Manchester Memories

By the nature of this blog, many of the places featured here I am unable to visit but others are all too familiar to me. Today's post is the latter.
I was a student a Manchester University in the mid 1990s. If you're  expecting tales of drugged fuelled nights at the Hacienda then I'm sorry to disappoint you, I never went and I never did drugs either. I did get thrown out of the Paradise Factory though for following some friends through a side door as I didn't realise they were trying to sneak in without paying, oh and I once saw Dawn Acton in Jilly's Rockworld but perhaps those stories are better for if I ever cards of those particular nightspots.
I digress, today's subject matters were seen nearly every day by me for three years.  The first card is the Manchester Mathematics tower. I never had lectures here ( I studied languages) but I do remember taking a couple of exams here and finding the room labelling rather confusing. There was an urban legend that the tower had accidentally been built upside down and I can almost believe it. Like most students I tended to use the maths tower as a landmark, especially in the early days when I was new to the city. Its instantly recognisable shape probably aided many a poor student to navigate the city. I know if I saw the tower I knew I was nearly home.
The Mathematics Tower was constructed in 1968 in a modernist-brutalist style by local architecture firm Scherrer and Hicks. It was in use until merger of UMIST and The Victoria University of Manchester in 2004. It was deemed unfit for purpose and demolished the following year.  It was replaced by the Alan Turing Building in 2007. The postcard isn't dated but I've seen a similar picture in the University archive and that is from 1972 which seems accurate for the card.

The next card is of Moberly Tower and the Refectory, now I never stepped foot in Moberly Tower but I did use the refectory quite a bit and enjoyed their fish and chips and hot chocolate.  The Tower was built in 1963 and named after Walter Moberly who was Vice-Chancellor of The University between 1926 and 1934. I don't know if the refectory was built at the same time. It outlasted the Mathematics Tower by 5 years being demolished in 2010 and replaced  by the Alan Gilbert Learning Commons.  The card was sent in 1966.

Regarding the structures, now I'm the kind of person who can see beauty in most buildings but even I struggle to call The Mathematics Tower and especially Moberly Tower attractive , but I do think a refirb would have been preferable to total destruction. The towers were symbolic, and evocative for those of us of a certain age and instantly bring to mind more carefree and idealistic days .  The Maths Tower can even be seen in my graduation photographs. I visited Manchester University a few years ago as part of an alumni event and I shocked to see so few buildings I recognised (my halls of residence have also been destroyed). A lot of my memories are tied up in the look and feel of the place and I found it quite disorientating being among a mixture of the familiar and new. I almost felt as if my memories had never been real or had also been destroyed.
For those who want to see the destruction of the tower, pictures can be viewed here. As you'll see not everyone is as sentimental about the place as I am.
https://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=254283

The Beresford Hotel, Glasgow

Today I'm looking at a building which is still in existence, in fact it's a listed building, but which has had several incarnations since being built.

It's an Art Deco building which I'm sure you all know by now are my favourites.

You probably can't read the card but it states Beresford Hotel Glasgow, Scotland's Newest Hotel. Standing proudly on the famous Sauchiehall Street it was known as Glasgow's first sky scraper and was the tallest building erected in the city during the interwar period. The designer, William Beresford Inglis took inspiration from contemporary cinemas.  

It was built in 1938 for those attending the city's Empire Exhibition which took place between May-December that year. The event attracted 12 million visitors but it's unknown how many of them made use of the hotel. What  is known is that it was a popular venue for American Servicemen during WWII.

It continued as a hotel until 1952 when demand for such accommodation began decline and for the next 12 years was Scotland's HQ for ICI (Imperial Chemical Industries) before being sold to the University of Strathclyde in 1964 to be used  as student accommodation.

I have to say I'm quite envious of the students who lived in such a lovely building. My own Halls of Residence in Manchester were a rather less lovely 1970s building though I was quite fond of the place at the time. Initially they were only open to male students until the 1980s when female students were permitted to live on the top floor.

In 2002 they were sold again and now contain 112 private flats. Again, I'm quite envious of the people who live there.

The postcard is not dated and has not been posted, but from the description on the front I'd say it was from shortly after the hotel was built.

  

New Brighton Open Air Baths 1934 -1990

Sorry for the long hiatus. There have a lot of real life things going on at moment, the biggest being that I have moved house and some of my postcard collection got separated so I'm still sorting through things. I hope I haven't lost anything.


I love this card, it contains two of my passions, open air swimming pools and art deco structures.

I'm sure quite a few of you reading this will be familiar with New Brighton baths and may have spent the odd summer day there and bathed in these waters.

Just as with the doomed New Brighton Tower, when the baths were constructed in 1934 they were the largest of their kind. Photographs of the era show that they really were quite spectacular looking at the time, bright and stylish and contemporary looking, the baths attracted 100,000 visitors in their opening week. As well as the 4 and 1/2 acre pool, visitors could enjoy lying on the terraces and soaking up the sun, watch the bathers or dine in the café and all for 6d.

From 1949 until the year before it closed it also became known for its Miss New Brighton Bathing Beauty contests which drew crowds of up 10 15,000 people.

As with everything on this blog it eventually came to an end. In February 1990 hurricane force winds damaged much of the structure and as repairs would have come to £4 million it was decided instead to bulldoze the pool and this happened in the summer of 1990.

Loyola Hall, Ranihill

The building depicted in the postcard below still stands, in fact you can even buy it if you have a spare £1.25 million.
http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/controversial-historic-mansion-could-yours-11930684

However, as it is no longer used as a religious retreat, it fits in with the remit of the blog.
There is also another reason why I've decided to blog about this and that's because it was very familiar to me throughout my childhood and teenage years.  I imagine those of you from my home town reading this blog  will have their own memories of Loyola Hall, from a certain history teacher's inability to pronounce it to trying to sneak in at lunchtimes and being chased out by the gardener.
The building and site were closed to visitors and a large wall hid most of it from view, which made it all the more fascinating for me. I remember being very little and being unable to see anything at all over the wall except when I was on the bus and I could just make out the main hall and beautiful looking grounds. The fascination never abated and even at 18 I would try to sneak a peak over the wall to get a better view. When I eventually got to enter the place, in my early 20s and looking for a missing cat (he turned up safe and sound), it was something of an anti climax.
The Grade II listed building was built in 1824 and known as Rainhill House, later becoming Rainhill Hall after extension work in 1869.  It was owned along with most of the land in Rainhill at the time, by the Bretherton-Stapleton family. The devoutly Catholic family, who also founded the nearby St Bartholomew's Church, sold the building and grounds to the Jesuits in 1923. It was used mostly as a spiritual retreat with upwards of 2000 visitors yearly.
It was also used to house the North Korean Football Team shortly before their quarter final match in the 1966 World Cup. One can only wonder what the atheistic North Koreans made of the religious imagery, probably not a lot as they lost their match 5-2.
The building underwent many renovations in its history but the postcard seems to predate those and probably dates from around 1960.
Loyola Hall closed as a retreat in 2014 due to a lack of Jesuit priests to run the place.
Its not sure what the future will hold for the building and grounds. The are many rumours locally about the planned future of the place. I'm not going to comment on them as there are plenty of other places for people to have their say, but I will update the blog when we know for certain.

Update 2018

The hall is going to be a hotel and wedding venue.

http://www.sthelensstar.co.uk/news/16256427.Loyola_Hall_plans_for_hotel_and_wedding_venue_approved/

Dover Stage and Coach Hotel - They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.

Well paradise is pushing it, but the Dover Stage and Coach Hotel was quite well thought of for a while.

The postcard is one of those that many people would consider boring and it certainly wouldn't look out of place in Martin Parr's Boring Postcard book but it is the sort of card many collectors, myself included, enjoy. I do wonder, looking at the Martin Parr book today how many of the structures still stand. Now there's an idea for a book.  For those of interested in that kind of thing, the card was published by Judges' and is not dated but is thought to be from mid sixties to early seventies.

The Dover Stage Hotel was built in 1957, only the third hotel to be built in the UK in the post war period. The modern but unusual design was meant to attract visitors from mainland Europe . The hotel was not glamorous but it had a lot to offer a visitor. All its 42 rooms were sea facing and had their own balcony, the hotel also had several bars and a large ballroom.  One thing it did lack were en suite facilities and though these were later added, it was to the detriment of the room size. Despite this, the hotel did attract many visitors for a while
It was not just overseas visitors who enjoyed the facilities. The ballroom and bars were popular among locals  for  wedding receptions, formal dinners and dances . Some say that this was because there was a lack of choice as other nearby hotels had been destroyed in the war but its ballroom in particular remained popular until the hotel was closed in 1988.  Unfortunately by this point the people who counted, namely Dover District Council, considered The Stage Hotel to be past its sell by date and approval was granted for its demolition.
It was stated that the plan was to build flats on site, but for some reason, possibly because that had never been the  actual plan, the flats never materialised and a car park for the visitor attraction The White Cliffs Experience was built instead.  
Ironically The White Cliffs Experience was a bit of a flop, was nicknamed the White Elephant Experience, failed to attract the visitors and closed after 8 years. Plans to build a new hotel on the site have  come to nothing and it remains a rather underused carpark.

St Peters Pro-Cathedral, Liverpool (1910)

I took a little break from blogging but everything should be business as usual this week.

A lot of my British cards will be from the north west of England as that is where I grew up and no matter how much I think I know about an area I always manage to discover places I never knew existed.

I'm sure many of you are familiar with the big gothic Anglican Cathedral in Liverpool, but how many of you were aware of its predecessor the modest looking St Peters which used to be in Church Street?

I wasn't either. Nor did I know that when the church was destroyed, Harrods planned on building their first store outside of London on the space once occupied by the building.


Firstly, let me apologise about the quality of the picture. I'm having problems with my scanner at present and I'm having to improvise.

The building, generally called ugly by most commentators, but I think that is rather unfair was situated on Church Street opposite what is now Marks and Spencer's. It was built in 1704 as a parish church became a cathedral in 1880 and closed in 1910, the years after this postcard was sent. Demolition was started in 1919 and completed in 1923. During its lifespan nearly 85 000 marriages took place and over 350 000 people were baptised. I do wonder when I see old buildings such as this if anyone is still in the city who remembers the place. Or how many people passing through the busy shopping street today know about the history of the place.

The spot the church stood on was later occupied by Woolworths, but that is also long and today Top Shop stands there, I wonder for how much longer. Apparently a Maltese Cross in the paving marks where the church once stood but I can't say I have noticed. I will make a point to look next time I am there though.

For more information on the St Peter's see here.

http://www.yoliverpool.com/st-peters-church-street-liverpool/

For information on other demolished buildings and streets of Liverpool visit here

    

Death, dereliction and destruction - The Curious Case of Jezreel's Tower.

This strange folly stood in Gillingham, Kent from 1885 until 1961. It was never completed and had already started to fall into dereliction when this misspelt  postcard was produced.

The building was the vision of self proclaimed prophet James Jershom Jezreel, the founder of  the Jezreelites sect.
He had grand plans for the tower which was to be their headquarters. These plans  included an amphitheatre to hold upto 5000 people, printing presses, castellated towers in a cube shaped building with a glass roof. Perhaps the most ambitious part of the project was the assembly room floor which would rise under hydraulic pressure on which a choir and preachers would rotate.  Along with gardens and stately avenues ,the estimated cost of the project was £25,000.
Jezreel did not live to see his vision realised. He died in March 1885, 6 months before the foundation stone was laid.
His unpopular widow carried on with the project,  alienating many of the followers along the way before she too died in 1888 at the age of 28. Her death put an end to any further building work.  
The Tower was sold in 1903 but only used by the few remaining Jezreelites for two years before demolition began.
However in  twist to the tale, the contractors employed to do this went bankrupt and demolition was only completed in 1961.
The strange building, fortunately for people like me, was a popular subject for postcards allowing people to marvel at the eccentricity of it all.

The Short and Tragic History of New Brighton Tower

I have to admit that when I was looking through my old cards recently, this one barely registered until I realised that New Brighton doesn't have a tower anymore.
I investigated and found an interesting and  rather tragic history.

It's not easy to tell from the postcard but when construction was completed in 1900 the tower, at 567, was the tallest building in Britain. It is said that from the top of the tower you could see the Isle of Man, The Lake District and the Welsh Monuntains.
The grounds of the tower were 20 acres and contained a boating lake, complete with gondolars ;  funfair and gardens. The tower itself contained a menagerie which included bears, leopards and the now extinct Barbary lion. (what I wouldn't do for a postcard of those.)
The contruction itself was beset with problems. 6 workers were killed in accidents and a fireman also met his death extingingusihing a fire which broke out during construction.
Sadly, the tower only enjoyed 14 years as a tourist destination as with the outbreak of WW1 it was closed for national security reasons and fell into disrepair. The dismantling started in 1919 and was completed in 1921 . The brick portion at the bottom which contained a theatre and ballroom remained until 1969 when another fire destroyed all but the shell. The site was eventually cleared and now contains a housing estate and football pitch. Plans to build a new tower in New Brighton have been rejected, perhaps knowing the history of the old one this is for the best.
The postcard itself is undated but is similar to others I have seen dated  1912. It was published by Valentines and is a devided back postcard.

Edits

This postcard isn't mine but it does show the size of the place rather well.

Also, I received a message on Facebook asking why I didn't mention the connection with Beatles. I agree that this was an oversight. The Beatles played at the Tower Ballroom a total of 27 times, second only to the Cavern club for UK venues. A Blue Plaque was erected in 2011 to honour this.