Globalti
Legendary Member
Just watched episode 3 of 4 of this fascinating programme about 62 Falkner street in Liverpool. It's amazing how much can be found out by professional researchers from newspaper archives and birth, death & marriage records. We've watched the house go slowly from a smart Georgian townhouse in Britain's second city to little more than a dosshouse. The decline really accelerated after WW1 when it was owned by one family who made saddles and tack but whose business died as redundant military trucks came home from Europe, motorised transport took over and 3 million horses were slaughtered. The same mechanisation wiped out the Pennine packhorse trade. From then on the house was inhabited by several families who shared a kitchen on the landing. Liverpool declined as a port, but the BBC fails to mention the devastating impact of the Manchester Ship Canal, which opened in 1894 and allowed Manchester's merchants and manufacturers to bypass Liverpool altogether, killing the port.
The final episode will be the most interesting for me because it will follow the continued decline of the house through the 60s and onwards until, presumably, the realisation that this is a house of quality worth saving, refurbishment and re-gentrification, which I guess must have started around 2000.
The final episode will be the most interesting for me because it will follow the continued decline of the house through the 60s and onwards until, presumably, the realisation that this is a house of quality worth saving, refurbishment and re-gentrification, which I guess must have started around 2000.