know anything else.

My first BBC appearance was for a documentary about slum housing and I was nominated for interview by the headmaster of my school St Georges. 

I recall in my past memory that I was talking about growing up and there and some shots walking home from school with my friend.

I must have only been six years of age. We did not have a TV and had to go to a neighbours house to watch it. I have tried to find it in the BBC archives but I fear its lost.

 It showed a happy little child growing up and attending a school with its Grade I listed St Georges church, walking home through Everton Library, also a listed building that had escaped the blitz.

https://waynecolquhoun.blogspot.com/search?q=st+georges I wrote about St Georges some time ago.

Not long after being cleared out to the new Metro-land. A concrete jungle. I missed the sturdy security of my poor working class background and the way the people stood together and helped each other. 

People who had nothing would share their last bit of food with you, not knowing if there would be any money with which to buy more for themselves.

 Boot boys and football hooliganism appeared. Things rather dramatically in the coming years. When I started going the match it had become a dangerous place.

Now I understand that that church was in fact The Chancel Chapel erected to be the beginning of the building of a new Cathedral of such gigantic proportions that it would rival St Peters in Rome. The Church never got the necessary finances required and after war decimated Liverpool a free site was given to the Catholic Church near the city centre. This would see The new Metropolitan Cathedral Of Christ The King, or Paddy's Wigwam built. 

I was an apprentice watching this new space rocket erupt on the plateau opposite the Anglican Cathedral by Giles Gilbert Scott. I did not like it.

Later I got angry with what was happening to my city and how it's historical buildings were being targeted for redevelopment in the new era that was bringing a new prosperity...with little respect for my past.

I had become a vociferous heritage campaigner as Liverpool became a World Heritage City it began to destroy the Pier Head. 

The famous Three Graces had escaped The Luftwaffe and then the city planners set about destroying the majesty of Liverpool's waterfront.

Now I was negotiating with Unesco to save its soul as we watched the corrupt city council planners destroying my city that I had been so proud of, yes proud, even with all its tatty edges and incongruities,

It was my town. And they were knocking it down.

I would be as vocal as I could with some great success I gained a respect for my opinions and believed I could shape the argument of how to keep what was the essence of the city yet bring it into the modern times.

This is the city that knocked The Cavern down and then called itself Beatles Town.

Liverpool became European Capital of Culture and some argued that the only culture they could find was in the yougurt, in the fridge, in the Kwik Save, in Old Swan.

They built without respect, on and on, higher and higher, the World Heritage Site was becoming a architectural mess.

https://waynecolquhoun.blogspot.com/2019/06/liverpool-threatened-with-world.html I tried to inform the public. What happens if the econony shifts? I said.

I would be asked my opinion many times.

 One request was to the merit of The Metropolitan Cathedral by the Editor of the Liverpool Daily Post where I was careful not to throw stones at it, but give it a conseintious view built up by years of experience, questioning.

The lack of knowledge in the city for its heritage assets was apparent, especially that of the Editor of both the Daily Post Mark Thomas and the Liverpool Echo which had sunk to an all time low under Alaistair Machray.

It was in the Lutyens Crypt within the Metropolitan Cathedral that I made my Antiques Roadshow debut where I was invited to become a specialist on the longest running factual programme in the history of the BBC. https://waynecolquhoun.blogspot.com/2014/09/antiques-roadshow-what-amazing.html This was the programme I had loved since discovering it one Sunday night a long time ago. Those stories those objects, It lit up my life like a beacon.

Hopefuly I was invited to become part of the show because I understand the meaning of how important the past is to our future.

How we need history, the stories and meanings of the past.

How we use objects as a vessel to discover who we are.

And more importantly how to objectively look at everything without believing what you are told. To question and not be ordered how to think.

I believe that lad who taught me how to throw a brick made me think, and I formed the opinion that we should never trust in those who appear to be in a superior position.

And now I own a 19^th century Grade II listed slate built Chapel where I will open my new gallery soon. I spent the summer restoring it and phase one is nearly completed and I realize that those who live in ecclesiastical buildings should not throw stones, yes I have learnt a lot.....................oops, I have just realized I started off writing about the designer architect who brought Gothic architecture back to the fore and in doing so changed forever the shape of our cities. Augustus Northmore Welby Pugin.

I will now have make that my next post I got a bit carried away there.

http://waynecolquhoun.blogspot.com/2020/07/augustus-welby-northmore-pugin-his.html

Save Plumpton Terrace-From Liverpool City Council.

Along Everton Road.

There is a tall grand terrace. 

A long brick structure, a row with its principles of Georgian design almost intact. 

With remnents of its doorway fanlight faded glory. It stands there tall in defiance.

I will not be moved it says to me, in the autumn sunshine.

 I will not fall down, no matter what you do. 

Built 1824. there are a few alterations and a bit of work could be put right.

Generally I hate mock Georgian. The proportions don't work because the ceiling heights are usually reduced. This is the real thing. 

Looking smaller than its three storeys in pictures, than its true scale. 

It stands there as if it has been left behind and in another timezone.

Liverpool in the 1980's.

You could almost put its faded elegance to a UB40 soundtrack and without too much effort, imagine what it was like in the late seventies in post war decline Liverpool, managed decline. Thatcher decline. 

When the mantra was to manage that decline because Liverpool was dying in front of our eyes.

I saw it in spray can graffiti before grafitti became fashionable.

“Will the last person to leave Liverpool switch off the lights'.

It was a distress call. A pleading. 

Vandalism in protest.

I know because I have done it too.

Declaring that Lady Doreen and Sir Trevor Jones in my opinion were “Partners in Slime”.

The terrace plus the adjoining row which are in good order were mentioned in 'Buildings of Liverpool'...saying they were needing attention.

That book was published by Liverpool City Council in 1978.

Just how can this be allowed to happen to such an imposing row of beautiful proportioned dwellings?

It is owned by Liverpool City Council, thats how.

A labour council who behave like Tories. 

Where Mayor Joe Anderson and his Head of Regeneration were arrested, alledgedly as partners in slime. 

They and the council were probably waiting for it to get in a worst state so they can do us all a favour.

 And knock it out to one of the “Cosy” developers that they fed with our land, that we the citizens of Liverpool own.

Plumpton Terrace was alive when I was young.

Everton Road leads into St Domingo Road and thats where I was born in Wye Street almost next to Everton Library that is still standing.

Just about.

It may receive some attention soon.

Or is that another empty Liverpool heritage promise?

Across the road is the beautiful and historic Grade I listed St Georges Church. 

Which was my church of St Georges infant school, where we were led to pray before I discovered the untruths contained within religion. 

I walk through its gatepost entrance, that I once climbed and clung to, and threw confetti over my neighbour in celebration as he walked through it, beneath me with his bride, on his marriage day.

It is easy for you to imagine yourself in the countryside.

At the top of Beacon lane.

St Georges platau has always been an important place.

Feel the craftsman cut 18^th century script in the historic stones, that all tell a story, in the graveyard and you can feel the history through your fingertips

I got quite emotional there today. Maybe I was remembering sitting inside looking up at the majesty of its architecture when as a six year old, not knowing that this was a Rickman design but knowing that it was special. 

Or maybe it was recalling my mothers funeral service that was held there recently. I dont know, but I do know that the sense of place that I still feel to this area is within my soul.

There is a bit of, a new, mad looking Acadamy heading back to Plumpton Terrace. The place where as a child I once went to the Red Triangle club. That was a long time before the Kung Fu fighting Bruce Lee craze took hold. 

This is where another neighbour of mines brother, Steve, older than me, trained. He went to compete at the Olympics. The Red Triangle has trained some good people. 

And kept many young Liverpudlians off the street. Maybe gave them some pride.

This area has had its ups and downs and most of it is on the up.

We need to Save Plumpton Terrace-From Liverpool City Council.

While there are fortunes going into new build shoe boxes, we need to respect the past, where we come from.

This building, or buildings need to be saved.

So what could it be, well as I remember those dark Boys from the Blackstuff days.

I can also remember how I felt proud to have a certiificate, a City and Guilds certificate. That showed that I had trained as a proper apprentice. 

That I had served my time, not inside, where poverty wants to grab you and take you down to.

But as a carpenter. “You will never be out of work” I was told.

Now Liverpool needs more trademen. Good lads and now ladies, who will feel the same pride as I did.

Like the mythical plasterer written into Alan Bleasdales script who signed his name on the corner of his wall because he was so proud of his work. 

Yes I remember him too.

Everton needs to rekindle its pride and look after its youth and give it hope and a new future.

Plumpton Terrace could just be the place to do that.

Save Plumpton Terrace-From Liverpool City Council who have let it decline and will let it fall down.

If we let them. They Are Guilty  

Liverpool The City That Knocked The Cavern Down And Then Called Itself Beatles Town.

SAVE EVERTON LIBRARY TOO

Living In Liverpool Its too hard to bear sometimes

Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin. His Gothic Ideal Is All Around Us.

 I still recall how I wandered around the war torn streets thinking that everywhere was damaged and forlorn, and covered in a thick black patina, from the smog that frequently fell. Like a stone.
That at times, made even circumnavigating the other side of the street impossible.

http://waynecolquhoun.blogspot.com/2020/06/i-was-born-just-off-st-domingo-road.html

The first church that I attended, was attached to our school. That was St Georges, and is a Grade I listed building of 1812. St Georges is one of the earliest buildings to be constructed by metal skeleton. Leaving it light and allowing the architecture to float in in its Georgian Gothic splendour. The decoration hanging on its Rickman designed cast iron frame.

I would not know the name Pugin, it would mean nothing to me until I started to feed the thirst for knowledge that I started developing while still in short pants.

Gothic was born of Rickmans work and was championed by Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin.

The first time I looked up at the heavenly architecture of st Georges that was heightened and was shimmering in tinted colours, like a magic lantern slide. I wandered into a world of why. As the light from the only stained glass windows that escaped the Luftwaffe, pierced the pulpit during the services that I had to endure. My mind would wander. http://www.stgeorgeseverton.com/

It was built on the site of the old Liverpool lighthouse and Beacon lane fed up to its plateau. This was the old welsh town of Liverpool.

There were numerous massive buildings that I recall, that would either fall down or be demolished and the architecture of the firm of Pugin and Pugin, I would later find out, filled the streets around my home with Gothic pearls.

Our Lady Immaculate with the ambitious foundations of the Chancel Chapel on St Domingo Road. That would never be more than that. The plans to build a Majestic Cathedral, at the top of our street had never been able to to be realized. For lack of finances.

I could feel those ambitions all around me, enveloping my senses.

Decades later I would become a specialist in the restoration of listed buildings and then move into the world of antiques.

But I will never forget the way it made me feel to live in such a place with its monumental faded Gothic glory at every turn.

So now, when I may, understand the esoteric's of design, I try to keep on furthering my knowledge by the continual feeding of that seed. That grew out of those bombed out buildings that I played in as a child.

There were three Pugin and Pugin buildings in stones throw from, our house.

I want to explore here, a little more about The Great Gothic Master of Design.

Augustus Northmore Welby Pugin (Born 1812) wrote a scathing attack on British Georgian architecture. He called it an abomination.

CONTRASTS was written by Pugin when he was 25 and he does not hold back in his thought. The Industrial revolution of the 1830's had saw huge civil unrest.

A strong moral leadership was called for. But it was not there.

The country was burdened with George IV. Who did fancy himself as a patron of the arts.

He wanted to work on Buckingham Palace and the kings favourite architect John Nash who was a master of disguise was employed.

This work showed what we call Facadism where a building is cloaked in a Stucco fronting.

Pugin was an angry young man. He thought he would cleanse the immorality of this Georgian style. In 'Gothic' he asks the questions of the reasons of the demise of architecture.

Even though we now look at Georgian as an example of style that is admired, he thought Gothic was the way forward. Believing classicism to be false to a higher ideal.

St Giles in Staffordshire was an attempt to turn the tide of immorality through architecture. In his eyes Medieval fusion would be controlled into a channel of heavenly paradise. To him, the Gothic revival was devoutly christian. This was his brave new world......of looking back.

His mother Catherine Welby and August Charles had fled the french revolution and they settled in Bloomsbury. As a direct result of Catherine's inheritance. They were wealthy. The young Pugin never really went to school. His father supplemented their income by doing architectural drawing. At five years of age his parents took him to Lincoln Cathedral. He was struck by the genius of the prizmatic light dousing the building in contrasting colour's, that was built 700 years before.

He admired the honesty, and how the building was made.

Its skeleton was on show, there for all to see.

His father ran a drawing school and he and the pupils were taken to Northern France. Rouen Cathedral entranced him.

There is a drawing in the national archives entitled My first design at 9 years old.

He learnt about the engineering. How buildings held up. How they were built.

He was shown them the bones of how they were constructed. He would feel them.

Many Cathedrals were looted during the revolution. Many with sculptures were defaced. He noted this.

He would collect and would study fragments of medieval glass.

Low church services were held in preaching boxes in small chapels and his mother supported Edward Irving who was a sort of evangelist of the day.

He began to loathe the low style of service and turned to the theatre.

The Theatre Royale Richmond, entranced him at 15 years old, he saw the scenery flying on and off the stage. As if by magic. He began to study in three dimensions and in 1831 he designed quite lavishly for Henry VIII.

He gained a sense of the dramatic, with the immorality of the theatre.

Ann was 5 months pregnant when Pugin married her. He did the right thing and they seemed happy, until Ann died, shortly after childbirth. Then his mother died. And at the age of 21 he was a single parent. He was shattered by events and buried himself in the wreckage of his life and his Gothic ideal.

Contrasts won him the friendship of John Talbot the 16^th Earl of Shrewsbury and his money gave him the capital for amongst others St Giles in Cheadle.

Cheadle, my perfect Cheadle he declared in later life. Picture The west doors of St Giles

At the consecration of his Gothic masterpiece of St Giles, Archbishops were present. He had come a long way. It was a national event. He wanted to capture a spirit something he felt and it all went into his ideas for Gothic.

Talbot's stately home is now Alton Towers.

He had converted to catholicism while writing 'Contrasts'. He adored the playing out of the service with all theatrical theatrical manner, he adored.

George Myers was his prefered builder, a Yorkshire man. They struck a chord, he had a understanding what Pugin wanted. Though on one project he was not involved in, the Bellfry fell down.

He would design wallpapers and Mintons took the decision to reinstate the practice of making encaustic tiles around his designs.

His friend John Hardman would make his metalwork and stained glass.

'The True Principle Of Pointed Architecture' was his second book. Published in 1841 it laid down six principles for building in the Gothic style.

Pugin believed good architecture is good society and it lays down all the principles of how to achieve this. A vision. Detail must have meaning. If it is constructed it can be decorated.

In his work he puts the hinge in full view showing exactly how the door is opening. A hidden hinge was imoral he thought.

He declared classicism was wrong and truth and honesty was Gods work.

'God will see if you skimp on hidden parts of the building' he would declare. This inspired a new generation of architects such a s George Gilbert Scott.

Who would say after reading Pugin.

'I felt as if I had awoken from my slumbers'.

The whole landscape of Britain would subsequently change through the thoughts and writings of the man'.

Though some people claim that modern buildings such as the Pompidou or Lloyds of London hold true. This is stupid thinking. They may hold the twisted principles dear but these have been, shall we say, stretched by the architects for good PR.

The Palace of Westminster burnt down and the rebuilding of the corrupt place would be replaced by Pugins moral ideal. Charles Barry had classic training, but Pugin overshadowed him. The towers were definatly Pugin which led but the heraldic interior, combining the work of John Hardman, that showed an ideal to an almost heavenly enlightenment of the mind.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_Westminster

We take for granted today the interiors of the chamber because we see it almost every day on TV. But it was made to overawe everyone who came in contact. And from his thousand drawings, he aimed for perfection. He was a man posessed. Working tirelessly.

The Soveriegns Throne is an example encompassed. The medieval view in revival form, evoked history and with a linear heritage from days gone by.

Though Barry was the architect, Pugin, in 1834 had designed an imaginary college and by co-incidence the year the Houses of Parliment burnt down.

It is almost the same building.

He was subsequently, unfairly written out of the final finished scheme. Barry claiming it all. While Pugin was working, he had no idea of the PR that was playing out around him.

Pugin worked because he wanted to. Barry got £25,000 while Pugin got £800.

Pugin had entered the debate surrounding wallpaper which was now entering into more mainstream consciousness after the Great Exhibition by designing a series of two dimensional papers. These were mostly heradic motifs for The Palace of Westminister. He would design a hundred different styles. There is a wonderful book showing his pattern designs from 1851-1859 in the V&A. Of course the best place to see them would be in place, on the walls. Of those hundred different wallpaper designs that were commissioned many were lost but his inspiration would seep into the public. I picked hand blocked Pugin wallpaper for my hall that is still available today if you know where to look. Though most of his designs would be too bold for most domestic settings. This debate be continued by Morris and Co.

His work then strangely dried up. This was his time, and he wasn't there.

Louisa his second wife of 5 children then died and at 32 he would struggle to cope with his paranoair.

He then wrote another book in Ramsgate.

An Apology for the Revival of Christian Architecture in England. He explains as best he can under the pressure of his developing illness and proclaims Gothic should be on every detail as what was in The Grange, that he designed for himself. It is.....Gothic to the core. Designed from the inside out and not the other way round, as of most architects of the day seemed to do. Rooms were arranged in the need for movement he was absorbed in theatrical vibrancy of its interiors.

Trefoiled escutcheons and Gothic handles with inscriptions declaring his love of patrons, family and places. It's as if he wanted to surround himself in a cocoon.

He married a third time.

He would stay at the Grange for the rest of his life.

He would exhibit at the 1851 Exhibition, a medieval court. It was acclaimed at all levels. Though he never won a prize for manufacture as a designer.

He then built a church next to the Grange. St Augustin's. Of napped flint, sandwiched between horizontal lines and courses of stone. This was a new departure in architecture for him. This building has recently been restored. His finances suffered.

It encapsulated his faith. £14,000 of his own money and he couldnt afford the spire.

It was all becoming too much. He was having blackouts.

The Westminister clock tower hadn't been built and Barry turned to Pugin who was ill with piles, worms and strange visions.

The finished article is said to be a masterpiece in delicacy reaching for the heavens.

He never made the opening of his design after a mental breakdown.

Consigned to Bedlam and in 1852 at the age of 40 he died. His tomb in St Augustin's decorated with carvings of his family.

He died at the same time as The Duke of Wellington and his death was relegated to the back pages of the periodicals. This maybe a metaphor or a symbol of his whole life. His son E.W Pugin would continue his work.

It took a hundred years for his recognition to come to the fore.

Half French, as was Brunel. They both were largely forgotten.

They, in time would both become greats.

In working on his book Gothic revival published 1928 Kenneth Clarke found it hard to believe that a man so little known was actually so important.

But still Pugin needs to be explored because what he created was more than buildings it was an ideal, a movement.

There are not many who could do that. And Pugin is one of the greats.

I will always remember the lightness of the cast iron framed architecture of St Georges. I visited there recently. The side entrance to the back of the church still has the same atmosphere and smell from decades past.

Looking at old photographs, I also remember the stolid Victorian remnants of the Victorian buildings of the era I grew up in. Most of it is heavy, over adorned, over engineered and self apposing.

I think this is why I love the lightness of the Georgians at their best..... and the freshness and the feel of the best of French Art Deco.

Though I do declare I love the work and appreciate the ideals of Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin.

Minton Floor goes on show at St Georges Hall

ONE of Liverpool’s hidden treasures is on display to the public for the next two weeks after the huge success of a previous viewing.
The Minton Tile mosaic masterpiece, at St George’s Hall, is normally hidden beneath wooden flooring.
But yesterday the covering was temporarily removed to allow the Great Hall’s ornate tiles to be revealed in all their glory.
It is the second time this year the floor tiles have gone on public display, after the success of a previous viewing in February. They are usually only revealed once a year.
The floor consists of 30,000 hand crafted tiles, many depicting the world famous Liver Bird along with Neptune, sea nymphs, dolphins and tridents. More than 15,000 people visited the hall when they were unveiled earlier this year. Cllr Tina Gould, who has special responsibility for the Hall and was recently appointed as a trustee, said: “When we last unveiled the floor, the response was huge.
“It makes sense to open it up to the public once again and give anyone who missed it another chance to see this amazing display of craftsmanship. The Hall and its Minton tiles really are one of Britain’s finest Victorian wonders.”
The tiles were first revealed in April 2007 after the completion of a 10-year, £23m restoration of the Grade I-listed Hall.
More than 167,000 people visited St George’s Hall last year, making it one of the city’s top six heritage attractions.The ornate floor was first laid in 1852, at a cost of £3,000. It was designed by Alfred Stevens, the 34-year-old son of a Blandford house decorator.
The mosaic was originally covered in the 1860s to provide a more hardwearing surface for dancing.
The tiles will be on display until August 23, and can be viewed from 11am with the last admission at 4.30pm every day.
There is an admission charge of £1 for adults, with free entry for children. At 2pm each day, there will be a talk on the history of St George’s Hall by experts in the Reid Room, admission by donation.
There are also evening tours available, with admission limited to 25 people. The tours take place every day from 5pm (except Sunday) and cost £5 per head. To book an evening tour call (0151) 225 6909.
Entrance to the venue is from the Heritage Centre on St John’s Lane.

http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2009/08/12/mosaic-tile-masterpiece-goes-on-public-display-at-liverpool-s-st-george-s-hall-92534-24377761/

St Georges Hall Antique Fair is not Fair with the Trade.

It would be nice to promote a local antique fair in such a monumental building as St Georges Hall in Liverpool. I had been there on the opening event in 2008 declaring on the local radio how good it was for Liverpool in the overhyped European Capital of Culture year. The event spilled over into the wings of the main hall. Not any more.

It looks like the fair is on its slippery slope to oblivion or so the word on the stalls say. The stallholders have been told the organisers are getting messed around by the city council. Hmmm.

It looks likely to me that this antique fair now has a limited lifespan.

Why do the organisers of antique fairs not understand that the long established custom of assisting the trade with free entrance (with a card)in to a fair is something that loses them money. It helps generate trade for the stallholders early in the morning making it easy for them to re-book.

£2.50 for the trade entrance what is the point? Several trade that I know, who spend, walked away from the overzealous organisers of this, what is now a poor excuse for a antique fair, rather than pay. We dont like being held to ransom by the trade I was told by the organiser. Bye Bye.

Liverpool Threatened With World Heritage Site Status Deletion. Again.

How many times can Liverpool get away with bluffing Unesco.
Last year there were frantic negotiations between Unesco and UK officials at DCMS to save Liverpool's deletion from The World Heritage register.

After the UK Government gave assurances to The United Nations it was decided that Liverpool would not be deleted, pending strict criteria that had to be met.

http://waynecolquhoun.blogspot.com/2017/06/liverpools-world-heritage-site-status.html

Previous years had seen Unesco requesting a moratorium of new high rise developments in response to growing concern that the Liverpool planning authority were out of control and were not able to monitor developments in a manner appropriate for a city with World Heritage Site Status. Lime Street/Skelhorne Street developments were of particular concern.

Just look at the mediocrity that has been built. 

For over a decade now Liverpool has been running the Unesco deletion gauntlet. Dodging the bullet, its leaders acting like naughty schoolboys pretending they don't understand whats going on, promising they will uphold World Heritage principles.

All this whilst the Mayor of Liverpool was declaring publicly that World Heritage site Status is just a badge on the wall at the Town Hall.

This is the crude past of Liverpool rearing its ugly head yet again.

The lack of class within this city is the reason Liverpool was put on the World Heritage “At Risk” register, at the very same year that Aleppo and The Temple of Palmyra (That was subsequently destroyed by The Taliban).

The relentless push for development by Labour led council seems a throwback to an era that has blighted Liverpool's past.

I grew up in the Derek Hatton era.

My favourite bar was Kirklands, people come from all over the country to this trendy establishment housed in a Grade II listed old bakery. Look what they have done to it surrounded by …....student flats. A quick look round the corner shows how it also blights St Andrews Church Grade I listed that we fought to save despite the Council selling it to a convicted fraudster.

And look at what they have done to Lime Street. It is an architectural anachronism, made worse by the fact that each end of this monstrous carbuncle there are Grade II listed buildings. And all this adjacent the Historic Listed Lime street Station and St Georges Hall.

Lets not mention, oh alright we will, The Blind School opposite The Philharmonic Hall on Hardman Street.

It is with the deepest regret that I say, reluctantly that my city has been butchered to the state that its beautiful and historic listed structures now look alien in their own environment. The city can not face this relentless roller coaster of glass shoe boxes in the World Heritage Site.

Why does this current Mayor of Liverpool Joe Anderson want us to lose World Heritage Site Status?

He dodges the criticism through his £95,000 a year press agent who is there to assist his public persona. But Mayor, Joe Anderson has to take the blame for the mess that is Liverpool's architectural blight.

At this very moment in time with a World Heritage Committee meeting taking place in BAKU on 30^th June 2019, there are no signs or a whisper of this International event that effects the city of Liverpool, from Liverpool City Council.

Hardly surprising that UNESCO have now made recommendations to delete Liverpool from the World Heritage list on 2020 after all the promises made to them by the UK government have cumulated in nothing but a smoke screen for dodgy developments led by The Mayoral Investment Fund.

Liverpool were given a lifeline after promising a new tall buildings policy.

Unesco have been requesting a DSoCR (Desired State of Conservation Report) since 2005.

A Desired State of Conservation Report for the removal of the property from the “At Risk” Register was urgently requested by The Unesco World Heritage Centre for Europe in 2011.

It now appears that, after years of bluff and bravado by Liverpool City Council, Unesco have not received satisfactory documentation to believe that Liverpool and the UK Government are taking the matter seriously.

At one stage The DCMS who are ultimately responsible for all UK World Heritage Sites stated that they are powerless in the wake of the relentless push and lack of overall monitoring of Liverpools Planning Authority.

Unesco have stated quite clearly that Everton FC's proposed Stadium at Bramley Moore Dock is against the previous World Heritage Committee decisions for further developments.

Unesco state “ It is regrettable that the consultation process did not adequately address potential impact on the OUV of the property, nor alternative locations and the public were not informed about the potential negative consequences”

To put it in context Joe Anderson, an Everton supporter is pulling the wool over the publics eyes in favour of his friends at Peel Holdings.

Joe Anderson was elected on a ticket that declared the creation of 20,000 jobs within The proposed Liverpool Waters development.

Eight years later not a single brick has been laid.

Lets see what Unesco think.

I, and my heritage colleagues have spent 15 years warning consecutive council leaders of the threat to losing World Heritage Site Status.

Whilst understanding the need to regenerate we have tried to advise that the OUV or put it more clearly the aesthetic values of this great city were being eroded by the monotonous desire to build vertical blocks of student flats that will become tenements of the future.

Last year it was declared that Liverpool had escaped deletion from the list.

This news was distorted into a good news story. Maybe it was.

But it is only prolonging the eventual in my opinion.

It has broken my heart watching my cherished views be despoiled by inappropriate urban development that is no more than civic vandalism sanctioned by a local authority, led by no more than Spivs.

And even now the news of Liverpool's proposed deletion from The World Heritage List is being suppressed.

Ms Isabelle Anatolle-Gabriel from Unesco even made a visit to the city in 2017 to address the threat to the public direct.

The world news that will be created by this devious intention to fluff the pockets of a few council friendly developers will have ramifications for every citizen of the city of Liverpool.

Liverpool World Heritage site status that Joe Anderson described as no more than a badge on the wall, at the Town Hall, will have to be replaced, by a badge of shame.

UNESCO STATE.

https://whc.unesco.org/en/soc/3881 Read more by clicking the link.

Factors affecting the property identified in previous reports

• Governance: Lack of overall management of new developments
• High impact research/monitoring activities: Lack of analysis and description of the townscape characteristics relevant to the Outstanding Universal Value of the property and important views related to the property and its buffer zone
• Legal framework: Lack of established maximum heights for new developments along the waterfront and for the backdrops of the World Heritage property
• Social/cultural uses of heritage 
• Buildings and development: Commercial development, housing, interpretative and visitor facilities
• Lack of adequate management system/management plan

It is plain that we are up for deletion from the World Heritage List in June 2020.

This time we may not escape. Read the Unesco Draft Decision below.

It is clear that Liverpool City Council have no intention, or are capable of being able uphold World Heritage principles.

Draft Decision: 43 COM 7A.47

The World Heritage Committee,

1. Having examined
2. Document WHC/19/43.COM/7A,
3. Recalling Decision 36 COM 7B.93, 37 COM 7A.35, 38 COM 7A.19, 39 COM 7A.43, 40 COM 7A.31, 41 COM 7A.22 and 42 COM 7A.7 adopted at its 36th (Saint Petersburg, 2012), 37th (Phnom Penh, 2013), 38th (Doha, 2014), 39th (Bonn, 2015), 40th (Istanbul/UNESCO, 2016), 41st (Krakow, 2017) and 42nd (Manama, 2018) sessions respectively;
4. Acknowledges the increasing engagement of civil society in the care of the property and its World Heritage status;
5. Recalls its repeated serious concerns over the impact of the proposed Liverpool Waters developments in the form presented in the approved Outline Planning Consent (2013-2042) which constitutes an ascertained threat in conformity with paragraph 179 of the Operational Guidelines;
6. Although noting that the State Party has submitted an updated and revised draft Desired state of conservation for the removal of the property from the List of World Heritage in Danger (DSOCR), notesthat comprehensive assessment of the proposed DSOCR by the World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies is still not feasible, as the approval of the DSOCR relies on the content of additional documents, which are yet to be prepared or finalized, including the Local Plan, the revised Supplementary Planning Document, the majority of the Neighbourhood Masterplans, and the Tall Building (skyline) Policy;
7. Reiterates that the submission of a further draft of the DSOCR by the State Party and its adoption by the Committee should come prior to the finalization and approval of the necessary planning tools and regulatory framework and regrets that the alternative proposal of the Committee, expressed in Decision 42 COM 7A.7, for substantive commitments to limitation on the quantity, location and size of allowable built form, has not been followed;
8. Although also noting that Peel Holdings (Liverpool Waters developer) reiterated its confirmation to Liverpool City Council (LCC) that there is no likelihood of the Liverpool Waters development scheme coming forward in the same form of the Outline Planning Consent, strongly requests the commitment of the State Party that the approved Outline Planning Consent (2013-2042) will not be implemented by Peel Holdings or other developers, and its revised version will not propose interventions that will impact adversely on the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) of the property, including its authenticity and integrity;
9. Expresses its extreme concern that the State Party has not complied with the Committee’s request to adopt a moratorium for new buildings within the property and its buffer zone, until the Local Plan, the revised Supplementary Planning Document, the Neighbourhood Masterplans, and the Tall Building (skyline) Policy are reviewed and endorsed by the World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies, and the DSOCR is completely finalized and adopted by the World Heritage Committee, and urges the State Party to comply with this request;
10. Also regrets that the submission of Princes Dock Masterplan and changes to the Liverpool Water scheme to the World Heritage Centre took place after their adoption by the LCC, and expresses its utmost concernthat these documents are putting forward plans, which does not ensure the adequate mitigation of the potential threats for which the property was inscribed on the List of World Heritage in Danger;
11. Also reiterates its consideration that the recent planning permissions issued for the Liverpool Waters scheme and elsewhere within the property and its buffer zone, and the stated inability of the State Party to control further developments, clearly reflect inadequate governance systems and planning mechanisms that will not allow the State Party to comply with Committee Decisions and will result in ascertained threat on the OUV of the property;
12. Finally requests the State Party to submit to the World Heritage Centre, by 1 February 2020, an updated report on the state of conservation of the property and on the implementation of the above, for examination by the World Heritage Committee at its 44^th session in 2020, as well as a DSOCR and corrective measures that could be considered for adoption by the Committee;
13. Decides to retain Liverpool – Maritime Mercantile City (United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) on the List of World Heritage in Danger, with a view to considering its deletion from the World Heritage List at its 44th session in 2020, if the Committee Decisions related to the adoption of the DSOCR and the moratorium for new buildings are not met.