ess065 the hod carrier statue
everysinglestreet

#everysinglestreet [20/12/20] All the roads off St Anne Street

Graham Holland    

Stats

  • Sunday 20th December 2020
  • 66 streets – Canterbury Street, Richmond Row, Ashburnham Way, Beau Street, Beresford Street, Bickerstaffe Street, Bidder Street, Birchfield Street, Birkett Street, Bute Street, Canterbury Way, Carver Street, Cazneau Street, Chase Way, Christian Street, Clifton Grove, Comus Street, Dentdale Drive, Douro Street, Drinkwater Gardens, Ebor Lane, Everton Brow, Field Street, Fox Street, Gerrard Street, Great Nelso Street, Great Richmond Street, Haigh Street, Harker Street, Illiad Street, Jenkinson Street, John Street, Juvenal Place, Langsdale Street, Mansfield Street, Maritime Place, Netherfield Road South, Page Walk Peover Street, Pritt Street, Queen Anne Street, Roderick Street, Rokeby Close, Rokeby Street, Rose Hill, Rose Place, Rothsay Close, St Josephs Crescent, Salisbury Street, Sim Street, Soho Place, Soho Street, Springfield, Strada Way, Tom Mann Close, Upper Bute Street, Wakefield Street, Watmough Street, William Henry Street, Yeoman Close, Saint Ambrose Way, Richard Allen Way, Islington Square, Clegg Street, Upper Beau Street, New Islington
  • Total: 2,272 (40.41%)
  • Remaining: 3,351

Notes

I started off on Langdale Street next to St Francis Xavier’s RC Church. This Grade II listed building was founded, and is staffed by, the Jesuit order. The former primary and secondary schools, and the Jesuit college buildings were left derelict when they closed in the early 1980s until they were taken over by Liverpool Hope University when they created their Creative Campus on the site. Famous alumni of the SFX school was a certain Charlie Chaplin.

Everton Brow sounds like a Scouse beauty treatment…

Saint Ambrose Way and Richard Allen Way are pedestrian streets. There are other pedestrian streets running off Salisbury Street and Field Street.

Great Nelson Street crosses the Kingsway Tunnel slip road. It’s the only way to reach the land that’s totally enclosed by the circular tunnel road and Scotland Road.

When I was a kid and the family would travel home from visiting my Granny on the Wirral we would use the Kingsway Tunnel. The slip road curves round a very tight bend (30 mph maximum speed!) and brings you out onto Scotland Road heading towards town. Once we’d crossed over the slip road we used to turn left onto Juvenal Street, then right onto St Anne Street. Some years back the Council decided they didn’t want this as a rat run so blocked off the Scotland Road end. It’s strange re-visiting this junction on foot decades later.

The name Rose Place promises so much but delivers so little.

Liverpool Philharmonic at The Friary is The Phil’s rehearsal and recording studio. It used to be St Mary of the Angel’s Church, as you can see from the carving above the front door.

There’s a quaint, tiled sign on the side of Great Richmond Street Dwellings.

At the top of Hunter Street near the junction with St Anne Street there’s a statue of a hod carrier. It was built by UCATT – Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians (merged with Unite in 2017) – and is dedicated to all those who have lost their lives or have been injured in the construction industry.

The plinth at the back of the statue is dedicated to the residents of Gerrard Gardens, a large collection of tenement blocks that were built in the 1930s to replace unsanitary, overcrowded slums and court housing. They had the luxury of indoor bathrooms, hot and cold running water, electricity and gas! However, like many of these developments, they became run down and were eventually demolished in 1987.

I ran down Hunter Street to the junction with Byrom Street and back. Even now it’s really strange seeing open sky where the Churchill Way flyovers used to be.

I never realised until I looked at the map that Islington is the original road into and out of town, and that when it was turned into a duel carriageway Islington became one way heading into town and the new road heading out of town was named New Islington.

Wilton Street is an oddity. The sign for it still exists on the side of the building at the junction of Soho Street but the street no longer exists. Wilton Street ran from St Anne Street to Soho Street but was demolished at some point in the past, possibly to make way for the building of New Islington. Now it’s just a footpath. The same applies to Trinity Way that used to run down the other end of the building. Neither of these are officially roads any more, but I just had to run them anyway!

There’s a Victorian, red-bricked building just along the St Anne Street from the new fire station. There’s nothing to show what it used to be – maybe a police station?

I found another ‘lost’ street. Entrance to Pritt Street is blocked by a gate which, as luck would have it, was left open. I went down to the end, turned right and discovered Drinkwater Gardens which runs behind an abandoned building and is blocked off at the end. How many more lost or hidden streets are out there? Drinkwater Gardens was originally the location of back-to-back slum houses with Fletcher Gardens (which no longer exists) the other side.

There used to be a row of terraced properties on Richmond Row. All the houses in the row have since been demolished although for some reason they left standing the two buildings at either end.

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