A Hidden Oasis "Secret Street" In Liverpool Where You Need A Key To Get Out The Other Side
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 ต.ค. 2024
- A "hidden oasis" with a ballroom built for Queen Victoria is still governed by a document dating back almost 200 years.
Only the odd siren cuts through the trees separating Fulwood Park from the hubbub of Aigburth Road, Jericho Lane and Riverside Drive. In an area of mostly Victorian terraced houses just south of Sefton Park, the half-mile stretch of private road starts at the Fulwood Arms pub, passing between two pillars by a gatehouse, and down the cul de sac home to some of the biggest houses in Liverpool, many hidden behind walls, gates and hedges.
People who live here say
"When you come around the corner at the top, it just feels like peace. You can't hear the traffic or anything. All you can hear is the trees and the birds."
Houses stocked with sculptures, portraits and marble fireplaces were once home to wealthy merchants and cultural elites including Charles Groves, the musical director of Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, and Quentin Hughes, an architect who campaigned to save many of Liverpool's historic building and helped the city achieve world heritage site status.
Properties also served as a children's hospital, an old people's home, and the French consulate, where Elsie Carney, a 75-year-old who lives next door, remembers fleets of cars arriving for meetings. One house even has a Japanese-style ballroom reportedly built to host Queen Victoria, or another senior royal, who never visited.
The oldest houses, some of which are listed buildings, date back to 1840 when merchants William and Alexander Smith split Fulwood Farm, formed during the reign of Elizabeth I in the 16th century, into smaller plots to sell. Four houses were built in the first decade with 29 constructed by 1894.
Since then, stables and coach houses have been converted into houses, mansions have been split into flats, and smaller, modern homes have been built in the gardens of grand villas. There are more cars on the street, and fewer kids out playing, than when Elsie was raising her two.
But since the park's creation, the Fulwood Park Proprietors Association has tried to preserve the street's "quality". Residents, who pay an annual fee of £250 towards maintenance, elect a board of trustees who maintain the road and enforce the park's founding agreement from 1840.
Properties must only be used as dwelling houses, new properties must be no more than two stories plus an attic, and residents get to vote on whether to approve development plans. They recently allowed the conversion of a Methodist old people's home into five dwellings, with the developers paying £25,000 to the trustees to allow the project with stringent conditions.
Sitting at the dining table, watching two squirrels case each other beneath a mulberry tree in the garden of his 1970s home, the association's secretary, Tim Ward, described conversations around the agreement's enforcement as "fantasy court rulings". One person even made the "alarming" threat to "seek redress" if the association cut their hedge.
Some residents hinted at rumours of a suspicious death and organised crime in Fulwood Park's past, but the "controversies" handled by the Proprietors Association are related to 'missing cat' posters, dog dirt, "suspicious" people or "abandoned" cars on the street, requests to trim
trees, non-payment of the annual fee and Airbnb.
Tim, who mends clocks in his spare time, files all the disputes, requests and complaints in a folder on his computer labelled "Issues". The 77-year-old, who moved here from London after retiring from his civil service IT job, said: "There are hundreds of them. You wouldn't believe a road is as complicated. Well, you would, of course, if you've seen EastEnders."
"If someone said there aren't enough street lights, we'd all have a think about it. For some things, there are ballots, like with the developer's plan for the Methodist home, we all had to approve it. In that sense, it's quite nice because you've got a bit more control over your environment and we're not dependent on council budgets, or lack thereof."
The street still has three of its original villas, with a collection of more recent structures built in the last century, including a bungalow now derelict and overgrown. Five houses were built on "wasteland", and another four two-story houses, each with its own private garden, were built at Fulwood Close, part way down the Park.
The street has a fireworks party and it has run a bonfire night celebration a couple of times before stopping due to the damage it caused to the host's lawn. The festivities three years ago even led to the fire brigade arriving to extinguish a burning log after a taxi toppled the wheelbarrow holding it.
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What a beautiful road .
Those houses ...
Grand designs style houses.
Huge white mansions.
Love these unusual boulevards lol in Liverpool.....
Opposite that little close is a house I used to do gardening at, mowing the giant lawn and keep the brambles back. The owner was my boss's brother Tony, He changed his first name by deed poll to ``Lord``. The house he bought was used in the second world war to house high ranking Chinese officials and the rear of the house has the classic Chinese style roof covering the swimming pool. The Owner of the park refused the railway line to run through openly like it does in Cressington Park. So preventing them having a railway station there and forcing a tunnel to be built. Lamp posts that had the two prongs for the ladders were originally gas.
Hi George and Eric, good to see you out again. I remember many years ago me and a pal were both training to be engineers and to supplement our very low wages we repaired cars at the weekend. A lot of the cars were quite old and one of our spares sources was the old tip at Otterspool. There used to be half a dozen cars that had been scrapped down their and we used to go through the gate at the bottom of Fulwood Park at the dead of night with a torch and a heavy toolbox, sliding down the grassy bank and liberating some parts from the cars that were there. You would be in the company of other individuals doing the same thing only visible by the torch lighing up the particular car they were working on. Happy memories. keep it up. Cheers. Fred
Hi George and Eric,l remember quite a long time now,l was an apprentice painter and decorator,l was working at the bosses house in Fulwood,l was not allowed in house without a forman painter and if l was doing any outside job,on my own l had to have my tea break in a garden shed,freezing,and if l wasn't out after my lunch the owner always came out to wear l was,it was a fantastic house with a Mews attracted to it,brought back some memories thanks for sharing 👍
Hi George + Eric have you been to "LITTLE BONGS"...another secret part of the pool??
thats on my list matey looks bloody lovely to
Absolutely brilliant video, remembered most of what saw 🍺👍🎉💥
thanks colin glad you liked the video mate
I've always wondered what was down there. Thanks for the tour !
pleasure thanks for watching
brill video lads always enjoy this channel and its content
thanks for watching glad you liked it i do try my best lol
Ive always wanted to venture down there. A mate of mine used to do a lot of gardening there and possibly still does. It reminds me of some of the big old houses around Mossley Hill and Sefron Park. Probably victorian and maybe once belonged to shipping merchants. Its a real shame some have been converted to flats. Stamp duty forced many property owners to split larger dwelings into smaller flats. Some of them remind me of small embassies lol
that grange remind me of mossley manor and like you say most of the houses around mossley hill
would love to have seen this back in the day
thanks for watching mate
@@g2emedia1977 yeah it would be good to have a look inside one with the original layout. You could be cheeky and arrange a few viewings with the estate agents lol. Just tell them you don't have a mortgage approved yet. They will probably try to sell you a mortgage as well 😂
@@andy123law lol great idea that could be a plan there cheers
Great video fella .. yes its certainly a hidden gem 👍
thanks for watching a hidden gem indeed mate
That little symbol is a sea level marker, if I remember correctly. They're all over London and there are more of them around liverpool and other parts of the UK. I believe the victorians started them.
My late uncle wrote books about architecture. He was from West Derby and his most succesful one was called 'Well, I never noticed that!' You can still find it. His name was Andrew Richardson.
He would have got along with you like a house on fire and he spent hours looking around Liverpool and other places for 'hidden gems'.
'Benchmark' or 'Datum Level'... that engraved thing on the stone, it's used to determine level above sea 👍🏼
i thought it may have been a marker for toxteth park?
Im surprised you never bumped into Purple Aki he lives in a flat in one of the massive houses near Sevvy Park 😱😱
ha ha hes long gone from there
Isn’t he dead tho? Or did I imagine that ?🤷♀️
He lives in Sunnyside
@@UserNameTaken007 He died about 6 months ago.
@@marksavage1108 He didn't, that was just an internet rumour.
That look's like a nice place to live, love The Grange , shame these house's are made into flat's, but heating a house that size would bankrupt you !!! .
its a really peacefull place and people seemed really nice down here a true hidden gem this
I played bass in bands in the 90's and one band I played with for a bit, the drummer lived in the 2nd house on the left and we rehearsed in the cellar there. Think his girlfriend's dad was a builder who owned the house and they were building an extension as their own part to live in. I heard Ian McCulloch, Echo and The Bunnymen singer, liver down there somewhere as well back in the day.
I vaguely remember visiting a house here in the '60's, it was a fantastic huge Edwardian mansion owned by a Mr Walker, I believe he was a lawyer, he had a young family back then and his kids where members of Garston Swimming Club. He used to take them there and I must of became friends with one of his kids and was invited round to the house. Mr Walker was no snob just a very pleasant dad and person.
Used to go into Fullwood Park when I worked for the corpy Lighting, street lamps etc etc . Some lovely houses down there. The lamps used to be GAS, so with the area being "POSH" the old gas lamp style heads were copied to look like gas but all converted to leccy. But looks like all theVictorian style gas heads have either been robbed + replaced with those yellow sodium bulbs or white LED shite...great vid guys, wonder the pigs haven't been called on ya...take care.
My brother has a key to this gate…nice easy cut through…. Nice down there….
do all residents get them given to them?
@@g2emedia1977 not sure if they do now unless they are handed down…he got his from a resident he lives close by…good shortcut for the prom though mate
the grange was where the first couple to wed at the anglican catheral lived ( if memory serves)
cool thanks for the info
If that big white house was in london kensington/knightsbridge that's easy a £30m building
very true that
Great video as always, lad. Quick question, why were most of the houses without their gates? Devalues the property surely, and makes it look unkempt. Keep up the good work, champ 👍
its quite possible the gates were taken during the war (id like to think) or while the houses were empty they were weighed in
@tj..aworkinprogress1102 Yes the song by the Scouse group Scaffold, "Thank you very much for the Aintree Iron thank you very very very much" .
Used to make Bombs and Mines during the War. All the Cast Iron gate's and railings were taken from all over Liverpool and put in Piles at Aintree for shipping off along the Canals and Railway.👍👍
@stephenjones9153 @tj..aworkinprogress1102 Thank you very much for your responses, really interesting. Never knew the history behind it.
thanks for watching mate glad you liked the video
i did think that why there was some with no gates im sure someone will comment soon with an explanation
thanks again mate
@@stephenjones9153 Remember my Dad telling me it was a Government scam at the time, non of the wriught iron actually went to make armaments for the war effort. Just think all those fancy ironwork railings+ gates scrapped..someone made a packet on them
Couple of months those houses will be full of dingy divers
livpul has a wonderful hybrid architecture of Uk and New York due to the shiping link between the two. mega amount of architectrual facades on steroids ( the NY influence). then we got the arms race between the catholic and protestant churches from the 19th century. breathtaking arcitecture
stay tuned for one of my next videos involves new york
boss la, boss@@g2emedia1977
12A Fulwood Park, Liverpool SOLD
March 2023
£900,000
+£480,000 (114%)
SOLD
September 2015
£420,000
+£2,500 (1%)
SOLD
May 2007
Nice
Hahaha secret street. You walked past where Netflix tv show sexy beast was filmed.
Lol i have never watched sexy beast so i wouldnt know