A giant estate once stood in Liverpool city centre for 50 years – and memories of life there "can't be taken away."
The Liverpool ECHO recently took a look back at Gerard Gardens, sharing brilliant images from years gone by offering a glimpse into its past. The inspiration for the design of Gerard Gardens was the Karl Marx Hof development in Vienna and its surrounding dwellings replaced the Little Italy area off Scotland Road in 1935.
Away from the slum housing and back-to-back terraces, residents, in many instances for the first time, enjoyed baths, electricity, warmth provided by coal fires and reasonably spacious rooms. And a strong sense of identity and community spirit was quickly established among those who lived there.
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Becoming a place where everyone knew each other, people who lived or grew up there still have fond memories of the sprawling estate and are fiercely proud of their roots. Over the years, the estate was also used as a film set.
In 1958, the tenement’s reputation took a bashing when the film Violent Playground, starring Stanley Baker, Peter Cushing, Anne Heywood and David McCallum, was shot in Gerard Gardens, the Liverpool ECHO previously reported. The movie dealt with street gangs and youth crime and its makers embellished the real-life location by replacing the clean, white washing hanging from the balconies with ragged, grey clothing.
It was again used as a film set in 1987, for Coast To Coast starring Lenny Henry, John Shea and Pete Postlethwaite. However, by that decade, this kind of housing had fallen out of favour, with the buildings no longer considered modern by city planners and requiring considerable renovation to bring them up to standard.
In 1986, 11 families won a battle against Liverpool City Council when a judge threw out its application to force them to leave their flats and flatten the tenement, but their victory was short lived as in 1987 the families moved out and the wrecker’s ball moved in as part of plans to improve access to the Kingsway Tunnel.
Do you remember Gerard Gardens? Let us know in the comments section below.
Designed and built in the 1930s by architect Sir Lancelot Keay, the site faced what is now the main building of Liverpool John Moores University. But it remains one of the lost estates in Liverpool that has a legendary, almost mythic status in the city's history.
Gerard Gardens lives on in the memories of those who lived there, played under its arches and gossiped over its washing lines. Liverpool ECHO readers have been sharing their fond memories on our Facebook page.
Lorraine Miller posted: "I lived there when I was young. So many memories. And all of them memories were brilliant." Mandy Dolan Grierson said: "My mum's friend Bunty lived in them, I remember visiting as a kid xx."
Amanda Jayne Green commented: "My dad was a "Provvy" man and used to have customers in Gerard Gardens & Woodstock Gardens and all around Scottie." Donna M Powell said: "Happy memories in Gerard gardens my mum her family lived there then we lived there."
Jimmy Taxi posted: "Great Memories That Can't be Taken Away." Alan Coxy New wrote: "Gerard Gardens, me dad lived there for years."
Phil McChrystal said: "I worked in Jackson the Tailor in Ranelagh St. When an old boy, who lived in any of the tenements, got measured for a suit, when picked it up they always insisted that I wrapped it in brown paper, so nobody knew they had just picked up a new suit. They didn’t want to show off and more to the point they didn’t want their neighbours to know they could afford a new suit."
Pauline Jones commented: "I used to go there." Dawn Kenny said: "All my family lived there."
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And Maria Kirton wrote: "My family are from there. We moved away when I was small but I have lovely memories of visiting my auntie Annie there every Saturday. I always thought a big monster lived at the bottom of the rubbish chute and ate all the rubbish."
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