Not Grim Up North: a Trip Report from North England, Northern Ireland (and Ireland)
Oct 28th, 2007, 08:16 PM
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Liverpool Part Three
Before we get out to the suburbs I have to mention an unheralded attraction in Liverpool. The home and studio of Liverpool photographer Edward
Chambre Hardman has been opened by the National Trust, and it is absolutely fascinating.
Liverpool has the best, and best-preserved, Georgian terraces outside of London. The most famous of these streets is Rodney Street, which was
laid out in the 1780s and built up between then and 1820. There are over 60 listed buildings in the street, which is known as Liverpool's
Harley Street, for the number of doctors who practiced here.
Most of the fine three-story brick buildings have beautiful doors set in columns, with fan lights overhead, reminiscent of the famous Georgian
squares of Dublin.
A few doors from the house William Gladstone, Liberal Prime Minister in the latter part of the 19th century, was the house where Edward
Hardman and his wife, Margaret, lived for forty years, until his death in 1988. The house is now owned by the National Trust, and is open to
guided tours, starting every few hours from the back garden office.
What makes the Hardman house interesting not just to photographers but to anyone interested in British life in this century is the level of
preservation. The Hardmans lived and worked here, and they quite literally never threw anything out.
After Margaret died in 1970, Edward declined over a number of years, and social services was on the point of putting him into a home and
throwing everything away when another photographer and friend of the Hardmans, who recognized how special the collection was, successfully
intervened and saved the contents.
When I say they never threw anything out, I mean NOT ANYTHING. When the house was restored, they were able to exactly match the paint and wall
coverings because all of the correspondence and samples from the painters were there. In the kitchen cupboards were wartime-era cans of
vegetables and fruits -- one exploded in a conservationist's hands as he removed it! Everything was there -- sauce bottles from before WWII,
unopened fifty-ear-old beer and liquor bottles, hundreds of empty egg cartons, thousands of magazines, millions of receipts and notes and
scraps of junk mail. All of Margaret's clothes and hats and perfumes were there, untouched. The living quarters were filled to the ceiling
with the detritus of forty years of living. The Hardmans lived very simply, despite his position as Liverpool's top society photographer, and
their very modest furniture and kitchen fittings today look exactly as they did in 1948 when they moved in. There are almost no concessions to
modernity.
When the National Trust came in, every item in the house was photographed, cataloged, and removed so that the house could be cleaned,
repaired, repainted and restored, and then it was all put back in, laid out as if the Hardmans had just stepped out. Their bicycles are in the
hall, and his glasses are on the sideboard. As a museum of life and its artifacts from the 1950s, it is fantastic to see, even if you don't
care about the pictures.
But the pictures are fantastic as well. There are a HUNDRED AND FORTY THOUSAND of them! The cataloging job, which has been going on since his
death, is not yet complete, but it is one of the finest archives ever discovered. And to think it was all barely rescued from the landfill!
In addition to his portrait photography, which paid the bills, Hardman and his wife both were outstanding and prolific landscape
photographers. Seeing them cycling around Lancashire with a large-format Graflex was a common occurrence, and they also went further afield in
their car, to all parts of England, Scotland and Wales. His most famous pictures, though, are of Liverpool: the docks, the harbor, the city
streets, showing the power and devastation of war, and then the long, slow decline of his once-great city. Perhaps his most famous image is "The Birth of the Ark Royal", showing a stark white navy ship being built at Cammell Laird shipyards in Birkenhead in the background, as a small boy trundles down the steep hillside of Holt Hill in front. You can see the picture here: http://www.bwpics.co.uk/gallery/arkroyal.html, and a wider selection of his work at http://www.mersey-gateway.org/chambrehardman/ -- the site is difficult to navigate, but click on "Hardman's Work" on the left, and then dig down under "Find out More" on the right. Another famous picture, "Museum Steps" is at http://tinyurl.com/33rxcs .
His entire business and personal operation was contained within the house. The portrait studio is still laid out with his cameras and his lighting setup, mostly homemade and rather dangerous-looking. The work darkroom, where an assistant developed the glass plates in a room next to, dare I say it, the bathtub under the coal scuttle -- yes, they kept their coal in the bath! Another darkroom upstairs was where the developed plates where made into prints, and where Hardman and his wife did their own personal work after hours. They appear to have spent almost their entire waking life pursuing this mixed career and hobby. This latter darkroom is still laid out with Mr. H's personal effects. Another room is the office, still filled to the brim with order books, wrapping paper, cartons of photographic paper and chemicals, and the usual detritus of the not-very-modern office. Anyone who has worked in an office before the computers took over the desks will no doubt gasp hundreds of time in recognition.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the house is the large and devoted staff. There's a separate person for each room, eight of them in total I think, and they are all (I think) volunteers, and most wear the blue badge of the Guild of Registered Tourist Guides, and on the day of our visit they were without exception impeccably knowledgable and pleasant.
I honestly can't think of any tourist site I've ever enjoyed more, and if you find yourself in Liverpool with a couple of hours to spare, go. Booking ahead is recommended, though we were able to get on a tour -- the only ones -- simply by turning up and booking for the next one starting in 20 minutes. The place is not crowded, but it should be.
Next: Waterloo and New Brighton (this time I promise)
Before we get out to the suburbs I have to mention an unheralded attraction in Liverpool. The home and studio of Liverpool photographer Edward
Chambre Hardman has been opened by the National Trust, and it is absolutely fascinating.
Liverpool has the best, and best-preserved, Georgian terraces outside of London. The most famous of these streets is Rodney Street, which was
laid out in the 1780s and built up between then and 1820. There are over 60 listed buildings in the street, which is known as Liverpool's
Harley Street, for the number of doctors who practiced here.
Most of the fine three-story brick buildings have beautiful doors set in columns, with fan lights overhead, reminiscent of the famous Georgian
squares of Dublin.
A few doors from the house William Gladstone, Liberal Prime Minister in the latter part of the 19th century, was the house where Edward
Hardman and his wife, Margaret, lived for forty years, until his death in 1988. The house is now owned by the National Trust, and is open to
guided tours, starting every few hours from the back garden office.
What makes the Hardman house interesting not just to photographers but to anyone interested in British life in this century is the level of
preservation. The Hardmans lived and worked here, and they quite literally never threw anything out.
After Margaret died in 1970, Edward declined over a number of years, and social services was on the point of putting him into a home and
throwing everything away when another photographer and friend of the Hardmans, who recognized how special the collection was, successfully
intervened and saved the contents.
When I say they never threw anything out, I mean NOT ANYTHING. When the house was restored, they were able to exactly match the paint and wall
coverings because all of the correspondence and samples from the painters were there. In the kitchen cupboards were wartime-era cans of
vegetables and fruits -- one exploded in a conservationist's hands as he removed it! Everything was there -- sauce bottles from before WWII,
unopened fifty-ear-old beer and liquor bottles, hundreds of empty egg cartons, thousands of magazines, millions of receipts and notes and
scraps of junk mail. All of Margaret's clothes and hats and perfumes were there, untouched. The living quarters were filled to the ceiling
with the detritus of forty years of living. The Hardmans lived very simply, despite his position as Liverpool's top society photographer, and
their very modest furniture and kitchen fittings today look exactly as they did in 1948 when they moved in. There are almost no concessions to
modernity.
When the National Trust came in, every item in the house was photographed, cataloged, and removed so that the house could be cleaned,
repaired, repainted and restored, and then it was all put back in, laid out as if the Hardmans had just stepped out. Their bicycles are in the
hall, and his glasses are on the sideboard. As a museum of life and its artifacts from the 1950s, it is fantastic to see, even if you don't
care about the pictures.
But the pictures are fantastic as well. There are a HUNDRED AND FORTY THOUSAND of them! The cataloging job, which has been going on since his
death, is not yet complete, but it is one of the finest archives ever discovered. And to think it was all barely rescued from the landfill!
In addition to his portrait photography, which paid the bills, Hardman and his wife both were outstanding and prolific landscape
photographers. Seeing them cycling around Lancashire with a large-format Graflex was a common occurrence, and they also went further afield in
their car, to all parts of England, Scotland and Wales. His most famous pictures, though, are of Liverpool: the docks, the harbor, the city
streets, showing the power and devastation of war, and then the long, slow decline of his once-great city. Perhaps his most famous image is "The Birth of the Ark Royal", showing a stark white navy ship being built at Cammell Laird shipyards in Birkenhead in the background, as a small boy trundles down the steep hillside of Holt Hill in front. You can see the picture here: http://www.bwpics.co.uk/gallery/arkroyal.html, and a wider selection of his work at http://www.mersey-gateway.org/chambrehardman/ -- the site is difficult to navigate, but click on "Hardman's Work" on the left, and then dig down under "Find out More" on the right. Another famous picture, "Museum Steps" is at http://tinyurl.com/33rxcs .
His entire business and personal operation was contained within the house. The portrait studio is still laid out with his cameras and his lighting setup, mostly homemade and rather dangerous-looking. The work darkroom, where an assistant developed the glass plates in a room next to, dare I say it, the bathtub under the coal scuttle -- yes, they kept their coal in the bath! Another darkroom upstairs was where the developed plates where made into prints, and where Hardman and his wife did their own personal work after hours. They appear to have spent almost their entire waking life pursuing this mixed career and hobby. This latter darkroom is still laid out with Mr. H's personal effects. Another room is the office, still filled to the brim with order books, wrapping paper, cartons of photographic paper and chemicals, and the usual detritus of the not-very-modern office. Anyone who has worked in an office before the computers took over the desks will no doubt gasp hundreds of time in recognition.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the house is the large and devoted staff. There's a separate person for each room, eight of them in total I think, and they are all (I think) volunteers, and most wear the blue badge of the Guild of Registered Tourist Guides, and on the day of our visit they were without exception impeccably knowledgable and pleasant.
I honestly can't think of any tourist site I've ever enjoyed more, and if you find yourself in Liverpool with a couple of hours to spare, go. Booking ahead is recommended, though we were able to get on a tour -- the only ones -- simply by turning up and booking for the next one starting in 20 minutes. The place is not crowded, but it should be.
Next: Waterloo and New Brighton (this time I promise)
Oct 28th, 2007, 09:37 PM
#104
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Loving this, although it has made me a tiny bit homesick.
I'm flying into Leeds/Bradford on Tuesday for 10 days. To get short layovers I had to book to fly via Amsterdam.
I wish I had time to sightsee - I might visit York on a daytrip with my Mum but I expect to spend most of my time within hospital walls
I'm looking forward to your Belfast report - one place I haven't been but would love to visit the City Hall and see the Magennis Memorial.
I'm flying into Leeds/Bradford on Tuesday for 10 days. To get short layovers I had to book to fly via Amsterdam.
I wish I had time to sightsee - I might visit York on a daytrip with my Mum but I expect to spend most of my time within hospital walls
I'm looking forward to your Belfast report - one place I haven't been but would love to visit the City Hall and see the Magennis Memorial.
Oct 28th, 2007, 10:42 PM
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What an extraordinary coincidence. BBC4 showed a documentary about Hardman (narrated by the great, late, John Peel) about two days ago.
Infuriatingly, BTW, his house needs to be prebooked, has quite short opening times and is closed from about October to March.
Anyone attracted to the house by fnarf's trerrific plug really should spend a bit more time in the area around Rodney St. The amazing necropolis under the Anglican cathedral looks as if it was built as a stage set for a vampire film (carry on till you find the mausoleum built for Huskisson, who got himself killed by the first Liverpool-Manchester train). And the city's Chinatown, though titchy, is a British oddity in serving mainly Shanghainese food. Its successors elsewhere, as in London, are essentially Cantonese, and it's surprisingly difficult to find Shanghai cuisine anywhere else.
Infuriatingly, BTW, his house needs to be prebooked, has quite short opening times and is closed from about October to March.
Anyone attracted to the house by fnarf's trerrific plug really should spend a bit more time in the area around Rodney St. The amazing necropolis under the Anglican cathedral looks as if it was built as a stage set for a vampire film (carry on till you find the mausoleum built for Huskisson, who got himself killed by the first Liverpool-Manchester train). And the city's Chinatown, though titchy, is a British oddity in serving mainly Shanghainese food. Its successors elsewhere, as in London, are essentially Cantonese, and it's surprisingly difficult to find Shanghai cuisine anywhere else.
Oct 29th, 2007, 09:08 AM
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Funny you should mention it, Flanner, because we did all of those things, including the Huskisson memorial, which is an absurd monument, as it was designed to hold a statue of him inside, but that statue is now buried somewhere in the warehouse at the National Railway Museum in York, where you can see it on one of the racks. The memorial is now just an empty room you can see faintly through the iron bars meant to keep the scallies out (with mixed success).
You are also right about the cemetery -- it is the Gothest place imaginable. I'm surprised that it's not full of kids in white makeup, black eyeliner, and pineapple hair. It was in the eighties, when the black eyeliner was applied to my darling wife. We were able to recreate some of her gloomy photos in the tunnel (minus the extra-moody snow).
The arch in Chinatown, which is, like every other Chinatown arch I've ever seen, labeled "the largest Chinatown arch in the world", is entirely wrapped in plastic and scaffolding like Christo piece. It's being repaired. But the area is one of my favorite in Liverpool, one of the places that hasn't been restored to death yet.
Stupidly, we did not eat here, but in Lark Lane, a supposedly up-and-coming trendy area well to the south of the city center, near Sefton Park. I have to say that Manchester does "up-and-coming trendy" better than Liverpool if this is anything to go by. One decent pub (the Albert), sadly full of shouters, and a string of restaurants ranging from half-decent to abysmal, does not quite match up to Canal Street or the Northern Quarter. Maybe there aren't enough gays.
Our restaurant choice was, unforgiveably, The Worst Chinese Restaurant In The World, the kind of old-school place where you can get chips with your Chinese instead of rice, and where every plate has a gallon of sauce thick with corn starch. I haven't had a worse Chinese since I actually ordered food at the late, unlamented Jade Pagoda in Seattle, former holder of the WCRITW title.
Back in Chinatown, you definitely should see the huge Banksy graffito on the boarded-up Whitehouse pub on Berry Street. It's giant rat holding a pen (or rather, formerly holding a pen, the pen has been stolen by scallies), looking up in mid-apprehension after having marked a big red line all over the side of the building. Quite witty, and enough of a landmark now to maintain the abandoned building in its falling-down condition for quite some time -- the graffito is worth considerably more than the building is!
This brief interlude is not a proper Liverpool chapter, the next of which will be appearing shortly.
You are also right about the cemetery -- it is the Gothest place imaginable. I'm surprised that it's not full of kids in white makeup, black eyeliner, and pineapple hair. It was in the eighties, when the black eyeliner was applied to my darling wife. We were able to recreate some of her gloomy photos in the tunnel (minus the extra-moody snow).
The arch in Chinatown, which is, like every other Chinatown arch I've ever seen, labeled "the largest Chinatown arch in the world", is entirely wrapped in plastic and scaffolding like Christo piece. It's being repaired. But the area is one of my favorite in Liverpool, one of the places that hasn't been restored to death yet.
Stupidly, we did not eat here, but in Lark Lane, a supposedly up-and-coming trendy area well to the south of the city center, near Sefton Park. I have to say that Manchester does "up-and-coming trendy" better than Liverpool if this is anything to go by. One decent pub (the Albert), sadly full of shouters, and a string of restaurants ranging from half-decent to abysmal, does not quite match up to Canal Street or the Northern Quarter. Maybe there aren't enough gays.
Our restaurant choice was, unforgiveably, The Worst Chinese Restaurant In The World, the kind of old-school place where you can get chips with your Chinese instead of rice, and where every plate has a gallon of sauce thick with corn starch. I haven't had a worse Chinese since I actually ordered food at the late, unlamented Jade Pagoda in Seattle, former holder of the WCRITW title.
Back in Chinatown, you definitely should see the huge Banksy graffito on the boarded-up Whitehouse pub on Berry Street. It's giant rat holding a pen (or rather, formerly holding a pen, the pen has been stolen by scallies), looking up in mid-apprehension after having marked a big red line all over the side of the building. Quite witty, and enough of a landmark now to maintain the abandoned building in its falling-down condition for quite some time -- the graffito is worth considerably more than the building is!
This brief interlude is not a proper Liverpool chapter, the next of which will be appearing shortly.
Nov 15th, 2007, 12:52 AM
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alya:
I think there's some dreadful news coming.
fnarf's final episode was supposed to be about Waterloo and New Brighton. The Waterloo bit was probably going to be about the long beach than runs from the containerport almost as far as the North Pole. Currently spattered with Gorms: life size cast iron human statues, concreted into the beach and forever gazing out to sea.
Local legend is that writers about Merseydide who chicken out halfway throught the job get turned into Gorms. Sadly, fnarf's indolence since his last posting is just about long enough for the legend to kick in. Unless he posts within the next few days, he'll be doomed to spend the rest of eternity having dogs try to pee on him.
We know it's probably not happened yet, since fnarf's been sharing his expertise on Manhattan computer stores. But if I were him, I'd be very, very afraid.
I think there's some dreadful news coming.
fnarf's final episode was supposed to be about Waterloo and New Brighton. The Waterloo bit was probably going to be about the long beach than runs from the containerport almost as far as the North Pole. Currently spattered with Gorms: life size cast iron human statues, concreted into the beach and forever gazing out to sea.
Local legend is that writers about Merseydide who chicken out halfway throught the job get turned into Gorms. Sadly, fnarf's indolence since his last posting is just about long enough for the legend to kick in. Unless he posts within the next few days, he'll be doomed to spend the rest of eternity having dogs try to pee on him.
We know it's probably not happened yet, since fnarf's been sharing his expertise on Manhattan computer stores. But if I were him, I'd be very, very afraid.
Nov 16th, 2007, 08:51 AM
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Waterloo and New Brighton
Yes, I'm back with a new installment of "longest and most boring trip report ever"!
Today we visit not Abba's Waterloo, or Napoleon's. The Kinks' "Waterloo Sunset" will not be visible from here.
This Waterloo is Liverpool's first beach town. I don't think it's ever been a proper resort, but it's the closest place to the city with a proper beach, just north of Bootle and Seaforth and the dock system, far enough out into the mouth of the Mersey that it has a sandy strand which appears to go on forever. The shoreline is lined with the sort of pastel Victorian row that is familiar to anyone who has visited an English seaside, though these are lined up a LONG ways from the sea. Inland, Waterloo is a pleasant middle-class village gone slightly to seed.
You get there on Merseyrail, passing under the slums of North Liverpool, past the docks, past the excitement of Bootle with its standard-issue Soviet-style sixties towers in the center.
We came to see the Gormleys. Antony Gormley installed his artwork "Another Place" here in July 2005, and since then the 100 iron figures, each one nearly 1,500 pounds, modeled on the sculptor and looking out to sea, have received over a million visitors, plus dogs. Plans by the local Sefton council to remove them last year were scuppered and the statues apparently will be staying.
They were worth the visit. Spread out over two miles of the broad, hard-packed sand, some up to their chest in the water, with the new turbines of the Burbo Bank Wind Farm in the distance, and the Seaforth Container Terminal to the south, they are beautiful. Evocative of emigration, perhaps, from what was once the Empire's biggest emigration port, and of man's relation to the sea, they
cast long shadows in the setting sun, and have a fantastic patina of rust. People respond to them in a way that modern sculpture rarely achieves. I loved them, and we stayed out here for hours.
I couldn't tell you where "Waterloo Beach" ends and "Crosby Beach" starts, if indeed there is any difference at all, but we're definitely down at the Waterloo end, close enough to see the control tower for the port. There's a popular beach park with miles of paved paths, a couple of lakes and scrub grass between the strand and the road, with dog walkers and joggers, and a slamming wind. The lakes are sporting signs warning that allowing the water within them to come into contact with your skin will cause you to dissolve like the Wicked Witch of the West, or possibly just get an itch. But it's a lovely park.
Heading into the town, we went straight to the Volunteer Canteen, a small traditional pub. Despite the many and various glories of central Liverpool drinking establishments, this is my favorite pub in Merseyside and thus in Britain, and I was glad to see it again. It's nothing special as far as pubs go, which is precisely what makes it special. It's what you might call an "old man's pub", with NO MUSIC, pleasantly old-fashioned decor, and excellent beer. I could sit and read in the saloon bar all night if we didn't have places to go, while the public bar is a more boisterous room for people seeking loud cheery conversation.
We are here in Watlerloo this late for a reason. On the seedy but neighborly shopping street of St Johns Road lies a bit of a surprise for North Liverpool: one of the best Indian restaurants in the world. I don't know, maybe it's the best. The only one I've ever been in that comes close is Vij's, in Vancouver, BC.
Unlike almost all curry shops in Britain, this one is South Indian and Sri Lankan instead of Pakistani or Bangladeshi. That means Hindu, not Muslim, and instead of halal, they serve pork. And not just any pork; I had a Sri Lankan "black pork", which is cooked in spices roasted a dark coffee brown -- one of the best meals I have ever eaten. The lamb and chicken dishes going around our table were outstanding as well -- not just "spicy" as in hot, but delightfully aromatic and electric with bright, fresh flavors, not buried in an ocean of the usual glob (I say that as a great aficianado of glop). I can recommend the dhai bhalla dumplings and masala dosa starters as well; so much more interesting than the usual samosas. The prices are quite modest, too, for Britain. In a country where my US dollars turn a street kebab or curry takeaway into a meal costing more than a moderate sit-down restaurant in Seattle, this place was perhaps twice as much as that kebab, and considerably less than any number of mediocre "fancy" places in the center of Liverpool. It was comparable to most of the other Indian restaurants we visited in price, but the food was just outstanding.
I honestly doubt there's an Indian restaurant in London that can match it -- I KNOW there isn't one in New York. And it's tucked away in such a difficult-to-get-to place, a considerable walk from the rail station. Really, if I lived in England, even far from here, I'd be making special trips just for this, but then, I really love Indian food!
The owner or partner who greeted us, Neil Brown, turned out to have spent a great deal of time in an even harder-to-get-to part of our part of the world, Omak, Washington, in the Okanogan Valley, where he had something to do with something technical that I've forgotten. What a lovely, unexpected place this was! http://www.corianderdining.co.uk/
On the way home we stopped at our friend's house in Seaforth -- a modest terraced house with a sweet garden out back -- and watched enough of the new Liverpool Football Channel on his giant TV to suit me for a lifetime. This was I believe their second day of broadcasting, and to fill the hours between replays of their thrilling 2005 European win they were already resorting to the sort of call-in chat show hosted by a fat fellow who once scored quite an impressive goal back in 1978 or some such thing, which was mostly entertaining for the accents of the callers. I can do a mediocre general Liverpool accent, based at least in half on John and Paul and George and Ringo, but our friend John's accent is softer and drawlier and has almost a Gaelic click to it -- great to listen to. I can't identify the variations but I can hear them. Liverpudlian is lovely speech most of the time.
The next day we went to New Brighton.
New Brighton is Liverpool's Blackpool, the closest place with all the traditional seaside amusements -- arcades, rides, rock, soft ice cream, sandy beaches, overflowing rubbish bins. It's very small, and very declined from its heyday, but to me that just makes it all the more attractive. It's at the very top of the Wirral, the San Francisco-shaped peninsula across the Mersey from the Liverpool mainland. We took the train to Birkenhead first.
We didn't see much of Birkenhead, but we wandered around the center a little bit. The fine Georgian terraces of Hamilton Square -- one of the nicest and most overlooked in the country -- were of less interest to us than the old industrial zone down towards the water, along Shore Road. The outstanding monument there is the huge Art Deco ventilation tower for the Queensway Tunnel under the river, by Herbert Rowse. There are a few nice old warehouse buildings as well. Most of the dock system has been disused so long that even the ghosts of the working port are gone; there's an odd submarine up on plinths, and some informational boards, but not that much to see, really. Maybe we missed the good bits.
Back on the train, we went up through Wallasey Village to New Brighton. On the main shopping street, Victoria Road, leading down the hill to the sea, we ate in a spectacularly grotty but very friendly cafe, with horrible carpet, mismatched furniture, and weeping windows. The sun was burning off the morning fog. I had a sandwich called a "dustbin lid", for its size, which was about as good as it sounds. It was big, I'll give it that credit; big as a dustbin lid, but drier. The street looked like it had seen better days, indeed it looked as though those better days were beyond the living memory of any of the inhabitants.
Down at the sea, though, things brightened up considerably. From what I had been told, I was expecting total dereliction, but the place was jammed with people, mostly families with small ones. There was a great deal of construction going on, as well, which surprised me; I don't know if City of Culture money gets this far out, but someone is paying to fix up the gazebo and the promenade. We walked out the causeway to old Fort Perch Rock, but the fort didn't look worth the admission. The view was great, though, and so was the buttery ice cream back on the prom.
Up from the fort is the amusement center, with all the usual suspects -- a bowling alley, an arcade, a row of seaside shops where I purchased a few packages of "Booze Flavoured Rock" for my more discriminating friends, and a funfair with rides. For all the horror stories and Martin Parr photographs of the place, showing morbidly obese people swimming in floating piles of discarded chips and cigarette butts, I didn't think it was bad at all. On a beautiful sunny day like this, with the shouts of children in my ears and a Cadbury's 99 Flake in my hand, and a rundown row of Art Deco classics to look at, I was as happy as could be. I wasn't much tempted by the water, though.
From New Brighton the Promenade runs several miles all the way down the coast of the Wirral back to the ferry, and that's what we did. By this time in our trip my feet were misbehaving, so my progress was slower than it could have been, which is probably a good thing. You get a miraculous view of the Liverpool skyline across the water, from the brooding presence of Salisbury Dock with its great gates and Stanley Dock behind, all the way to the Pier Head, the shifting angle as you walk down the prom always changing. The coast here is interesting too -- not just boring sand but rocks and pools and sealife.
South of New Brighton along the water, enjoying this tremendous view, the neighborhood quickly moves upscale; this appears to be some of the choicest real estate in Merseyside, with some grand houses along Magazine Promenade. Wallasey Town Hall is the most dramatic building here, but my favorite is, surprise, surprise, the Magazine Hotel -- a charming pub in an even more charming village setting, with white cottages clustered around curving streets, almost like the countryside. It WAS the countryside once, when these houses were first built, some in the 1600s. The pub's not that old, but it's old-fashioned, a warren of little snugs and rooms. The room we were in was marred by a hideous fruit machine the size of an industrial refrigerator, and smelled very faintly of carpet cleaner, but I didn't mind, and we had a fine pint and a view of the sea.
Of course, the pint of beer on a walking tour is always a mistake with me, and within seconds of setting out down the promenade again I had to pee. This is not a new or unusual sensation for me, so I carried on, but by the time we got to the jetty which is all that remains of the old Egremont ferry dock, I was forced to do something which will shock the conscience of all decent persons: I went into a pub and used their toilet without buying anything, while wife and friend waited outside. Fortunately, everyone in the packed house was watching the start of Man Utd v Chelsea, so I don't think anyone noticed.
Further down we went, to the ferry home, at Seacombe. One of the dubious joys of this famous ride, if you take one of the tourist boats like this one on the weekend, rather than the commuter boat during the work week, is that you get some of the same commentary we had before at the end of the Manchester Ship Canal cruise, extolling the wonders of the etc. etc. And at the end you are treated to Gerry and the Pacemakers' hit "Ferry, Cross the Mersey", which is a nice enough tune, but surely must have every ferry employee wanting to strangle Mr. Marsden after hearing it so many times. Or maybe they don't hear it at all anymore.
And that's pretty much it for Liverpool this trip.
NEXT: BELFAST
Yes, I'm back with a new installment of "longest and most boring trip report ever"!
Today we visit not Abba's Waterloo, or Napoleon's. The Kinks' "Waterloo Sunset" will not be visible from here.
This Waterloo is Liverpool's first beach town. I don't think it's ever been a proper resort, but it's the closest place to the city with a proper beach, just north of Bootle and Seaforth and the dock system, far enough out into the mouth of the Mersey that it has a sandy strand which appears to go on forever. The shoreline is lined with the sort of pastel Victorian row that is familiar to anyone who has visited an English seaside, though these are lined up a LONG ways from the sea. Inland, Waterloo is a pleasant middle-class village gone slightly to seed.
You get there on Merseyrail, passing under the slums of North Liverpool, past the docks, past the excitement of Bootle with its standard-issue Soviet-style sixties towers in the center.
We came to see the Gormleys. Antony Gormley installed his artwork "Another Place" here in July 2005, and since then the 100 iron figures, each one nearly 1,500 pounds, modeled on the sculptor and looking out to sea, have received over a million visitors, plus dogs. Plans by the local Sefton council to remove them last year were scuppered and the statues apparently will be staying.
They were worth the visit. Spread out over two miles of the broad, hard-packed sand, some up to their chest in the water, with the new turbines of the Burbo Bank Wind Farm in the distance, and the Seaforth Container Terminal to the south, they are beautiful. Evocative of emigration, perhaps, from what was once the Empire's biggest emigration port, and of man's relation to the sea, they
cast long shadows in the setting sun, and have a fantastic patina of rust. People respond to them in a way that modern sculpture rarely achieves. I loved them, and we stayed out here for hours.
I couldn't tell you where "Waterloo Beach" ends and "Crosby Beach" starts, if indeed there is any difference at all, but we're definitely down at the Waterloo end, close enough to see the control tower for the port. There's a popular beach park with miles of paved paths, a couple of lakes and scrub grass between the strand and the road, with dog walkers and joggers, and a slamming wind. The lakes are sporting signs warning that allowing the water within them to come into contact with your skin will cause you to dissolve like the Wicked Witch of the West, or possibly just get an itch. But it's a lovely park.
Heading into the town, we went straight to the Volunteer Canteen, a small traditional pub. Despite the many and various glories of central Liverpool drinking establishments, this is my favorite pub in Merseyside and thus in Britain, and I was glad to see it again. It's nothing special as far as pubs go, which is precisely what makes it special. It's what you might call an "old man's pub", with NO MUSIC, pleasantly old-fashioned decor, and excellent beer. I could sit and read in the saloon bar all night if we didn't have places to go, while the public bar is a more boisterous room for people seeking loud cheery conversation.
We are here in Watlerloo this late for a reason. On the seedy but neighborly shopping street of St Johns Road lies a bit of a surprise for North Liverpool: one of the best Indian restaurants in the world. I don't know, maybe it's the best. The only one I've ever been in that comes close is Vij's, in Vancouver, BC.
Unlike almost all curry shops in Britain, this one is South Indian and Sri Lankan instead of Pakistani or Bangladeshi. That means Hindu, not Muslim, and instead of halal, they serve pork. And not just any pork; I had a Sri Lankan "black pork", which is cooked in spices roasted a dark coffee brown -- one of the best meals I have ever eaten. The lamb and chicken dishes going around our table were outstanding as well -- not just "spicy" as in hot, but delightfully aromatic and electric with bright, fresh flavors, not buried in an ocean of the usual glob (I say that as a great aficianado of glop). I can recommend the dhai bhalla dumplings and masala dosa starters as well; so much more interesting than the usual samosas. The prices are quite modest, too, for Britain. In a country where my US dollars turn a street kebab or curry takeaway into a meal costing more than a moderate sit-down restaurant in Seattle, this place was perhaps twice as much as that kebab, and considerably less than any number of mediocre "fancy" places in the center of Liverpool. It was comparable to most of the other Indian restaurants we visited in price, but the food was just outstanding.
I honestly doubt there's an Indian restaurant in London that can match it -- I KNOW there isn't one in New York. And it's tucked away in such a difficult-to-get-to place, a considerable walk from the rail station. Really, if I lived in England, even far from here, I'd be making special trips just for this, but then, I really love Indian food!
The owner or partner who greeted us, Neil Brown, turned out to have spent a great deal of time in an even harder-to-get-to part of our part of the world, Omak, Washington, in the Okanogan Valley, where he had something to do with something technical that I've forgotten. What a lovely, unexpected place this was! http://www.corianderdining.co.uk/
On the way home we stopped at our friend's house in Seaforth -- a modest terraced house with a sweet garden out back -- and watched enough of the new Liverpool Football Channel on his giant TV to suit me for a lifetime. This was I believe their second day of broadcasting, and to fill the hours between replays of their thrilling 2005 European win they were already resorting to the sort of call-in chat show hosted by a fat fellow who once scored quite an impressive goal back in 1978 or some such thing, which was mostly entertaining for the accents of the callers. I can do a mediocre general Liverpool accent, based at least in half on John and Paul and George and Ringo, but our friend John's accent is softer and drawlier and has almost a Gaelic click to it -- great to listen to. I can't identify the variations but I can hear them. Liverpudlian is lovely speech most of the time.
The next day we went to New Brighton.
New Brighton is Liverpool's Blackpool, the closest place with all the traditional seaside amusements -- arcades, rides, rock, soft ice cream, sandy beaches, overflowing rubbish bins. It's very small, and very declined from its heyday, but to me that just makes it all the more attractive. It's at the very top of the Wirral, the San Francisco-shaped peninsula across the Mersey from the Liverpool mainland. We took the train to Birkenhead first.
We didn't see much of Birkenhead, but we wandered around the center a little bit. The fine Georgian terraces of Hamilton Square -- one of the nicest and most overlooked in the country -- were of less interest to us than the old industrial zone down towards the water, along Shore Road. The outstanding monument there is the huge Art Deco ventilation tower for the Queensway Tunnel under the river, by Herbert Rowse. There are a few nice old warehouse buildings as well. Most of the dock system has been disused so long that even the ghosts of the working port are gone; there's an odd submarine up on plinths, and some informational boards, but not that much to see, really. Maybe we missed the good bits.
Back on the train, we went up through Wallasey Village to New Brighton. On the main shopping street, Victoria Road, leading down the hill to the sea, we ate in a spectacularly grotty but very friendly cafe, with horrible carpet, mismatched furniture, and weeping windows. The sun was burning off the morning fog. I had a sandwich called a "dustbin lid", for its size, which was about as good as it sounds. It was big, I'll give it that credit; big as a dustbin lid, but drier. The street looked like it had seen better days, indeed it looked as though those better days were beyond the living memory of any of the inhabitants.
Down at the sea, though, things brightened up considerably. From what I had been told, I was expecting total dereliction, but the place was jammed with people, mostly families with small ones. There was a great deal of construction going on, as well, which surprised me; I don't know if City of Culture money gets this far out, but someone is paying to fix up the gazebo and the promenade. We walked out the causeway to old Fort Perch Rock, but the fort didn't look worth the admission. The view was great, though, and so was the buttery ice cream back on the prom.
Up from the fort is the amusement center, with all the usual suspects -- a bowling alley, an arcade, a row of seaside shops where I purchased a few packages of "Booze Flavoured Rock" for my more discriminating friends, and a funfair with rides. For all the horror stories and Martin Parr photographs of the place, showing morbidly obese people swimming in floating piles of discarded chips and cigarette butts, I didn't think it was bad at all. On a beautiful sunny day like this, with the shouts of children in my ears and a Cadbury's 99 Flake in my hand, and a rundown row of Art Deco classics to look at, I was as happy as could be. I wasn't much tempted by the water, though.
From New Brighton the Promenade runs several miles all the way down the coast of the Wirral back to the ferry, and that's what we did. By this time in our trip my feet were misbehaving, so my progress was slower than it could have been, which is probably a good thing. You get a miraculous view of the Liverpool skyline across the water, from the brooding presence of Salisbury Dock with its great gates and Stanley Dock behind, all the way to the Pier Head, the shifting angle as you walk down the prom always changing. The coast here is interesting too -- not just boring sand but rocks and pools and sealife.
South of New Brighton along the water, enjoying this tremendous view, the neighborhood quickly moves upscale; this appears to be some of the choicest real estate in Merseyside, with some grand houses along Magazine Promenade. Wallasey Town Hall is the most dramatic building here, but my favorite is, surprise, surprise, the Magazine Hotel -- a charming pub in an even more charming village setting, with white cottages clustered around curving streets, almost like the countryside. It WAS the countryside once, when these houses were first built, some in the 1600s. The pub's not that old, but it's old-fashioned, a warren of little snugs and rooms. The room we were in was marred by a hideous fruit machine the size of an industrial refrigerator, and smelled very faintly of carpet cleaner, but I didn't mind, and we had a fine pint and a view of the sea.
Of course, the pint of beer on a walking tour is always a mistake with me, and within seconds of setting out down the promenade again I had to pee. This is not a new or unusual sensation for me, so I carried on, but by the time we got to the jetty which is all that remains of the old Egremont ferry dock, I was forced to do something which will shock the conscience of all decent persons: I went into a pub and used their toilet without buying anything, while wife and friend waited outside. Fortunately, everyone in the packed house was watching the start of Man Utd v Chelsea, so I don't think anyone noticed.
Further down we went, to the ferry home, at Seacombe. One of the dubious joys of this famous ride, if you take one of the tourist boats like this one on the weekend, rather than the commuter boat during the work week, is that you get some of the same commentary we had before at the end of the Manchester Ship Canal cruise, extolling the wonders of the etc. etc. And at the end you are treated to Gerry and the Pacemakers' hit "Ferry, Cross the Mersey", which is a nice enough tune, but surely must have every ferry employee wanting to strangle Mr. Marsden after hearing it so many times. Or maybe they don't hear it at all anymore.
And that's pretty much it for Liverpool this trip.
NEXT: BELFAST
Nov 16th, 2007, 08:54 PM
#116
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Before I leave Liverpool, I will leave you with this compilation of Liverpool pubs -- hundreds of them, maybe a thousand, I don't know, I can't count them all:
http://pic7.piczo.com/inacityliving/?g=41057337
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http://pic7.piczo.com/inacityliving/?g=41057337
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Nov 17th, 2007, 10:00 AM
#118
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My photos aren't online yet, but if you'd like to see some, Mrs. Fnarf has several sets up:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nancyo23/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nancyo23/
Nov 19th, 2007, 02:27 AM
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More lovely writing, thanks. So glad you love 'Another Place' - I do too and have so far visited it twice. Were there any 'interventions' when you were there ? The second time we went, one figure was wearing surfing shorts, several were wearing bracelets & several had native American-style headdresses - not sure why ! The first time was better, though, when the beach was quite empty - too many visitors confuse the picture and you can't always tell which figures are human and which are art ! Must remember about the curry house, thanks for the tip.
Nov 19th, 2007, 08:31 AM
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No, none of the statues were wearing anything as far as I can recall. And we were the only people on the beach except for one dogwalker who showed up very far away. There were wheel tracks in the sand, but no vehicles visible. And it was a glorious sunny sunset.
