The boutique hotel that is 62 Castle Street may be situated in what was the Trials Hotel, but there has never been any court cases or police presence in the building, which was actually used for banking for 120 years. The Grade II listed building at the corner of Castle Street and James Street was […]
WALTON’S ZOO
Today it is just one of many takeaways in the Walton area, but Didi’s in Rice Lane is situated in a building with plenty of history, being the last remaining trace of a zoo which was there in Victorian times. The first zoological gardens in Liverpool were situated off West Derby Road and opened in […]
WHO WAS DICKIE?
The statue above the main entrance to the old Lewis’s department store in Ranelagh Street has been the meeting place for many a courting couple. Affectionately known as “Dickie Lewis’s”, it is also the “statue exceedingly bare” referred to in the song In My Liverpool Home, but what is the real name and origins of […]
LIVERPOOL’S FIRST EQUESTRIAN STATUE
There are four equestrian statues in Liverpool, the oldest of which took quite a while for the plans to come to fruition due to the popularity of the monarch in question. In 1808 a public subscription was announced to raise funds for a statue of King George III to commemorate his 50th anniversary on the […]
THE 1ST CASHPOINT IN THE NORTH OF ENGLAND
Nowadays it just looks like any other bank, just like dozens of others in the city centre but the Santander branch at 84 Church Street was the sight of Liverpool’s first cash machine and the first in the North of England. Back in 1967 the building was occupied by Martin’s Bank. It had been in […]
LIVERPOOL’S OLDEST STATION
It looks just like any other suburban local railway halt but Broadgreen station, situated a stone’s throw from the end of the M62 motorway, is one of the oldest in the world and has a history of famous visitors and tragic events. Opened in 1830 as one of the stations on the Liverpool & Manchester line, […]
THE FOOTBALL INTERNATIONAL AT A CRICKET GROUND
Liverpool Cricket Club in Aigburth hosts occasional County Championship matches for Lancashire and has the oldest pavilion at a first class cricket ground. It also hosted the first international football match in Liverpool in 1883, giving the city a unique place in terms of the English national team. Founded in 1807, Liverpool Cricket Club is […]
LIVERPOOL’S FIRST FLOODLIT FOOTBALL MATCH
Nowadays it is Liverpool South Parkway station, a major bus and rail interchange for the south of the city and connection to the airport but up until 1990 the site was Holly Park, home of South Liverpool FC and venue for the first match to be played under floodlights in Liverpool, back in 1949. The […]
DINGLE’S THEATRE
In Mill Street, Dingle there is a building that is currently empty and had been a factory for a number of decades, which was once a theatre that could hold 1,100 people. The Park Palace was opened in 1893 and designed by J H Havelock-Sutton. Initially opened as a theatre for variety shows, it was […]
ENGLAND’S SMALLEST HOUSE IN A PUB
The Cock & Bottle pub in Wavertree High Street has absorbed into it what was once the smallest house in England. The pub’s address is 93 Wavertree High Street, with the house formerly being 95. The house was built in the middle of the 19th Century in what was a passageway. At 6 feet wide […]
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