I don’t think I’ve ever been here with any purpose before, on this peninsula that juts in to the Irish Sea between Liverpool and North Wales. There aren’t many good reasons to unless you’re crossing the water – beneath it or across it – or working here.
The south bank of the Mersey is heavily industrialised by anyone’s standards and it was this strip that we took a drive through and a look around, starting on the farthest north corner at New Brighton on a windy but bright late-spring morning. It’s hard to imagine what the target visitor market would be for the town now, but the once grand Art Deco seaside shelter shown here harks back to the halcyon days of British seaside holidays. The same fate that befell many of the town’s structures – its tower, piers and lido have all been demolished – has evidently eluded it, but its faded clean lines are stained and it appears rather lost now in an expansive weed strewn no-mans-land between the inhospitable beach and some council housing blocks. The back of it was daubed in dubious graffiti and this mural on the landward end was full of an optimism that may ultimately be misguided. I like it.
The wind was as bracing as the sun was dazzling, waves crashing down on the shoreline and sending fine sand and salt spray in every direction. It was like being sandblasted. At the other end of the promenade the most notable feature (aside from the unusual fortress) is New Brighton lighthouse, which I shot on a long exposure and which turned out okay.
I tried to take another long exposure of the port across the river but the wet sands resulted in an unstable surface for my tripod and – consequently – an unsharp image. I couldn’t get a good enough composition on the fortress, so we head down to Wallasey for a nice lunch on the riverside, and then on to somewhere completely different for something that promised – and turned out – to be a serene and unique place.
Perhaps the ultimate industrial model village, Port Sunlight was built from 1888 by the Lever Brothers to house workers from their soap factory. There are over 900 Grade II listed buildings, which surely puts it pretty high up the list in terms of listed buildings per capita. But then looking round you can’t imagine knocking anything down or replacing it without spoiling the surroundings. It’s a masterpiece in town planning.
Although different blocks were designed by different architects the core of the village hangs well together in an Arts and Crafts style, bowling greens, wide verges and parks making it feel hugely spacious in a way that almost certainly wouldn’t be the case today.
Until the 1980s it remained a worker village, though the houses were sold off privately from that point and are now on the open market. Looking back as I write I can see we only saw a small part of it, and should have ventured beyond the bowling greens to find a war memorial, cottage hospital (now hotel), museums and art galleries. Instead we looked to find coffee and cake but, you know, no regrets. We can always go back.
In an age where philanthropy was still commonplace this was Lord Lever’s idea of a profit-share arrangement for his workers, believing they should have nice homes and nice surroundings – but would only drink the profits if he had given them the cash instead.
He may well have been right.
On the way home we stopped by something we had originally gone to see back in 2011. My memory is a little sketchy on this but as we approached the former Sutton Manor Colliery near St. Helens I suddenly remembered there was no actual car park, so threw the car in to the nearest side street and walked through the colliery gates in to something approaching a forest park.
The gates are the only surviving presence from what was until 1991 a landmark mining operation and key local employer, but it’s all gone now. Navigating the trees – 15 years of growth hiding it from plain sight these days – we eventually saw what we had come back for.
Dream is a 20 metre high head rising from the spoil tip that’s as calming and serene as it is spooky and unnerving. It makes a change from the usual half-submerged pit wheel in the ground and it’s certainly not a set of preserved headstocks (not enough of which remain), but I do quite like it.
I still haven’t got the long exposure shot with blurred sky out of it yet though so a return may once again be in order at some point…