38 C O N T E X T 1 3 7 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 4 due to the opening up of more modern docks elsewhere in the UK.The company did not repair the bomb damage. By 1952 the Albert Dock had been listed but this did not prevent a series of dire development schemes being put forward. The MDHB proposed demolition and redevelopment but, thanks to vociferous public opposition, this did not happen. It did cause the dock to be permanently shut down in 1972, though. From this time on the dock began to clog up with tidal silt and sewage, provoking still more development plans. Liverpool City Council proposed that the site be turned over to landfill, while others promoted the idea that it be filled with sand and built over. By 1979 prime minister Margaret Thatcher, apparently deciding that neither Liverpool City Council nor Merseyside County Council would successfully implement any regeneration scheme here, appointed Michael Heseltine as Minister for Merseyside to oversee the regeneration of the dock.Whatever you might or might not think about Margaret Thatcher, her intervention saved Albert Dock. The Merseyside Development Corporation was established in 1981, leading to a world-class site packed with regenerated heritage assets. It was not an easy or enviable task, but with a 40-foot depth of contaminated silt having been removed and the decades-old wartime bomb damage repaired, the Albert Dock is today a vital component of the UNESCOWorld Heritage Maritime City. The number one tourist attraction in Liverpool, attracting four million visitors a year, it is, of course, a great example of heritage at the heart of regeneration. Another of Hardwick’s muchcelebrated structures provides the foil for this great success. Hardwick had been appointed as architect to the London and Birmingham Railway in 1836. A year later he built his great Euston Arch, the grand Doric propylaeum, as the entrance to Euston Station. Hardwick had trained in classical architecture, so this was a language he was well versed in. The 70-foot-high structure, consisting of a pediment resting on four columns, with great bronze gates, faced boldly on to Drummond Street. For the London and Birmingham Railway, the Euston Arch represented engineering prowess, economic success and status. It signposted the location of the station for travellers and acted as ‘The Gateway to the Midlands’, where it was mirrored by the other arch built at Birmingham Curzon Street (still extant and listed Grade I). In 1938 a proposal was made by the London Midland and Scottish Railway to move the Euston Arch to facilitate the complete rebuilding of Euston Station.War broke out the following year and this plan was scotched, but only temporarily. In January 1960 the plans resurfaced and the British Transport Commission (BTC) informed London County Council of its intention to demolish the structure, along with the whole station, including some other listed buildings. The BTC considered that the existing station was ‘inconvenient’.When challenged to re-site the arch instead of demolishing it, the BTC refused, saying it would cost £190,000 to re-site it and only £12,000 to demolish. John Betjeman and Nikolaus Pevsner, who endured a prickly relationship for most of their lives, were united in their efforts to save the Euston Arch. They joined Sir John Summerson, the SPAB, the Georgian Group, the Royal Academy and the London Society. Campaigners even went to see prime minister Harold Macmillan, who refused to lend countenance to their pleas, siding instead with the railway, and apparently keeping his eyes closed throughout the entire interview.Young architects and campaigners tried to stop its demolition by climbing the scaffolding around the arch and erecting banners. It was not enough: demolition began in December 1961. The Architectural Reviewwrote at the time that ‘its destruction is wanton and unnecessary – connived at by the BTC, its guardians, the LCC and government, who are jointly responsible for safeguarding London’s major architectural monuments, of which this is undoubtedly one’. In 1994 a startling revelation from Dan Cruickshank revealed that at least 60 per cent of the stone from the arch had been irreverently dumped in the Prescott Channel at its junction with the Channelsea River that runs into the River Lea in the east end of London. Used as rubble to fill a chasm in the river bed, the Bramley stone (from the Bramley Fall Quarry inYorkshire) is granite-like in its refusal to weather, so the stone, although in a far from ideal location, was safe and reusable. The discovery of the material in the river confirmed the view of many that those responsible for the arch’s demolition were Philistines of the highest order. At the same time this was the glimmer of hope needed to inspire a new campaign. In 1996, the Euston Arch Trust was launched. This organisation is still strong today. It simply seeks a chance to rebuild the arch, while making sense of the very muddled townscape surrounding Euston station. In March this year, transport secretary Patrick McLaughlin announced that the Euston Arch could be rebuilt as the new gateway to HS2. HS2 is currently producing a master plan for the station and Camden Council is similarly looking at its own master plan for the area. The Euston Arch Trust has been in talks with both these organisations. One proposal was to rebuild the arch as the landmark it was designed to be, using it as banqueting space, with a nightclub underneath. A more different use than the original could not possibly have been envisaged, either by Hardwick in 1837 or by its subsequent destroyers in the 1960s. The similarities between Hardwick’s Albert Dock and the Euston Arch are clear. Both buildings were unique at the time and were considered to be great setpieces of architecture. Relatively quickly both were considered to be obsolete, not even worthy of retention.Yet generations later, both are once again highly valued as architectural landmarks. The contrast between the two buildings is also clear. One survived intense development pressure (more by accident than by design) and one buckled under this same pressure. More than 175 years since both buildings were constructed, it is easy for this generation to see many viable new uses for both buildings. In dealing with ‘obsolete’ historic structures it is often impossible for one generation to imagine what is so strikingly clear and possible to a later generation. Often it is not a lack of will but simply that the opportunities for the re-use of a building are way off into the future and can not even be conceived of at the time. We must learn not to despair in being unable to find suitable uses for seemingly useless buildings in the present, since this may be a very simple exercise for our counterparts in the future. In short, we must not demolish in despair, we must simply employ the pause, perhaps for a very long time. Carole Fry, a director of AHC Consultants, freelance writer and architectural historian Euston Arch: the railway company’s status symbol
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