Liverpool's Georgian heritage living on the eve of destruction

Jan 29 2008 by Peter Elson, Liverpool Daily Post

Liverpool’s Georgian heritage is being shamefully squandered, claims one outspoken critic. Peter Elson goes walkabout with campaigner Wayne Colquhoun

WALKING up Mount Pleasant, in Liverpool, is a lesson in how to create a city of truly civilised appeal and beauty.

The only problem is that all the good bits supporting this view largely date from 200 years ago.

As you descend from the top of this important thoroughfare in the city’s history, the story literally goes downhill from there.

That is the view of Wayne Colquhoun, founder of the Liverpool Preservation Trust, dedicated, against almost insuperable odds, to protecting what he believes is the city’s essence.

The greatest threat is to Liverpool’s Georgian building stock, of which the city once boasted it had more than Bath, the great 18th-century spa town.

The English Heritage listed landmark city churches of St Luke’s, Berry Street, and St Andrew’s, (pictured), Rodney Street, are at risk.

Likewise are 10 Georgian buildings in Seel Street, seven in Duke Street, six in Dale Street and four in Great George Square.

The Liverpool Preservation Trust was formed in 2005 after long discussions with the late Prof Quentin Hughes, doyen of the city’s architectural historians, just before his death.

Prof Hughes wrote Seaport, his seminal Liverpool architectural history, in the mid-1960s, when the city was starting major redevelopment.

Prof Hughes called for Liverpool’s outstanding Victoriana to be preserved, a cry largely unheeded. However, his last great gesture to his home city was lobbying successfully for World Heritage Site status.

This citation recognises Liverpool’s mercantile buildings as making it one of the most globally significant places on earth.

Incredibly, the city appears to regard this supreme accolade as a hindrance.

One leading business organisation has even called for its repeal.

“Prof Hughes and I agreed that Liverpool was heading for an architectural disaster,” says Wayne.

“This was of a magnitude worse than the Blitz, which destroyed some of our finest architecture. We’re set to become ‘European Capital of Dereliction’ in 2008.

“We’ve lost at least 36 listed buildings in Liverpool during the 10-year era of the Liberal Democrats controlling the city council.

“What is taking place is a degeneration of one of our key assets, the architectural stock that gives Liverpool its unique character.

“This does not include a list of more than 100 properties in a state of very bad deterioration in the city centre and its environs alone.

“A key Georgian warehouse, the Casartelli Building, in Duke Street, had to be demolished and replicated because 20 previous schemes in 20 years failed and it was finally branded unsavable.

“Now we have a further 100 Casartellis waiting to happen. Our city’s history is far richer than many continental ones and yet we’re far more reckless. This wouldn’t be allowed elsewhere in Europe.

“The council seems to want to reward knocking down Georgian buildings to let the owners grab land for new buildings.

“What we get are buildings more suited to Milton Keynes new town than the Liverpool designated by Unesco as an historic mercantile and maritime city worthy of being a World Heritage Site.”

peter.elson@dailypost.co.uk

We owe it to the past to protect and cherish this building >>>