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everysinglestreet

#everysinglestreet [17/12/20] The last of the roads off Lodge Lane, plus Granby Four Streets

Graham Holland    

Stats

  • Thursday 17th December 2020
  • 27 streets – Alt Street, Arundel Close, Asbridge Street, Back Windsor View, Beaconsfield Street, Brahms Close, Britten Close, Cairns Street, Coltart Road, Ducie Street, Greenheys Road, Grierson Street, Jermyn Street, Maitland Close, Maitland Street, Mozart Close, Ritson Street, Seacole Close, Seaport Street, Solway Street, Solway Street Wast, Solway Street West, Strauss Close, Tagus Close, Tagus Street, Thames Street, Windsor View
  • Total: 2,212 (39.34%)
  • Remaining: 3,411

Notes

I ran all of the roads east off Lodge Lane back on 23rd July so I thought this morning was as good a time as any to complete the last of the roads west off Lodge Lane.

There are some new houses at the end of Alt Street that look really smart. The church half way down has been converted into apartments.

Solway Street was originally one road, until it was blocked off half way. So they renamed one half Solway Street East and the other half Solway Street West. At one end rather than making a new road sign they just stuck ‘WEST’ under the old one!

The Newsagent Convenience Store has a sign above the door ‘NOW OPEN’. It was closed.

The Grosvenor Hotel on Lodge Lane is now a Middle Eastern restaurant.

Coltart Road has Handel Court at one end, and closes along the length named after composers – Britten, Strauss, Brahms and Mozart.

The building on the corner of Fern Grove and Lodge Lane has a spire with a cross at the top. I wonder what it used to be.

At the junction of Sefton Park Road and Croxteth Road there’s a block of flats. This used to be one of those old, jaded, unloved blocks that nobody wanted to live in. Then a few years back it got redeveloped and now the flats are apartments and there are penthouses at the top.

Princes Boulevard is a Victorian avenue in the traditional sense of avenue with two lines of trees along the length. Curiously (and not known by many people) one carriageway (the straight one) is Princes Road, the other (the one that separates from Princes Road) is Princes Avenue. This area just been totally redeveloped with the addition of cycle paths down one side and a foot path along the other. It all looks very nice.

Princes Avenue and Kingsley Road meet at a point, forming a triangle with Granby Street cutting down the middle. The four roads of Victorian terraced houses here are known as Granby Four Streets. This is the location of the first Homes for a Pound scheme that saw Liverpool City Council selling empty, dilapidated houses for just £1 on the conditions that the buyer is a first time buyer in paid employment and living or working in Liverpool. They also had to complete the renovation to Decent Homes Standards within 12 months of purchase, then live in the property for a minimum of 5 years. As you can imagine, this scheme was a huge success and so oversubscribed that it was extended to other parts of the city. Since 2014 the Council have used this scheme to bring 1500 empty homes back into use. In 2018 they established a new housing company with the aim of building or refurbishing a further 10,000 homes over the next 10 to 15 years.

The corner of Cairns and Granby is the focus of an arts project run by Granby Four Streets CLT (Community Land Trust). The CLT also runs Granby Street Market and oversees Granby Planting, the project to ‘green’ the area by introducing planters along the streets and encouraging residents to plant trees and plants.

Granby Street used to be infamous as the centre of Toxteth and the riots of 1981. It was a rough place that people from the suburbs didn’t visit. It took decades to recover from the riots and the fallout.

Helen and Richard who for many years ran the weekly Liverpool Singaround Folk Club upstairs at the Ship and Mitre on Dale Street live on Jermyn Street.

I finished off at Princes Park Methodist Church with its controversial ‘Black Jesus’ statue by local sculptor Arthur Dooley.

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