Now and Then ©
John Kerrigan 2005
Locations in
The Liverpool Transport Strike of 1911 has been highlighted by the historian Eric Taplin as the nearest occasion this country has come to a revolution. The sequence of events built up slowly, but from June 1911, the sequence and timing of events increased, culminating in major flashpoints during August 1911. Large scale rioting, fierce confrontations between the rioters the police and the military resulted in injuries to many people and the loss of life. For some time the city of Liverpool was brought to a standstill, and the movement of goods was severely restricted.
Here we have an image of the same convoy of Cavalry and Police at the approach to the old Police Station in Rice Lane on the left, and Denbigh Road on the right of the picture.
I have often wondered how many of these troops survived the holocaust of the 1914-18 War, when the class struggle would be put on hold, and the combat took place on a much bigger scale, on the fields of France and Belgium.
For more information on this subject - Click
Transport
Strike
Queens Drive at Breeze Hill. 1944
The image to the left is of a convoy of American aircraft being towed
They are crossing Rice Lane from Breeze Hill and beginning the journey along Queens Drive. This is the place which would eventually become The Queens Drive Flyover.
It is, incidentally, the same area which is shown in the picture above, of the military convoy of prisoners in 1911.
Tank traps at Long Lane
During the Second World War, on the site which is now occupied by the playing fields of Archbishop Beck School, there was huge trench twenty feet wide and ten feet deep which ran from Cedar Road to Long Lane.
It was said at the time that it was a 'tank trap'(most unlikely), It was probably a decoy to confuse German Bombers, as it ran parallel to the railway cutting alongside the field, making it more difficult for the Germans to distinguish which was which, from the air.
Aintree Iron - Thank you very much.
Aintree had a very thriving steam railway facility dating from the late nineteenth century up to 1967,
A huge shunting siding and maintenance shed would marshall and sort hundreds of freight wagons, while the steam locos would be repaired and serviced inside the Shed. At the entrance to the shed was a massive rotating turntable, which was used to rotate Steam engines and re-direct them . The Aintree Iron was the subject of a pop hit 'Thank u very much ' in 1967, reaching number four in the charts, made by the Liverpool group 'The Scaffold '.
Former Factories in the area
. How many do you remember ?
British Oxygen - Breeze Hill.- Metal
Box - Breeze Hill.
- Spencers
Iron Works - Rice Lane.
- Dunlop
Footwear - Rice Lane.
- Reads
Tinworks - Bull Lane.
- Spencers
Brick Works - Montgomery Road.
- Taylors
Bakery - Breeze Hill.
- Hartleys
Jam - Long Lane.
All these places of work were situated between Walton
Church and Aintree Racecourse, and gave employment to many local people
Forgotten Cinemas ( The Pictures ).
Walton Vale Cinema. 1955 – Map maps.uk.
Grace Road
The Carlton - Orrell Park,
The Aintree Palace.
The Walton Vale Cinema. ( By the Black
Bull )
The Reo - Fazackerly
The Atlas -
Rice Lane
Cottage Homes
In the late 1880s the Cottage Homes were opened in Fazakerly to house
pauper children.. Nor were the Guardians averse to sending paupers abroad to
the colonies. Canada was their usual choice. In April 1884, the Board decided
that 'the several poor persons.. being desirous of emigrating to Canada, the
necessary steps to be immediately taken to effect the emigration The oldest of
these poor persons was sixteen, and the youngest, a girl aged four and 'a boy
just two. It begs the question how children aged two and four, without parents,
could 'desire' to sail on a crowded boat halfway across the world into the
unknown. This was not an isolated incident; several transportations were
underwritten by the West Derby Board before the end of the century, in an
effort to alleviate the 'burden' they placed on the
Map Longmoor Lane - Fazackerley http://maps.uk.ask.com/map
Oakes Institute
Situated
at the far end of Sefton Road – off Rice Lane - the school was founded to
provide higher education for boys in the northern end of Liverpool, by the
Liverpool Education Committee, in 1919, under the chairmanship of James W. Alsop,
after whom the school was named (Queen Mary High School for girls was founded
at the same time, but was named after someone else
The school was originally spread around several locations - an existing private school called the Oakes's Institute, the Brook Road Methodist Sunday school, the Aintree Institute and Longmoor Lane School were all once part of the fledgling Alsop High School - it must have been a great time going between classes
The Oakes Institute , a private school owned by a Mr. Oakes and operating in the Aintree area was taken over and a new building on Queen's Drive was built to replace the disparate classrooms scattered about Rice Lane and Walton Vale.!
Walton was Liverpool's second major prison and was
built between 1850 and 1854. It and constructed in Hornby Road, Liverpool with an initial capacity for 1,000 inmates. It took both male and female prisoners who had been sentenced at the Liverpool Assizes and was one of the largest and most modern prisons in England, in its day. The photo shows Walton in its present form with the 19th century tower still visible above the modern additions to the buildings.More information http://www.richard.clark32.
Map of area - maps.uk.
Hornby Road