City street with a real village feel

Jul 28 2007 by Laura Davis, Liverpool Daily Post

Once known as the Bond Street of the North, Bold Street is going through a renaissance. Laura Davis reports

CONTRARY to our experience of it in photographs and old news reels, history did not happen in black and white.

Nor was there a sepia tinge to daily life, though it is often hard to imagine Liverpool of the early 20th century without a brownish haze colouring the skyline.

Frozen in time in a grainy image taken during the boomtown days of the post-Victorian city, the streets seem silent, the carriages stalled – yet the accompanying soundtrack would have been rich with the clatter of horses’ hooves against the cobbles.

In contrast, the city centre of today is almost peaceful, though it may not seem so when the gaggles of shoppers push their way into shops labelled with neon sales signs and the evangelists are bellowing their prophecies of doom over the hum of optimistic buskers.

Social historians could easily see the shopping streets as evidence of Liverpool’s changing fortunes and one of them in particular – Bold Street.

On this road, once known as the Bond Street of the North, there were furriers during the heady days of merchant riches; discount shoe shops and 50p stores during the 1980s slump; and now, as the city prepares to take its place in the spotlight as European Capital of Culture, it is enjoying a rebirth.

Independent clothing stores, cafes, restaurants and furniture shops line the pavements from Renshaw and Hanover streets at the bottom of the hill and the burned-out shell of St Luke’s Church at the top.

Where strands of hemp were twisted into ropes for shipping lines along the straight line of the sloping path, students, professionals, families and the elderly check the ripeness of the pears at the fruit and veg stall, eye up the olives at the deli counter and pick out birthday cards in the gift shops.

“There’s been quite a dramatic change really since we opened Utility,” says Dick Mawdsley, founder-owner of the furnishing store located halfway up the street.

“It’s only really in the last few years that there’s been a change in the line-up of retailers in the street.

“It’s always had quite a good mix of specialist and more unusual independent shops but when we opened there were still quite a few discount stores in the lower half of the street. And then there was the demise of the 50p shop which we don’t miss.”

Dick, who launched the Utility brand in 1999 and has since expanded into a second shop on Bold Street and an online store, loves the road’s unique atmosphere.

“It’s like a quirky village high street, I think.

“It’s unusual because it has a high street feel which is dominated by independent retailers rather than multiples.

“If you into any of the other large northern cities, nowhere else has got anything similar. Manchester is all fashionable multiples, the same in Leeds.

“We’ve noticed a trend of people from Manchester coming here and they comment on how cool they think Bold Street is because Manchester is all spread out and they don’t have the mix of independents we’ve got here concentrated in one street.”

When Rob Webb was looking for premises for his new hair salon in the mid-90s, the Rope Walks area of Liverpool was still suffering from a post-depression hangover.

This was before the regeneration scheme that saw the nearby warehouses converted into bars, restaurants and luxury apartments.

“Twelve years ago, the top end of Bold Street was almost derelict. Bold Street’s always been an amazing street but unfortunately through the 70s and mid-80s it went downhill.

Once there were 13 furriers on this road,” he says.

“Originally there was so little here, so it took us a couple of years to build up.”

The area’s popularity with students was one thing that attracted Rob, as well as the lower rents which meant independent retailers could afford to set up shop.

“We certainly couldn’t have afforded Church Street,” he points out.

“And as 70% of our client base is students we’re in the perfect place because they have to walk down past the salon to come into town . It was cost as well.

“Our stylists are in Heaven here because if you work in a normal salon you might do a mad colour once a week, here it’s every single client. It’s cutting edge really.”

A more recent arrival to Bold Street is the Italian Club, run by Rosaria Crolla, who moved to Liverpool from Glasgow two years ago to set up Il Forno restaurant on Duke Street.

Seeing that the area had little to offer in the way of traditional Italian cuisine, she decided to open a cafe/delicatessen on the street. It was launched in March.

“I lived in the west end of Glasgow, which has a very bohemian eclectic feel. I was trying to think what was the equivalent here in Liverpool that was attracting similar sorts of people and Bold Street was always a street that fascinated me,” she explains.