C O N T E X T 1 0 8 : M A R C H 2 0 0 9 49 walling material which includes cobble, flint, broken brick, even rubble stone. It survives quite widely but suffers badly when water gets in. Fortunately, most of the city’s buildings are built of sterner stuff.While cobble and flint are common, stucco might be considered the most characteristic material, together with a distinctive black glazed mathematical tile. Brighton’s popularity was boosted by its proximity to London, aided by the railways, annual holidays and ‘those’ sort of weekends popular before the years of cheap mass travel. Nevertheless, the pre-eminence of Brighton as a seaside resort has seen it retain its exuberance, and many of its celebrated and sometime outré charms. These continue to make it popular with both residents and visitors. It is well worth greater exploration, especially with this excellent guide in hand. Bob Kindred MBE City of charisma Storehouses of Empire: Liverpool’s historic warehouses Colum Giles and Bob Hawkins, 2004, ISBN 9781873592809 Built on Commerce: Liverpool’s central business district Joseph Sharples and John Stonard, 2008, ISBN 9781905624348 Religion and Place: Liverpool’s historic places of worship, Sarah Brown and Peter de Figueiredo, 2008, ISBN 9781873592885 Building a Better Society: Liverpool’s historic institutional buildings Colum Giles, 2008, ISBN 9781873592908 Places of Health and Amusement: Liverpool’s historic parks and gardens Katy Layton-Jones and Robert Lee, 2008, ISBN 9781873592915 Ordinary Landscapes, Special Places: Anfield, Breckfield and the growth of Liverpool’s suburbs Adam Menuge, 2008, ISBN 9781873592892 All published by English Heritage, £7.99 With the tumult of Liverpool’s year as European Capital of Culture behind us, there is a moment to reflect on the likely legacy of 2008. Many of the events were by their nature ephemeral, but the city hummed with activity during the year and attracted millions of firsttime visitors. In my experience, any person who visits Liverpool once will show a persistent tendency to return, which bodes well for a longer-term tourist renaissance. There is, hopefully, a new confidence in the merits of the city and a fresh appreciation of its extraordinary charisma. Unlike other historic ports, Bristol, Hull, Southampton and Portsmouth, Liverpool is not an ancient city. In the 17th century there was only a modest settlement on the north bank of the Mersey. Nothing but a vestige of the street pattern of the original medieval township survives today. The city is primarily a creation of the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries, owing its existence to the remarkable innovation of brick-built tidal docks beside the river. A massive trade soon developed with the Americas in sugar, cotton and slaves, and the city grew large and rich on the profits. When slavery was abolished, the city hardly faltered, adapting to become the primary entrepot for the British Empire. As JB Priestley noted in his English Journey of 1933, it also became an early exemplar of globalisation, a melting pot of cultures and languages, developing an outlook quite unlike the rest of the north-west. There is a real greatness about Liverpool: its setting is grand and windswept, the over-sailing cathedrals are huge, and its ambitions (and problems) have always been super-sized. With the end of empire and a new trading focus with the European mainland, Liverpool lost its commercial pre-eminence. English Heritage has long proved a loyal friend to the city, piloting many of the principles of heritage-led regeneration through its gloomiest days of decline in the 1980s. To celebrate a dark chapter closed, and a corner decisively turned, it has published a useful family of Liverpool titles under the wider ‘informed conservation’ banner. These books chart the breathtaking growth of the city through a study of the surviving built fabric. Storehouses of Empire by Colum Giles and Bob Hawkins explores the fascinating world of the city’s warehouses. Built on Commerce by Joseph Sharples and John Stonard describes the superb array of office buildings, banks and commercial palaces in the business district. In Religion and Place, Sarah Brown and Peter de Figueiredo delve into the passionate history of Liverpool’s sectarian divides and the quieter story of the non-Christian places of worship that have long characterised the city. Building a Better Society by Colum Giles, and Places of Health and Amusement by Katy Leyton-Jones and Robert Lee describe the provision of institutional buildings and public parks and gardens. This is approached through both municipal and philanthropic means, which aspired to civilise and soften the
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