NorthWest Exploration Forum

history

information on this building is fairly sketchy ,with its last use being a multi story carpark and its former use as Motor Repair Works for Messrs Wm Watson.

from what i can gather Wm Watson was a rolls royce agent for liverpool who also had a showroom on bold street.http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=bold...0.78,,0,-33.26
his initials can still be seen to this day on the top of the bold street building and also on the railings outside the former motor works.

i think the motor works was built or completed around 1929,Designed by D A Beveridge and built on the site of a Presbyterian Church.

redevelopment plans...info taken from
http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/...2534-26340343/

"A RUN-DOWN city centre car park will be demolished to make way for two hotels and more than 100 post-graduate apartments in a £56m development."

Bearing a striking resemblance to New York’s famous Flatiron building, it will be constructed in Liverpool’s Oldham Street, off Renshaw Street: “We hope this development will be in the vanguard of the next wave of city centre regeneration bringing meaningful investment and continued growth to Liverpool,” said Simon Murray Twinn, managing director of Northern Ireland based Tara House Ltd, which is behind the project.

It is hoped that the development – which has a 140-bedroom three-star hotel, a 130-bedroom budget hotel, and 113 post-graduate studio apartments – will create 250 jobs.

In total, the scheme will add 270 new hotel rooms to the 4,000-plus which now exist in the city.

the visit

i hadnt been into liverpool city centre for ages so thought it was time i got my arse back down there.I met up with slaphead after he had finished work and off we went for a look around. we came across this carpark,this is somewhere where ive parked in the past and was baffled as to why it had closed, we reckon due to relocation of rapid hardware and lewis's closing the reason could be that....although we could be wrong.

normally carparks dont interest me ,its a major derp and saying that even when this place was open as a carpark it was still a major derp ,the only saving grace for posting this is after further investigation when i got home revealed this places former use,and not only that after poking around inside i noticed the lovely steel structure within and with what seems to be 2 different companies stamps on it....more on that later though,other than that i probably wouldnt have posted this.

from the bottom of hardman street this place looks tricks you into thinking its taller than what it is but up the hill and into roscoe street it levels out and looks no more than a 1 storey building.

also inside we found evidence of people sleeping rough, although there wasnt anybody home today.

visited with slaphead

some old pictures

and today

as mentioned before watsons initials can still be seen on the railings outside.

firstly some old prices

the lovely steel structure

evidence of maybe old office windows, now nothing more than just a breeze block wall.

an old smashed tv

you can just make out a homeless persons bed inside the shutters complete with table.

up top

the steelwork changed up here this dark steel had LILLESHALL stamped on it.

info taken from wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilleshall_Company

The Lilleshall Company was a large engineering company in Oakengates Shropshire founded in 1802. Its operations included mechanical engineering, coal mining iron and steel making and brickworks. The company was noted for its winding, pumping and blast engines and operated a private railway network. It also constructed railway locomotives from 1862 to 1888.

the other steel work had DORMAN LONG Middlesbrough stamped on it

info from wikipedia

Dorman Long, based in Middlesbrough, North East England, was a major steel producer, which diversified into bridge building, and is now a manufacturer of steel components and construction equipment for bridges and other structures. The business has been involved in the construction of many major bridges including the Tyne Bridge and the Sydney Harbour Bridge as well as elements of the Tsing Ma Bridge and the Sutong Bridge. The Company was once listed on the London Stock Exchange.

The company was founded by Arthur Dorman and Albert de Laude Long when they acquired West Marsh Iron Works in 1875.In the 1920s Dorman Long took over the concerns of Bell Brothers and Bolckow and Vaughan and diversified into the construction of bridges. In 1938 Ellis Hunter took over as Managing Director: he continued to lead the business until 1961.

In 1967 Dorman Long became part of British Steel.
Tyne Bridge

In 1982 Redpath Dorman Long, the engineering part of the business, was acquired by Trafalgar House who in 1990 merged it into Cleveland Bridge & Engineering Company in Darlington.

In 2000 there was a management buyout of Cleveland Bridge which led to the formation of Dorman Long Technology (DLT) in August 2000. DLT was formed as an amalgamation of the Cleveland Bridge engineering office with an outside construction consultant (Lowther-Rolton) and a heavy lift contractor (Zalcon), both of whom had been working closely with Cleveland Bridge throughout the 1990s. DLT is now an independent company, registered in the UK, carrying out bridge design and construction engineering together with design and supply of heavy lifting equipment for the construction of bridges, refineries, power stations, wind farms, offshore drilling rigs, large roofs and other large pre-assembled structures.

The most famous bridge ever constructed by a Teesside company was Dorman Long's Sydney Harbour Bridge of 1932. This was partly modelled on the 1928 Tyne Bridge, a construction regarded as the symbol of Tyneside's Geordie pride, but also a product of Dorman Long's Teesside workmanship. The greatest example of Dorman Long's work in Teesside itself is the single span Newport Lifting Bridge (a Grade II Listed Building). Opened by the Duke of York in February 1934 it was England's first vertical lift bridge. With a lifting span of 270 feet (82 m) long by 66 feet (20 m) wide, it is constructed from 8000 tons of Teesside steel and 28,000 tons of concrete with towers 182 feet (55 m) high. The electrically operated lifting mechanism allowed the road to be lifted 100 feet (30 m) in one and a half minutes by means of ropes passing through sheaves in the four corner towers. Newport Bridge is no longer raised or lowered; it is a permanent road crossing the river Tees.

a little bit more derp

some shots from up top

radio city tower

grand central chambers and renshaw street/st lukes church