Cities and History

The past as a different world; Liverpool's Old Dock wall, October 2008

Liverpool One is built on what used to be the City of Liverpool Building, Canning Place, South John Street and the land between these and Paradise Street. Before 1974 the old Sailor's Home stood on the corner of Hanover/Paradise streets and before 1945 the gigantic Customs House - huge and neoclassical, echoing Santa Maria della Salute in Venice, one of John Foster's contributions to the cityscape - stood on the City of Liverpool Building site. These are two of the great losses to the city's architecture. And before this the Old Dock was here, the world's first commercial dock, built in 1715 by Thomas Steers on land reclaimed from the Pool. When the twentieth century buildings were cleared from the site the archaeologists found the dock in a reasonable state of repair despite being buried and infilled and used as the foundations of large buildings for nearly two hundred years. I deplore the decision not to open the channel with Canning Dock again and restore the Old Dock - where Liverpool's prosperity began - to the streets of the city. My ideal would be a warren of narrow pedestrian streets filled with quirky shops and small restaurants, small parks and a mix of apartments and houses above. Maybe one day. The decision to build Liverpool One instead is like Nice clearing the old town for a car park and a shopping mall.

BUT some of the Old Dock survives; a small viewing disc has been left in the pavement outside te new shops, and a space age rail protects shoppers from history. The dock wall can just be seen to the left of the inner disc, illuminated from below.