Yet more Liverpool street art

Walking along Liverpool’s Princes Avenue last month on my way to Granby Winter Garden I couldn’t miss the huge mural of Nelson Mandela on the wall of a modern convention centre. Painted by local artist John Culshaw and standing around 50ft tall it was commissioned by Toxteth-based charity Mandela8 for the 2022 visit of Mandela’s oldest daughter and granddaughter to officially open the new Mandela memorial in Princes Park.

Brightening up a corner of Cairns Street and Granby Street

As I crossed the end of the street before Cairns Street I couldn’t help noticing a modern building covered in street art so after visiting the Winter Garden I went to take a look. A mixture of African culture and scenes of Liverpool it was very colourful, while the back wall of the building was covered in a second mural although being surrounded by steel fencing it was difficult to photograph.

Crossing Princes Avenue my intention was to head back towards the city centre along the tree-lined boulevard separating the avenue from Princes Road but spotting something in the distance down a side road sent me off in a totally different direction. On the side wall of a 3-storey narrow building and created by John Culshaw was a huge and very colourful mural of Ringo Starr though due to the proximity of nearby railings and a parked car it was impossible to photograph the whole thing face on.

The building, which featured on the front cover of Ringo’s first solo album Sentimental Journey, was formerly the Empress pub and apparently Ringo’s mother worked there as a barmaid in the days before he found fame and fortune, though as of August 2022 it’s been a Beatles-themed hotel. I didn’t know it at the time I was photographing the mural but I was actually only yards away from the house where Ringo lived from the age of six – not that I would have gone to look if I’d known as I’ve never been that fussed about the Beatles. Across the road was another John Culshaw mural which is supposed to have some connection to Ringo, although I’ve no idea what, then on the next corner was a more random amateur work which presumably had no connection at all.

Deciding not to walk all the way back up to Princes Avenue I went down the road, turned right at the next junction and headed back towards the city centre. Past a playing field and an estate of modern houses with grassed areas fronting the road this actually looked like quite a pleasant area to live and when I found one of Liam Bononi’s distinctive artworks on the side wall of a former church mission I was glad I’d gone that way. On the left bottom corner of the wall was a much smaller artwork, not one of Liam Bononi’s, and though it did include the artist’s name I couldn’t get close enough to make it out.

Not far from the end of the road a left turn took me down to the top edge of the Baltic Triangle where, just out of curiosity, I popped into the Baltic Market. With street food stalls all round the outer edges and lots of tables/bench seating in the middle it was an extremely busy place so there was no chance of photographing any street art that was in there.

Walking round the streets in the lower part of the Triangle I didn’t really come across anything I hadn’t previously photographed so I made my way over to the streets behind Bold Street and managed to find several more artworks including a cute Peppa Pig paste-up and another one painted by Liam Bononi.

Heading back to Lime Street station I found a colourful wall just inside St. John’s Shopping Centre while in a corner outside was a large octopus using its many tentacles to drink cocktails and play several different games. This apparently was the Boom Battle Bar and with crazy games like Beer Pong, Electric Darts, Bavarian Axe Throwing and Crazier Golf it sounded like quite a fun place to go to.

From various internet searches I knew I would probably find more street art in other parts of the city as long as they were easy to get to so as I headed home on the train I was already formulating a plan for a third visit to Liverpool in the not-too-distant future.

Granby Winter Garden and a bit of Toxteth history

Having been impressed with the amount of street art I found on my first day out in Liverpool last month I went back to the city just a few days later, however my initial purpose this time was to visit Granby Winter Garden, something which I’d come across on the internet a while ago and more recently on another blog.

The inner-city area of Toxteth was originally part of a royal park and was predominantly rural until being developed during the 18th and 19th centuries into a residential area to accommodate the increasing working-class community following the Industrial Revolution. Immigrants to Toxteth since the turn of the 19th century included thousands of Irish Catholic and Welsh people, many Africans and Chinese, and since the end of World War ll the area has been a popular destination for Commonwealth immigrants arriving in Liverpool from the Caribbean and the Indian subcontinent, resulting over the years in a large community of black and mixed-race residents.

During the 1970s and early 1980s Britain’s economic decline hit Toxteth hard, leaving the area with some of the highest unemployment rates in the country and crime increasing as a result. In 1981 long-standing tensions between local black communities and the Merseyside police force, which had a bad reputation for disproportionately stopping and searching young black men in the area, boiled over on July 3rd after the heavy-handed arrest of young Jamaican-born photography student Leroy Cooper near Granby Street. This resulted in a disturbance in which petrol bombs and bricks were thrown at police, with the disturbance itself escalating into nine days of rioting in the streets of the Granby Triangle during which rioters used scaffolding poles to attack police and stolen milk floats were set on fire and aimed at them.

Police reinforcements were drafted in from several other forces across the country to try to control the unrest and CS gas was used against the rioters, the first time it had been deployed in the UK outside of Northern Ireland. Over the course of the nine days 100 cars were damaged and destroyed, shops were extensively looted, 500 arrests were made, nearly 1,000 police officers were injured – 300 in one night alone – and at least 70 buildings were so severely damaged by fire that they later had to be demolished.

A second wave of rioting began on July 27th when several cars were set alight and missiles were thrown at police officers with 26 being injured, however this time the police responded by driving vans and Land Rovers at speed into the crowds to disperse them. This was a tactic which had been developed by the Royal Ulster Constabulary in Northern Ireland and used successfully by Greater Manchester Police in the Moss Side riots – it worked in Toxteth too and the riot was ended within 24 hours but not without tragedy. A 23-year old local man, David Moore, was struck by a police vehicle clearing the crowds and later died from his injuries; two police officers were charged with his manslaughter but were cleared in April 1982.

After spending some time on remand and in borstal Leroy Cooper, whose arrest sparked the riots, returned to the Liverpool area and signed up for a 12-week photography course with Open Eye Gallery after which he dedicated his life to photographing the city and its people, amassing around 200,000 images taken over an almost 40-year period. He died in March 2023 at the age of only 62 – a display of his work, Liverpool Through The Lens, is currently on show at the Museum of Liverpool and will remain there until March 31st 2024.

Prior to the 1981 riots the standard of housing in both the public and private sector had already been in a steady decline and following the riots the Granby area became increasingly bleak as more shops went out of business and empty boarded up houses became prevalent, leading to an eventual programme of widespread demolition and rebuilding. In 1993 the Granby Residents Association was established to try to halt the demolition of properties in the remaining streets and despite a further loss of houses leading to empty patches of land the GRA campaigned throughout the 90s to save four streets in the neighbourhood.

In 2002 the Housing Market Renewal Initiative was implemented by the government and Liverpool council identified the four streets in Granby as a potential site for demolition and rebuilding but with the support of SAVE Britain’s Heritage the Granby Residents Association campaigned against the proposals. In 2010 the Residents Association was unfortunately disbanded, leaving the four streets more vulnerable to the HMR Initiative, but due to the government cutting the funding for the Initiative the proposals for Granby were halted. Despite being left in demolition limbo the residents decided to brighten up the neighbourhood by painting the facades of boarded and bricked up properties and growing plants around them, gradually extending the greenery to the small front gardens and pavements along the length of the streets, and a community market was set up during the summer months which later became the monthly Granby Street Market.

When the council put the four streets out to tender a new campaign group was formed and at the end of 2011 the residents formally constituted themselves as the Granby Four Streets Community Land Trust. Shortly after the Trust’s establishment the council tender was won by a private contractor but when six months had passed with hardly any progress in redeveloping the streets the council terminated the contract. The Trust then contacted the council to discuss other possibilities including ending plans for redevelopment in favour of funding for the renovation and ownership of derelict properties.

With the support of SAVE the Trust worked with social investors Steinbeck Studios and Liverpool Mutual Homes to propose a plan for renovation under their own control and by 2014 the council had transferred 10 properties on Cairns Street over to the Trust with the help of grant funding from a number of housing and community initiatives. Through Steinbeck Studios London-based architecture design team Assemble were invited to design and develop the homes for affordable rent or ownership subject to certain conditions and Granby Workshop, a ceramics studio making fixtures and fittings for homes, was also established nearby. In 2015 Assemble won the Turner Prize for the design of the homes, becoming the youngest ‘non-artists’ to win an award typically given to visual artists, and by 2019 five of the Trust-owned homes had been sold while the other five had new tenants.

When it came to renovating other Cairns Street houses two of them were in poorer condition than the rest and it would have cost too much to turn them back into habitable homes, however enough funding was raised to knock the two houses together, put a glass roof on them, and create an indoor garden and meeting venue to be used for community get-togethers, events and activities. The indoor garden was designed and planted by Liverpool-based gardener and beekeeper Andrea Ku and Granby Winter Garden was opened in March 2019.

Cairns Street is situated towards the far end of Princes Avenue and just over a one-and-a-half mile walk from Lime Street station. Princes Avenue itself runs parallel to Princes Road with the two being separated by a long, wide and very attractive tree-lined pedestrian boulevard – it all looked very lovely but I was too intent on finding Cairns Street to think about taking any photos. In comparison the two streets are vastly different – Princes Avenue with its long rows of attractive large 3-storey double-fronted red brick Victorian villas with decent sized gardens then running off at an angle Cairns Street with its Victorian properties of a very different kind, two up/two down terraced houses with tiny little garden spaces at the front just about big enough for three or four planters but too small to really be called gardens.

Cairns Street is bisected by Granby Street and looking up and down the road it was obvious that this was, and still is to some extent, a bit of a run down area in need of some attention, however I was quite pleasantly surprised by Cairns Street itself. The Winter Garden is situated about halfway along the tree-lined second block and though five houses at the beginning of the row are still bricked up they don’t make the street look unattractive. With ivy growing up the walls and over the painted bricked up doors and windows and planters of flowers in the tiny garden spaces they look more like a living art installation than empty properties.

With the Winter Garden having once been two separate houses it had two front doors next to each other – both were open and not really knowing what to expect I went tentatively in through the right hand one and was greeted warmly by Hazel Tilley, one of the founder members and vice-chair of the Community Land Trust, who offered me coffee and biscuits, told me about the development of the street and the Winter Garden, then left me to wander round and take as many photos as I wanted.

Renovated with exposed brickwork and some of the original features preserved there was no upper floor in the right hand side and with tall plants and the glass roof it was almost like being in a small Victorian palm house, while the left side of the building housed a project space/common room and a small community kitchen.

At the rear of the right hand side stairs led up to a small balcony and a light but cosy double bedroom occupying about two thirds of the space above the left side of the building and with a stable door and Juliet balcony looking out over the room below. When not being used by an ‘artist in residence’ the room is rented out via Airbnb to help towards the running costs of the building.

Back down the stairs a short corridor led to a spacious modern bathroom with shower, loo, basin and all disabled facilities, with floor to ceiling tiles specially made in the Granby Workshop at the end of the street. Out in the back yard was a potting shed and a specially constructed rainwater pool brightly tiled with more of Granby Workshop’s creations then beyond the back gate was the hidden oasis which I’d been looking forward to seeing.

Running the full length of the block is a narrow alleyway sandwiched between the back of the Cairns Street houses and the back of the houses behind. Once a rubbish dump plagued with rats it’s been transformed into a green and colourful secret community garden filled with dozens of pots of flowers, fruit and vegetable plants. Originally started in 2017 by green fingered Elizabeth Robinson-Ramos and her husband Paul, whose back gate opens out into the alley, several neighbours have joined in to help care for all the plants while others have donated various items to use as plant stands and flower pots and Paul has used recycled discarded items as quirky bits of decoration. The alleyway is gated at each end and only accessible through the homes which back onto it so I felt quite privileged to be given access through the Winter Garden so I could wander at leisure and take some photos.

Back out through the Winter Garden and just for curiosity I took a walk to the far end of the tree-lined street. With the exception of the five houses at the other end every single home was occupied – with colourful doors, well kept frontages and plants and flowers everywhere it was a street with a great sense of community and pride and I headed off into the next part of my day with much admiration for the residents and all they have achieved over the years.

Leeds/Liverpool Canal – Leigh branch

After most of July and August were cloudy, wet and miserable the first weekend of this month signalled the start of a mini heatwave so on the Sunday I took advantage of it and went for a walk along a new-to-me section of the Leeds/Liverpool canal. The Leigh branch of the canal runs for 7.5 miles from the main line at Wigan to the edge of Leigh town centre where it joins the Stretford and Leigh branch of the Bridgewater Canal, and my walk started on the western outskirts of the town at Westleigh.

Parking at the end of a dead-end street close to the A579 a path took me through a small wooded area to the canal; turning left would take me towards the town so I went right and headed into what was obviously a more rural area. Past the back of the local cricket club and a large area of open scrubland all went well until I ran out of path and I was faced with walking several yards along the narrow stone canal edge just a few feet above the water. Just ahead was a footbridge which would take me across to the proper towpath so with Snowy in front and Poppie behind I managed to safely negotiate the narrow bit.

The next problem came at the bridge itself. The steps were steep and the walkway was narrow with open railings – Poppie doesn’t cope too well with stairs now she’s older and there was no way all three of us would get across without at least one of us ending up in the canal so I needed a plan. Fastening Snowy to the railings at ground level I carried Poppie across and fastened her up at the far side then went back for Snowy – and by the time I’d gone up, over and down three times I didn’t need to attend a step aerobics class.

The towpath, part of the Greenheart Jubilee Way, was wide and level and with one or two narrowboats moored here and there and the occasional one passing by it made a very pleasant walk. A distance along and set back off the path were two huge old lock gates standing on their ends but there was nothing to explain their significance, though I’ve since found out what they are supposed to be. Apparently the ‘sculpture’, if you can call it that as there’s nothing sculpted about it, was done by Leyland-based Thompson Dagnall and is supposed to represent a book whose pages unlock the stories of the canals.

Eventually I came to Pennington Marina and its waterside development of modern townhouses and apartments. With 40 berths for narrowboats and canal cruisers the marina, opened in July 2012 by the Duke of Gloucester, was developed on land which had been part of the old Bickershaw Colliery. The first pit was sunk in 1877 and at its peak a network of caverns stretched for miles underground to link with two neighbouring collieries. Bickershaw was the largest and deepest coal mine in the Wigan Coalfield and the last working pit until its closure in 1992 when it left behind the largest expanse of derelict land in the Wigan area. Over the years since then much of that land has been reclaimed and now forms part of a network of countryside recreational spaces, wetlands and wildlife sites.

Looking west from the marina lift bridge

Walking round the marina I came to the Bickershaw Colliery disaster memorial commissioned by Taylor Wimpey Homes and created by North West sculptor Colin Spofforth. On the morning of October 10th 1932 twenty miners were being lowered in a cage down shaft No.3 to the pit face but during the descent an equipment malfunction caused the cage to be lowered too far. It was submerged into a flooded chamber at the base of the shaft and as a result nineteen of the miners, the youngest only 20 years old, tragically drowned with only one surviving; set in the flagged walkway a few feet from the memorial is a steel plate bearing the names and ages of those who died.

I wonder how many dogs can read this

With the marina as my turn around point I headed back along the canal and set beside the section of path overlooking Pennington Flash were two massive viewing platforms joined together with steps in the centre. Pennington Flash is a 170-acre lake originally formed in the early 20th century due to coal mining subsidence and flooding – during the 1960s and 70s the idea to convert the area for recreational use emerged and Wigan Council officially opened it as a country park in 1981. Fast forward through the years and in 2022 Natural England declared the area a National Nature Reserve. The viewing platforms, installed in 2012 to coincide with the opening of the marina, were created by Wigan company Versa Ltd in conjunction with Groundwork (North West) and the names etched on the sides belong to Groundwork employees.

Overlooking Pennington Flash

Almost back to civilisation

Close to where I started the walk was another narrow bridge with steep steps. It would take me back across the canal but I didn’t really fancy repeating the dog-carrying process, however I found a path through a wooded area which took me up onto the nearby main road and from there it was a relatively short walk back to where I’d left the van. This had been my first time walking along that section of canal and I was very pleasantly surprised at how nice it was – definitely a walk to be repeated sometime in the future though next time I’ll make sure I start on the proper towpath.

Liverpool street art – 2

Continuing my trek around the streets of the Baltic Triangle and not far from the Beatles mural was the multi-coloured multi-painted skate park. The flying flamingos at the top of the main wall are all that remains of a full height mural showing a flock of flamingos in their natural habitat. Commissioned by Netflix in 2019 and inspired by David Attenborough’s ‘Our Planet’ series it was painted by four local artists using recycled paint, however it sparked a backlash among many members of the skateboarding community who objected to their own work being disrespected and destroyed by an advert for a large multi-national corporation. Needless to say, most of the mural was soon covered over by users of the skate park.

Down the road from the skate park and in a dead end I came across some strange creatures with multiple eyes, a ginger cat and a long mural which looked like it belonged on the wall of a children’s nursery. A skeleton in a corner doorway made me smile while round the corner a nearby events venue had gone all flower power.

Artist – Hegdish

Emerging from a side street onto the main road forming the southern boundary of the Baltic Triangle my attention was grabbed by a large black and white mural surrounding an open doorway so I crossed the road to take a look. Stone stairs with brightly painted walls led up to what seemed to be an outdoor bar although I didn’t go all the way up, and a few feet away from the doorway was another Paul Curtis artwork. Commissioned in 2019 by The Beatles Story museum to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the band’s Abbey Road album the mural is a recreation of the iconic album cover featuring the four Beatles crossing the well known London road, and members of the public are encouraged to stand or walk in front of it to get their own version of the famous scene.

Curious to see what else was in the vicinity I walked to the next corner and found a strange looking insect high up on a gable end wall, then across a large car park a long row of business units and a bicycle cafe had colourful walls painted with geometric shapes. It seemed I was now in Cains Brewery Village, home to the Baltic Market street food hall and various bars and eateries situated in the former brewery buildings.

Behind the Baltic Market a large modern former warehouse was home to the Red Brick Market, a vintage emporium with around 136 individual stalls selling everything from jewellery to records, clothes, furniture and more, and the whole of the front facade had been painted with a host of weird and wacky characters, while across the street two shipping containers used for storage had been given a very floral look.

In search of a decent down-to-earth cafe where I could get a no-nonsense meal at a reasonable price I decided to abandon my trek round the Baltic Triangle and head back towards the shopping streets. I eventually found a place in Bold Street and though the homemade steak pie was very nice the obviously frozen chips weren’t, however my disappointment with the meal was made up for by finding more street art as I meandered my way back to Lime Street station.

Artist – Paul Curtis

A shame someone scrawled a tag over this paste-up

La Parrilla, Mexican bar and grill

Scrolling through the photos on my camera as I headed home on the train I was more than happy with all the artworks I found, and as I hadn’t fully explored the Baltic Triangle area it would only be a matter of time before I returned to the city to see what else I could find.

Liverpool street art – 1

Liverpool’s Baltic Triangle lies on the fringe of the city centre, an area of streets sitting between the city centre itself, the docks and the edge of Toxteth, and there’s long been a debate about how the area got its name. During the height of Liverpool’s busy dock trade Wapping Dock, the closest dock to the area, was the main port for the many sailors from the Baltic Fleet and in the 1860s a Scandinavian Church was built for them nearby so it’s thought the name stems from there, while another theory suggests that it may be due to the area once being the site of timber warehouses which stored wood imported from Norway.

Liverpool has played host to its fair share of famous ships over the years and in the early 1900s the RMS Baltic, the world’s largest ship until May 1906, sailed from Wapping Dock on the Liverpool to New York route, while lapskaus, a Norwegian stew of meat and potatoes arrived in the area and became the inspiration for the iconic Liverpool dish lobscouse.

The warehouses and industrial premises which make up the majority of the buildings in the Baltic Triangle are remnants of Liverpool’s maritime history, and while many of them still house a range of down-to-earth businesses including car and motorcycle repair shops, an auction house, MOT station and van rental firm many others have been regenerated into apartments, hotels, creative and technology businesses, quirky bars, restaurants and dance venues, with many new-build business premises, bars and eateries added to the mix.

And then there’s the street art – lots of it, according to the Health & Safety guy at work. After visiting the bombed out church I was on a mission to seek out as much as I could and ended up finding so much in various places that it’s impossible to put everything in one post. Although not actually in the Baltic Triangle area my first finds were on the way there, just along the road from St. Luke’s, then heading along the A5038 towards the top end of the Triangle a long stretch of timber hoardings bordering a large area of derelict land produced a riot of colour, and though most of it was graffiti there were a few pieces worth photographing.

Artist – Paul Curtis

Where the hoardings came to an end a blocked off minor street seemed to have become a small unofficial car park and in the corner I found four very quirky characters. On a nearby gable end wall a huge colourful bird looked out over the parked cars while on the other side of the same building was one of Liam Bononi’s unmistakable artworks.

Artist – John Culshaw

Artist – Liam Bononi

Now at the top end of the Triangle the next hour-and-a-half was spent trekking up, down and along the various streets in the area. Artworks by artists whose work I’ve seen in Manchester, those by artists I’ve never heard of, serious stuff, quirky stuff, weird stuff – it was all there to be photographed and I was glad I had some spare batteries for the camera.

Artist – Dan Leo

Artist – Paul Curtis

Even this caravan didn’t escape the paint

On the wall of the Liverpool Life Sciences building was what appeared to be a jumble of bubbles and squiggles but look at it closely and it’s actually the title of the Beatles song All You Need Is Love, though I have no idea what the words on a nearby shutter could possibly mean.

Artist – Dave Bonzai

Artist – Akse

Artist – Paul Curtis

Multi-coloured walls of the Baltic Hotel

Artist – John Culshaw

Artist – Paul Curtis

The Health & Safety guy at work was certainly right when he said there was a lot of street art in the Baltic Triangle. This is only half of what I found so needless to say there will be lots more in a future post.

St. Luke’s bombed out church, Liverpool

Liverpool as a city isn’t a place I’ve ever really wanted to go to – I once went on a school day trip when I was about 12 and found it incredibly boring – however during the last couple of months two people at work have mentioned a couple of places in the city centre which would probably be of interest to me, plus I read about a third place on another blog so I recently made two journeys to the city to check them all out, starting with the church which was just a five minutes walk from Lime Street Station.

The Parish Church of St. Luke stands in an elevated position opposite the top of the very busy Bold Street and not far from Central Station. The land was given to the town of Liverpool in 1791 by Edward Smith-Stanley, 12th Earl of Derby, on condition that it should only be used for the construction of a church, and in 1802 Liverpool Corporation commissioned their own architect/surveyor John Foster to draw up plans for St. Luke’s. After much time and labour was spent on excavating the hillside and forming level ground on which to build the church the foundation stone was finally laid on April 9th 1811 by the then Mayor James Drinkwater.

Building work under the supervision of John Foster progressed slowly, stopping and starting as plans were amended, and in 1822 the decision was made to add a chancel to the church. Soon afterwards a dispute arose regarding a strip of land on the south side of the church, leading to a lawsuit and all building work being immediately stopped. The order to stop work was so sudden and abrupt that the workmen just gathered up their tools and left, leaving the partially constructed church and its associated building materials in total chaos including a large stone suspended in mid air on the end of a crane. The dispute dragged on until 1826 when matters were finally settled and building work was resumed.

When John Foster died in 1827 his son, also named John, took over the role of Corporation surveyor and continued to supervise the construction of St. Luke’s. He enlarged the chancel to provide a separate area of worship for members of the Corporation and added decorative Gothic-style cast iron railings around the grounds, while a cast iron bell frame, the first of its kind in the world, was installed in the tower in 1828 followed by a ring of eight bells.

The bells had been cast in 1818 by William Dobson of Downham Market, Norfolk, and were originally intended for Newton Heath Church in Manchester, however after being transported to the church along with the components of a two-tier timber bell frame the church trustees had some concerns about the stability of the tower. The bells were never hung and instead were transported to a warehouse on the canal in Piccadilly, Manchester where they were stored for some time until being listed for sale by auction, when they were purchased by Liverpool Corporation for their ‘show piece’ St. Luke’s Church.

Towards the end of the project it was decided that the church should also function as a fee paying concert hall and after further amendments were made St. Luke’s was finally completed in 1831. The church was consecrated that year and opened in 1832, with the opening ceremony being performed by Mayor at the time Sir George Drinkwater whose father had laid the foundation stone in 1811. It soon became known locally as ”the doctors’ church” due to its proximity to Rodney Street where many doctors and physicians had their practices, and it continued to be used as a concert hall as well as a church until the Philharmonic Hall opened in nearby Hope Street in 1849.

Aside from a few minor interior amendments made by architects W & G Audsley between 1864 and 1873 the church remained throughout the years just as it was built but a significant event during WWII changed it drastically. As the largest working port on the west coast, and therefore critical to the British war effort, Liverpool was one of the most heavily bombed areas outside of London and at the beginning of May 1941 the city was affected by a devastating seven-night bombardment known as the ‘May Blitz’, during which more than 1,900 Liverpool people were killed and almost 1,500 others were seriously injured.

Just after midnight on May 6th St. Luke’s was struck by an incendiary bomb causing a huge fire which swept through the building and destroyed almost everything in its path including all the stained glass windows. As the fire reached the upper storeys of the tower the clock stopped at 03.36 due to its mechanism perishing and though the cast iron bell frame remained intact three of the eight bells were badly cracked while the other five broke away and fell to the tower floor. The fire burned for three days, turning the church interior to ash and rubble but leaving the exterior walls and tower still standing, with the building later becoming known locally as the ‘bombed out church’, a nickname which is still used today.

After the fire – photo from internet sources

Photo from internet sources

After the war various plans were proposed for the ruined church including demolishing it and clearing the site completely to make way for a new road out of the city, however in 1952 the Bishop of Liverpool suggested that the building should be preserved as a memorial to the casualties of the war and in June that year St.Luke’s and its surrounding railings became Grade ll listed. Despite this the church’s interior remained largely overgrown and derelict for over fifty years until 2007 when Urban Strawberry Lunch, a community arts and music organisation formed in 1987, took on the task of clearing the site and carrying out day-to-day maintenance of the building, enabling many arts and cultural events to take place within the grounds.

In 2008 the art installation ‘Liverpool Skyladders’ was created within the church walls by Yoko Ono as part of the Liverpool Biennial festival. The ladders were donated by members of the public with each one having a handwritten note and message from its contributor, and the installation grew as more ladders arrived. In 2014 Urban Strawberry Lunch disbanded but founder member Ambrose Reynolds joined with other members of the community to create a new organisation, ‘Bombed Out Church Ltd’ and a Crowdfunding campaign was started to raise money towards some much-needed repairs and renovation.

After the Crowdfunder raised over £20,000 for the church a dance music promoter from Club Freeze contacted Paul McCartney who was apparently delighted to help, saying ”The people of Liverpool should do everything possible to keep this venue open for the use of the people to be run by the people. It would be a terrible shame if we lost this cultural icon.” A grant of £250,000 from Historic England added to funds already raised enabled the restoration work to be carried out ahead of schedule and the church re-opened to the public on October 26th 2017, with Mayor Joe Anderson attending the proceedings; that day also marked the church’s removal from the Heritage At Risk Register.

In 2015 it had been initially proposed that on-site hospitality facilities should be provided as part of the plan to maintain St. Luke’s as a welcoming public space though it wasn’t until June 2020 that the licensed Garden Bar and Cafe opened up in the church gardens. St. Luke’s now acts as an open-air venue for many events and activities including concerts and cinema shows, and as of April 2023 is also licensed for legal wedding ceremonies.

Modern artwork brightening up the north porch

Burnt remains of roof supports

The area around the church has never been used as a cemetery, it was laid out as an enclosed garden in 1885. Set just off the path on the north side is the Irish Famine Memorial sculpted by Eamonn O’Docherty and erected to commemorate those who died as a result of the Irish Famine during the 19th century. It was unveiled by the President of Ireland in 1998 and carries inscriptions in Gaelic and in English.

The garden is also home to a commemorative sculpture named ‘All Together Now’, based on real events which took place over Christmas 1914 during the First World War when, during a series of impromptu and unofficial ceasefires along the Western Front, a number of British and German soldiers left their trenches and entered ‘No Man’s Land’ to exchange food and souvenirs and play games of football. The sculpture was created by artist Andy Edwards in 2014 as a way to pay respects to the soldiers of the First World War and to honour the famous ‘Christmas Truce’.

I was lucky enough to have the place to myself when I visited and though it’s situated at the junction of three busy main roads there was a very calm and peaceful atmosphere inside. There’s not really a lot to see in there but the exterior architecture is beautiful, and in spite of the devastating bomb damage to the interior it’s a building which was definitely worth saving.