In the forty years I have lived in Liverpool, the city has undergone remarkable changes. Of course, if you take any forty year span in its history, change has taken place. The town of 1840 was substantially larger than that of 1800, and over the following forty years there were even more significant changes. What was perhaps remarkable about the greater part of my forty years here was the shrinking – rather than expansion – of Liverpool as it struggled to tackle inner-city blight and a rapidly declining population.
I particularly noticed the piecemeal reduction in the old warehouses that once lined the streets around the city centre. One by one they were demolished, leaving their surviving neighbours sticking out like the odd tooth. This attack on our heritage by stealth – removing less important buildings in architectural terms but important as a group within an urban landscape until there is no longer any cohesion – had already diminished the Georgian stock (although whole terraces were still disappearing well into the 1980s).
Islington is a case in point. I can remember the street still had some shape and character when I arrived – but bit by bit it was pulled down for road improvements and other developments. Today’s photograph, taken of the corner of Christian Street and Islington (showing the Wellington pub) shows something of what was lost.
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