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everysinglestreet

#everysinglestreet [27/01/21] The ghost of Netherley Comp

Graham Holland  

Stats

  • Wednesday 27th January 2021
  • 29 streets – Ashwood Close, Bamboo Close, Bramblewood Close, Bramley Close, Brownbill Bank, Clematis Close, Clematis Road, Cloudberry Close, Crabtree Close, Cranberry Close, Crispin Road, Damson Road, Dignum Mead, Erica Park, Evergreen Close, Garden Lodge Grove, Gateside Close, Laurus Close, Linden Road, Lydieth Lea, Maplewood Close, Middlemass Hey, Netherley Road, Ontario Close, Pinewood Close, Rosewood Drive, Rosewood Close, Russet Close, Sullington Drive.
  • Total: 2,656 (47.08%)
  • Remaining: 2,986

Notes

I’m loving the ‘night mode’ on my new iPhone. The ability to capture photos in very low light is really impressive. Take a look at the photo of the 79 bus on Childwall Valley Road!

This morning I did another chunk of Netherley. I’d hoped to have done all of the roads off Caldway Drive but I ran out of time.

Netherley was built in 1968 to house families relocated from sub-standard housing in the city centre. Like neighbouring Lee Park, the new estate had houses, maisonettes and tower blocks of flats. The maisonettes and flats have since been demolished, but much of the original housing still exists.

Situated on Childwall Valley Road and serving Netherley and Belle Vale, Netherley Comprehensive School was built in 1970. Netherley Comp and Gateacre Comp (my school) were bitter rivals and there were regular after-school fights, normally on the waste ground next to Belle Vale Shopping Centre. The early 90s name change to Lee Manor High School wasn’t enough to save it as it haemorrhaged students to other schools, and it eventually closed in 2000.

The school’s main hall is now the home of by Lee Valley Community Theatre, but the rest of the site, apart from the sports hall (which is now an empty shell) was bulldozed.

Norman Pannell Primary School is named after a former Liverpool Conservative MP from 1955 to 1964. After losing his seat he was re-elected to Liverpool City Council in 1967 where he became Chair of the Education Committee.

The Falcon pub on Caldway Drive is now a Mixed Martial Arts centre, although the pub sign is still there.

There are a number of roads named after trees, including three apple varieties.

Even though I’ve not run the entire length of Garden Lodge Grove the CityStrides website has recorded it as completed because I’ve visited all of the ‘nodes’ that make up the road on OpenStreetMap. I’ll still be running the rest of it though.

St Gregory’s Church is now the Netherley Youth and Community Initiative Centre.

Some of the 1960s houses are just plain ugly. Pebbledashed boxes with pebbledashed structures at the front (for the bins) obscuring the front door. The front windows are tiny too. One house owner had tarted up the front to make it look half decent, but the majority remain untouched.

For some unknown reason one section of Crabtree Close was built with the back garden facing the road, and the front of the house facing the wall at the end of the gardens of the houses behind. The entrances are accessible via a pedestrian-only street (basically a sidewalk). Why? What was the thinking behind this? What are the houses hiding from?

There’s a door to a back garden with ‘VANDAL GREASE – KEEP OUT’ painted on it, with an arrow pointing to the top of the wall. I’ve decided that Vandal Grease should be my 1970s punk rocker name.

Photos on Facebook

All of the photos from this run are in a publically viewable Facebook album.

To view them click here.

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