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England (Counties as in 1851-1901) => England => Lancashire => Topic started by: SByrne on Sunday 17 April 16 00:26 BST (UK)
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Hi everyone,
On a recent census I came across, the building listed was known as 'Blackies Building', Regent Road, Liverpool. Does anyone here know what that building was exactly, or where about on Regent Road it would have been?
Thanks so much,
Simon
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According to newspaper reports it is Blackie's Buildings, Regent Road.
Stan
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Which year are you interested in? Was it a residential address?
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The year I know that my ancestors were living there was 1881 and it was indeed a residential address.
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Blackies Buildings start at RG11 Piece 3603 Folio 132 page 4
It was very common for properties to be called "*****'s" Buildings, there are numerous examples in the censuses. They were just ordinary houses, and were usually multi-occupancy.
Stan
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The year I know that my ancestors were living there was 1881 and it was indeed a residential address.
What was the occupation of your ancestor, and what was their place of birth.
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You can see Blackie's Buildings on this map https://www.old-maps.co.uk/#/Map/333668/392455/13/100871 you will have to zoom out. They were opposite Bramley Moor Dock.
See also http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/sidebyside.cfm#zoom=16&lat=53.4254&lon=-2.9987&layers=171&right=BingHyb
Stan
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Thank you so much, that would be it! So somewhere around the Bramley Moore Pub then.
My ancestor was an Irish immigrant who worked as a longshoreman at the docks as I imagine many others in the area were.
And thanks Stan, kind of like a tenement building then?
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Possible photo here ..in the background, to the left of the windmill http://streetsofliverpool.co.uk/liverpools-oldest-photographs/brunswick-dock/
"Every detail, from the dock master’s office next to the swing bridge to the curved wall of the shed on the other side, matches the 1864 Ordnance Survey map – the windmill was the North Shore or New Townsend Mill on Regent Road, with Blackie’s Buildings (a tenement block)to its left."
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Brunswick Dock is well south of Bramley Moor Dock, see http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/sidebyside.cfm#zoom=15&lat=53.3906&lon=-2.9846&layers=171&right=BingHyb
Stan
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A respondent says that the picture is actually of Salisbury Dock "seen looking north east from the balcony round the Victoria Tower" - see http://streetsofliverpool.co.uk/liverpools-oldest-photographs/
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You can see North Shore Mill on this 1851 map http://maps.nls.uk/view/102344096#zoom=5&lat=5580&lon=3926&layers=BT it is just south of Blackie's Buildings, so that is Blackie's Buildings in the centre of the photograph.
Stan
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I've never heard of this address before. My first thought was that it must be a court but it doesn't look like a court on the maps. It looks like there were 30 houses or households there in the census for 1881.
Blue
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Blakie's Buildings was a row of houses on Regent Road. It was common for a row of houses on a main road to be called Buildings and given a separate name, usually from the name of the builder, the owner or one of the occupiers.
Stan
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I wonder whether it was knocked down under the slum clearance scheme? or had it already been demolished before that date?
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It was very common for properties to be called "*****'s" Buildings, there are numerous examples in the censuses. They were just ordinary houses, and were usually multi-occupancy.
Stan
Yes, That is one theory, but equally a lot of commercial and office buildings are named as "Somebodies Buildings"
Particularly in Liverpool there are many famous buildings. For example: Liver Buildings, Cunard Buildings, Fowlers Building, Municipal Building.
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Its not a theory, its a fact, I agree there are also many commercial buildings called ****** Buildings, but in this case Blackie's Buildings are tenements, as proved by the census, the maps, and newspaper reports.
Stan
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You mentioned newspaper reports earlier, Could you please give the link?
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http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/
Stan
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Yes, That is one theory, but equally a lot of commercial and office buildings are named as "Somebodies Buildings"
Particularly in Liverpool there are many famous buildings. For example: Liver Buildings, Cunard Buildings, Fowlers Building, Municipal Building.
I did say Blakie's Buildings was a row of houses on Regent Road. It was common for a row of houses on a main road to be called Buildings and given a separate name, usually from the name of the builder, the owner or one of the occupiers.
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Here's an 1890 map I'm still struggling to make sense of the layout of the residential properties.
Blue
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Perhaps they had shop fronts with living accommodation in the upper stories.
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http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/
Stan
But which newspaper title, at which date and which page are you citing as your primary evidence, Please.
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That map is fascinating and yes, trying to wrap my head around it myself. I believe my own family lived at what I believe is 21 Blackie's Building according to the 1881 Census. The large number of families living there was what led me to first believe it was some kind of tenement building.
With so many families, it really must have been a very different place in comparison to Regent Street today.
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It would be bustling with activity. Horse drawn vehicles. a lot of dock traffic. A lot of wealth, but also a lot of squalor and poverty.
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http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/
Stan
But which newspaper title, at which date and which page are you citing as your primary evidence, Please.
Just search for Blackies Buildings
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Here's an 1890 map I'm still struggling to make sense of the layout of the residential properties.
Blue
URL http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/firemaps/england/northwest/zoomify149419.html
The properties in Blackie's Buildings outlined in black are three stories.
Stan
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Here's a detail from that British Library insurance plan posted by Stan.
The pub on the right hand corner at 36 was the Lord Nelson, The one on the left hand corner at 56 was the Masonic.
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There would have been much activity in that area in 1881. International Imports and exports as well as people wishing to emigrate, I am sure those shops would have been very busy and made lots of profit.
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Here's a detail from that British Library insurance plan posted by Stan.
The pub on the right hand corner at 36 was the Lord Nelson, The one on the left hand corner at 56 was the Masonic.
I posted this map.
Blue
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I posted this map.
So you did. Sorry, Blue, I missed that.
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Thank you Blue.
There was a lot of wealth in Liverpool in 1881
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The properties in Blackie's Buildings outlined in black are three stories.
Stan
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Here's a detail from that British Library insurance plan posted by Stan.
The pub on the right hand corner at 36 was the Lord Nelson, The one on the left hand corner at 56 was the Masonic.
I posted this map.
Blue
I posted the URL
Stan
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Blackie's Buildings is one of various addresses mentioned in the January and February 1884 newspaper coverage of the murder of a Spanish sailor in Blackstone Street.
Blue
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Here's a detail from that British Library insurance plan posted by Stan.
The pub on the right hand corner at 36 was the Lord Nelson, The one on the left hand corner at 56 was the Masonic.
I posted this map.
Blue
I posted the URL
Stan
I know you did ;D
Blue
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The Sheffield & Rotherham Independent newspaper dated January 8th 1884 mentions, ".. examined a number of unoccupied houses in Blackie's Buildings, Regent Road...".
Blue
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Liverpool Mercury - Tuesday 19 February 1884
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It is interesting that a Sheffield newspaper should have followed the story.
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It's an interesting case you can read it on one of the usual sites I have a Lancs library card that has access to 19th century newspapers (you don't have to be in Lancs to get one) and found the murder case through searching for Blackie.
Blue
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Transcript of newspaper murder case coverage here:-
http://www.old-merseytimes.co.uk/blackstonestmurder.html
More information here:-
http://liverpoolmurders.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/spanish-sailor-stabbed-to-death.html
Blue
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Thank you Blue.
The number of times I have travelled up and down Regent Road, and I never knew that.
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The number of times I have travelled up and down Regent Road
In my younger days (1960's/ 1970's) I sometimes walked home from Liverpool to Crosby via the "Dock Road" after a night out in town. It was always very quiet in the early hours.
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Me and a colleague were standing on Victoria Street near the old City Centre main post office about 45 years ago, maybe at about 11.00 in the evening, when a Royal Mail truck came round the corner. A mail sack fell off the back of the lorry. Being responsible civil servants we retrieved the sack and shouted to the driver for her to stop.
I wonder what was in that sack?
I used to live in Crosby myself.
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Blakie's Buildings was a row of houses on Regent Road. It was common for a row of houses on a main road to be called Buildings and given a separate name, usually from the name of the builder, the owner or one of the occupiers.
Stan
Actually, it was a row of shops with houses built over and behind.
It must have been a thriving part of town in those days. Very prosperous shops.
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Blakie's Buildings was a row of houses on Regent Road. It was common for a row of houses on a main road to be called Buildings and given a separate name, usually from the name of the builder, the owner or one of the occupiers.
Stan
Actually, it was a row of shops with houses built over and behind.
It must have been a thriving part of town in those days. Very prosperous shops.
Very interesting thread and that fire map is fantastic!!
Scouseboy would prosperous shops have had poor people living in slum like conditions above them? I'm very curious now.
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1853
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1853
What was the name and location of the property which was For Sale? please.
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What was the name and location of the property which was For Sale? please.
It was "in one of the most flourishing Irish seaports"
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1853
What was the name and location of the property which was For Sale? please.
I have no idea!
It was the only reference other than the murder I could find.
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Beeonthebay,
What evidence is there that the residents were living in unsatisfactory conditions around the time of the 1881 Census?
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I have none and admittedly my own ancestry in the Scotland Ward was earlier than 1881, so I'd assumed it hadn't changed all that much in the following years.
Looking at the very large working class population and dare I say Irish, I had once again assumed.....
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Some of my ancestors had emigrated from Ireland in the 1870s, and I think they were from a well off family.
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I've tried to find out more about the residential properties at Blackie's Buildings on another forum but no one appears to have any knowledge of them.
Blue
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This article gives a little flavour of the area as was.
Regent road is the longest of all the streets, running nearly three miles to take the Dock Road from Waterloo Dock to Seaforth. The name refers to George IV, Prince Regent whilst his father, the ‘mad King’ clung to power. Suitably enough, Regent Road became the home so many drinking houses and late night ‘gentlemen’s clubs’ given the Prince Regent’s penchant for such things.
At one time, Liverpools ‘Dock Road’ would’ve been one of the busiest thoroughfares in the world. Hundreds of horses would clatter across the damp cobbles, their waggons groaning under the produce of the Empire. Steam-trains puffed and shunted cargo through the heavy traffic, and burrowed their way into tunnels carved into the sandstone ridge behind Derby Road.
Congestion got so bad that they had to build another railway to link the docks together. This new railway would soar 16 feet above the road, designed just for passengers it would be the first electric overhead Railway in the world.
On the pavements costermongers would push barrows of fish and fruit trundling past cattle being driven to-and-from the ships whilst sailors staggered their way from pub-to-pub having spent their leave and nearly all their money. Urchins, dockers, whores, policemen, immigrants, emigrants, clerks, ship-owners, businessmen – all of human life distilled into six miles of damp cobbles.
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What a fab description you can almost see, hear and smell it. ;D
Can you please cite your source if you don't mind I'd love to read more stuff like this.
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At one time, the Custom House in Liverpool raised more revenue than any other in the whole country.
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Beeonthebay, the link for the article is http://www.sevenstreets.com/ghost-streets-7-the-dock-road/
You may also enjoy a photograph taken in 1929 by John Newburn. (see the link below) Its "a moody shot of a carter heading west along Wapping in the early morning. To his left is the Overhead Railway and in the shadows is the Baltic Fleet, a remarkable survivor of the many pubs that once lined the Dock Road".
In 'Categories' at the bottom of this page you will find some amazing old images
http://streetsofliverpool.co.uk/tag/dock-road/
It's interesting, as the article points out, we call the road along the Docks 'the Dock Rd', but Dock Rd. will not be found on any map!
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Thanks Purlin off for a look, I might find some pics of my ancestors as my mum's line had MANY carters in it. ;D
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Beeonthebay, the link for the article is http://www.sevenstreets.com/ghost-streets-7-the-dock-road/
You may also enjoy a photograph taken in 1929 by John Newburn. (see the link below) Its "a moody shot of a carter heading west along Wapping in the early morning. To his left is the Overhead Railway and in the shadows is the Baltic Fleet, a remarkable survivor of the many pubs that once lined the Dock Road".
In 'Categories' at the bottom of this page you will find some amazing old images
http://streetsofliverpool.co.uk/tag/dock-road/
It's interesting, as the article points out, we call the road along the Docks 'the Dock Rd', but Dock Rd. will not be found on any map!
The interesting thing about the pub called the "Baltic Fleet" is that its shape, chimneys, and exterior paintwork makes it look like a ship.
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Beeonthebay, the link for the article is http://www.sevenstreets.com/ghost-streets-7-the-dock-road/
You may also enjoy a photograph taken in 1929 by John Newburn. (see the link below) Its "a moody shot of a carter heading west along Wapping in the early morning. To his left is the Overhead Railway and in the shadows is the Baltic Fleet, a remarkable survivor of the many pubs that once lined the Dock Road".
In 'Categories' at the bottom of this page you will find some amazing old images
http://streetsofliverpool.co.uk/tag/dock-road/
It's interesting, as the article points out, we call the road along the Docks 'the Dock Rd', but Dock Rd. will not be found on any map!
Ah yes Colin Wilkinson has many great shots in his books.
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Page from Kelly's 1881. No mention of Blackie's Building that I can find though.
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Hi, I lived in Blackstone street, which would be to the left on the map of Blackie's buildings; Fulton street was to the rear and Blackie's buildings (4 stories high, with cellars below) had houses facing into Blackstone st (bombed during WW2) they were empty shells when I was growing up. I had friends who lived on the dock road above a small paint makers in BB, there were only 2 families still living there through 40's and 50's. Other ground floor properties consisted of 2 dockers canteens (Stan Water's being 1 and Jack's the other) a couple more small business's and a sweet/paper shop.
Because the buildings were mostly derelict, they became our adventure playground. I have 1 part view of them from the overhead railway but would love to see any pictures of them.