A shortish walk on an ordinary day, except there are no ordinary days. So even though it’s grey, a good opportunity to take some photographs of a bit of our city on a Monday in late July 2016.
From the Lodge Lane crossroads, walking along here.
Yes, this is Falkner Street, though not as you probably know it.
From the long gone days when Georgian Liverpool stretched all the way out to here.
But we’re not going along there.
But across this little park.
Where the railway first entered Liverpool.
Out the other side to some Georgian houses that did survive.
Lovely Smithdown Lane.
Further along…
The Williamson Tunnels.
A story for another day? Closed on Mondays.
This place is full of ancient walls.
Railway walls?
And new pieces of University.
Watched over by the Cathedral.
And the new hospital being built.
Fenced off land for whatever the University decides to do next.
An ancient lock up?
Looks much like the lock up on the top of Everton Brow.
The new hospital grows a little each time I pass.
Next, welcome to the Hall Lane Gateway Scheme.
Effectively where the M62 enters Liverpool.
As planned long ago in the Shankland Plan.
That takes able bodied me a good while to cross, harried by frustrated drivers.
So glad it’s got its own plaque in the pavement.
Nearly at Kensington now.
Where all is quiet.
And all is still. Eerily so.
At first I think it’s mainly the absence of the traffic that used to permanently jam up along here.
Then I realise it’s at least as much the absence of people.
I’m early for what I’ve come to Kensington for, so I take a walk around the streets.
The Streets of Kenny.
And when I get to where I’m going I ask my friend Sue why it’s so quiet compared to the always busy neighbourhood I remember around here.
“It’s the students. They’ve all finished now for the summer and gone home. A good half of the houses round here are student houses now. And as soon as anyone moves out the developers move in, rip the insides out of the houses and turn them into half a dozen student flats for people who aren’t here half the time.
The students are no trouble but they’re not part of the community either. They work them hard these days so they just come back to here to sleep, in the sleepy streets of Kensington, who’d have thought it!”
I’m on my way to here.
And I’ll be telling you why, someday soon.
Nostalgia, again for me Ronnie. Thank you!
Ronnie, the structure you wonder about being a lock-up looks to me more like a railway tunnel ventilation shaft. the stonework is a bit too regular to be old enough for a lock-up. But I could be wrong: you know Liverpool better than me!
” An ancient lock up? ” is also a capped tunnel ventilation chimney
Hi John and Robert, you know railways better than me! There’s one of these in the Dingle as well. When were they capped and did the taller ventilation shafts, like the one in the little park at Crown Street, replace them?
The two ventilation shafts are on different lines. The taller one on the Wapping tunnel & the capped one on the tunnel which emerges near Waterloo Dock (Waterloo Victoria tunnel). Can’t find any information on when it was capped but looking through internet sources I would suggest it was about twice its current height when constructed.
For anyone who is interested in what’s under your feet around there , old piece from YoLiverpool :
http://www.yoliverpool.com/forum/showthread.php?4176-Liverpool-s-Railway-Development &
http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/l/liverpool_crown_street/
Thanks John, Was wondering why it was so short.