ess059 higson's brewery
everysinglestreet

#everysinglestreet [06/12/20] Cains Brewery and not quite all the roads south off Sefton Street

Graham Holland     

Stats

  • Sunday 6th December 2020
  • 22 streets – Brassey Street, Brindley Street, Carmarthen Crescent, Coburg Wharf, Columbus Quay, Crow Street, Fisher Street, Grafton Crescent, Granary Way, Navigation Wharf, Northumberland Grove, Oakham Street, Perry Street, Plaza Boulevard, Pleasant Hill Street, Providence Crescent, Royden Way, Sefton Street, South Ferry Quay, Stanhope Street, Star Street, The Anchorage.
  • Total: 2,104 (37.42%)
  • Remaining: 3,519

Notes

My plan was to run all of the streets south off Sefton Street. But you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men…

The first problem was I found myself on Atlantic Way, the path that runs alongside the river, unable to get to the roads I wanted to run (Summers Road, Tower Street, Harrington Road) because of a rather large, metal fence. It wasn’t until I got the end of Sefton Street I was able to leave Atlantic Way with a new plan of running the missing roads on the way back. Unfortunately on a Sunday morning they were all closed which means I’ll have to return some time in the future during the day.

I started at Brewery Village, situated on the site of Cains Brewery. The Victorians really knew how to build with red bricks! It opened in 1850 as Daniel Higson Brewery which bought out Cains Brewery in 1923. Higsons was bought by Boddingtons of Manchester in 1985, which itself was bought by Whitbread in 1990 which led to the closure of the brewery the same year. The brewery was reopened in 1991 by GB Breweries who resurrected the Cains brand. After another merger (1991) and buy out (2002) it finally closed in 2013 with £8m worth of debt.

Since then the site has been redeveloped as Brewery Village, with small outlets taking over parts of the building, including Baltic Market opposite the main entrance on Stanhope Street. I took a photo of Ryde, the cycle repair shop and cafe where the Princes parkrun team head to after each Saturday morning parkrun. The Latin motto above the main entrance reads ‘pacem amo’ – I love peace.

The large, yellow building called The Keel is residential now, but was originally built for HMRC.

Down by the river there’s a statue of John Hulley (1832-1875), Liverpool’s first Olympian. I saw my all time favourite UK road sign – HEAVY PLANT CROSSING.

What’s the little bird with the white front? It came up really close until it realised my open hand didn’t hold any food…!

Chung Ku Chinese restaurant on Columbus Quay has a front like the bow of a ship. I remember back in 2004 the three directors were found guilty of immigration offences. I think it’s in different hands now.

I’m not sure why Columbus Quay is named as it is, as I don’t think there’s any connection with Liverpool.

In the cliff face across the other side of Sefton Street from Columbus Quay is the (now bricked up) tunnel entrance for the southern extension of the Liverpool Overhead Railway. It was opened in 1896 and extended the railway to a new underground terminus station at Dingle. In 1901 there was a fire that killed 6 people and closed the station for a year. The station finally closed when the railway closed on 30th December 1956.

The original Brunswick Station was opened in 1864 and closed only ten years later. The current station opened in 1998 and serves the Merseyrail network.

Merseytravel are trialing a new e-scooter hire scheme. Booked, paid for and unlocked via an app, the scooters can travel at up to 10 mph but are automatically restricted to 5 mph in areas of high footfall. They cost £1 to unlock, plus 20p per minute. As I was sat in my car at the end of the run I saw a man in a van swapping over a battery.

Each of the flats in the apartments on Navigation Wharf has its own water stop-cock in the pavement outside. The only problem is there’s no way of knowing which stop-cock is for which apartment…

On the narrow, one way Perry Street there’s a building that’s been made to look like a Chinese temple, but is actually the Dragon Theatre. It was originally built as a yoga studio but was bought by Wray Bros who own the building next door and is used as a photo studio.

Pleasant Hill Street is a street on a hill but it’s not all that pleasant.

And the message of the day in graffiti – anarchy is order.

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