Uncle Joe’s Mint Balls

[Johann Marsbar]

Has that last photo been reversed??

My eye was caught by what looks like the back of a "modern" (continental style) triangular road sign in the bottom right hand corner which doesn't make sense for the 1940's, and then spotted that the vehicles appear to be driving on the wrong side of the road!

[Ruffnut Thorston]

Modern triangular road signs are the other way up, the apex at the top...

[Johann Marsbar]

37 minutes ago, Sarahagain said:

Modern triangular road signs are the other way up, the apex at the top...

 

But not for "Give Way" or the pre-US style "Stop" sign.....

 

It appears to be prior to a junction on that photo, from the arrangement of the rubble, so that is what made me look at the photo a bit closer than I would normally have done!

Edited August 22, 2020 by Johann Marsbar

[Bassettblowke]

Understandably at the time these pictures weren’t for publication, the Luftwaffe came within an ace of denying the use of the port not so much by the vast amount of damage to the port and its infrastructure but by the use of magnetic mines which had blocked all but one of the lock entrances to the Dock system. Even the one usable one was hard to negotiate due to a wreck close to the entrance.

A huge amount of effort was expended keeping the port in a functioning state much of the repair work was of a temporary nature done in haste as the need to get things moving was imperative. Here’s a picture of damage to the Overhead Passenger line that ran the length of the dock system with Goods lines running underneath.

And for context a picture which could easily be confused with one in an American city, the shot clearly shows the goods lines running beneath the overhead and also trams in shot as well.

Edited August 22, 2020 by Bassettblowke

[Bassettblowke]

The picture has the land marks on the horizon in the right order so I don’t think it’s been reversed but obviously I can’t be 100% certain as for the triangular sign I thought that odd too but unfortunately as to what it’s for is guess work.

Given the lack of surviving structures in the foreground it is difficult to identify the exact location of that sign, my best guess is the road into the city is Derby Road a continuation of Rimrose Road and I can only guess that the junction is  Millers Bridge A road bisecting Derby Road. The picture of the motorcycle shop fronts Derby Road and the side of Raleigh Road that shop is one of a hand full of surviving structures from that era.

heres another shot of repaired warehousing on millers bridge

Edited August 22, 2020 by Bassettblowke

[Bassettblowke]

Not forgetting the human aspect to this here is a picture of the shelter at Blackstock Gardens, shelter provision was poor and in many cases improvised in basements of unsuitable buildings. The appalling disaster when Durning Road Technical College was hit and collapsed into the improvised shelter beneath led to a heavy loss of life. The Blackstock Gardens shelter was a brick structure with a flat roof situated in the open courtyard in the middle of the tenements. Liverpool City council had the curious habit of calling many of its tenements gardens although there wasn’t a garden for miles.

Over a hundred people were killed in this shelter alone the nature of these shelters only provided protection from shrapnel, blast could impart significant damage and the use of large parachute mines designed to inflict blast damage over a large area Wrought havoc.

the second pictures shows a street shelter following a raid and how poorly they withstood damage. Much publicity was afforded to Anderson shelters which were very effective but a lot less was said about these death traps. The third shot shows a street shelter with some improvised sandbag protection on the roof fortunately this one was a far enough away from the bomb to escape damage. Understandably this led to a loss of faith in these shelters and many opted to get the train out into the surrounding countryside and sleep in fields. Others stayed put in their houses and many suffered the consequences, sadly what many thought would provide shelter proved to be their undoing. The collapse during a raid of the Bentinck street railway arches underneath which many local families had sought shelter took 42 lives the youngest a 2 month old baby. A young lad who had nipped back home to get a pot of tea survived while his family perished.

Edited August 22, 2020 by Bassettblowke

[Johann Marsbar]

49 minutes ago, Bassettblowke said:

The picture has the land marks on the horizon in the right order so I don’t think it’s been reversed but obviously I can’t be 100% certain as for the triangular sign I thought that odd too but unfortunately as to what it’s for is guess work.

Given the lack of surviving structures in the foreground it is difficult to identify the exact location of that sign, my best guess is the road into the city is Derby Road a continuation of Rimrose Road and I can only guess that the junction is  Millers Bridge A road bisecting Derby Road. The picture of the motorcycle shop fronts Derby Road and the side of Raleigh Road that shop is one of a hand full of surviving structures from that era.

heres another shot of repaired warehousing on millers bridge

 

 

Well, when I saw the "odd" roadsign looking object, which is aligned perfectly for oncoming traffic on that side of the road, I looked closer, in particular at the three road vehicles that are visible.

1. There appears to be a (parked?) lorry on the left hand side of the road, facing the camera.

2. The car, also facing the camera, appears to have overtaken the lorry and is returning to "photographic" left (ie wrong) side of the road.

3. There is what appears to be the back of a van, facing away from the camera on the right hand side of the road, just visible in the distance.

 

There appear to be tram tracks in the street, and there is a single traction pole standing by the mystery triangular sign.

 

I checked what the two floating cranes in the dock looked like....

http://www.shipspotting.com/gallery/photo.php?lid=364626

..and they are certainly not what is visible on the "blitz" photo - they appear to be a pair of dockside cranes of quite a distinctive design.

 

The tops of them remind me of this style...

 

....which were actually built in Germany (though they are in Buenos Aires).

 

I know Liverpool was hammered during WW2, as my Mother and her parents used to watch the bombers going over en route to the place, but the more I look at it, I can't help wondering whether that photo was actually taken in this country!

 

 

Edited August 22, 2020 by Johann Marsbar

[Bassettblowke]

Well it would be ironic if it actually turned out to be Hamburg which was also on the receiving end of some dreadful air raids.

What I know of this picture is it’s been published several times in the local press along with some of the other black and white images I’ve posted, purportedly taken at the time but never published. Some taken by Liverpool city authorities some by the Police. Obviously with the passage of time there is no certainty about anything especially in the current era where things can be altered. I have no idea in reality if this a genuine image. The things that strike a chord with me  are the width of The road which I presume to be Derby Road which  even prior to recent widening was always a wide road for the time and the three chimneys on the horizon which appear to be in the right place.

The signpost is a bit of a curiosity as to why in this field of desolation you would require something such as a give way say. Traffic doesn’t really appear to be an issue. A bit of a puzzle.

I know little about Mammoth or any of the other floating cranes and if that isn’t Mammoth that would indeed cast doubt on the picture as no dockside cranes of that size were in Liverpool in that era all of the heavy lift work being done by the likes of Mammoth and it’s associates.

 

Edited August 22, 2020 by Bassettblowke

[Johann Marsbar]

17 minutes ago, Bassettblowke said:

Well it would be ironic if it actually turned out to be Hamburg which was also on the receiving end of some dreadful air raids.

What I know of this picture is it’s been published several times in the local press along with some of the other black and white images I’ve posted, purportedly taken at the time but never published. Some taken by Liverpool city authorities some by the Police. Obviously with the passage of time there is no certainty about anything especially in the current era where things can be altered. I have no idea in reality if this a genuine image. The things that strike a chord with me  are the width of The road which I presume to be Derby Road which  even prior to recent widening was always a wide road for the time and the three chimneys on the horizon which appear to be in the right place.

The signpost is a bit of a curiosity as to why in this field of desolation you would require something such as a give way say. Traffic doesn’t really appear to be an issue. A bit of a puzzle.

I know little about Mammoth or any of the other floating cranes and if that isn’t Mammoth that would indeed cast doubt on the picture as no dockside cranes of that size were in Liverpool in that era all of the heavy lift work being done by the likes of Mammoth and it’s associates.

 

 

Problem is that there is nothing really left in the photo that would enable a positive identification. The partially extant building on the right could be anywhere, though the taller one in the right background seems quite a distinctive design and from what appear to be structures on the roof, may have been a maltings or something like that.

The remains on the right of the street suggest that the buildings may have had balconies over the entrance doorways. There appears to be the remains of another traction pole in the foreground on the cross-street as well.

It's not clear enough to ID the lorry or the car manufacturer either, which would give a bit of a clue, though neither look particularly "British".

The short answer is, we don't know, and, unless a suitably captioned version appears on a website with photos of German war damage, we aren't going to know!

 

[Bassettblowke]

Looking again at the crane I think you are right it’s very distinctive and the jib is all wrong for mammoth its closer in appearance to Samson but still to many differences in particular the continuation of the jib beyond the cranked area at the end of the jib. I shall have to do some research into cranes.
Another example of surviving warehousing and an adjacent engine works which I guess would have had something to do with the Harland and Wolff ship repair facility and the  Nearby Gladstone graving dock. The large bricked up arch way Bearing the painted sign ENGINE WORKS had until recently railway lines running up to it so presumably back in the day access was available to the inner parts by rail. Recent resurfacing work on Regent Road has obscured the cobbled roadway and the inset rails.

The other warehouse is another oddity which reflects the mismatch of architecture in the area with cast columns at the front and  still having a street name sign attached most having been nicked by the metal thieves.  

Bouncing back to the on street air raid shelters, what a simple subject for modelling, being a simple oblong box,  with if you want the immediate post war look a bricked up door way to keep miscreants out pending demolition and removal.
 

 

 

 

Edited August 22, 2020 by Bassettblowke

[Bassettblowke]

I think I’ve identified the crane jib as belonging to a floating German crane type nicknamed by the Americans as Herman the German apparently there were several of these and one certainly still exists, seized by the US and dismantled and shipped to America. Further research is needed. Also a distinctive looking car touring the streets of Hamburg. To show how easy it is to be misled I came across this picture whilst scanning through pictures of war damaged Bremen, this looks suspiciously like the the Liverpool Overhead line adjacent to the LMS goods depot

[Johann Marsbar]

1 hour ago, Bassettblowke said:

I think I’ve identified the crane jib as belonging to a floating German crane type nicknamed by the Americans as Herman the German apparently there were several of these and one certainly still exists, seized by the US and dismantled and shipped to America. Further research is needed. Also a distinctive looking car touring the streets of Hamburg. To show how easy it is to be misled I came across this picture whilst scanning through pictures of war damaged Bremen, this looks suspiciously like the the Liverpool Overhead line adjacent to the LMS goods depot

 

 

I think the car shown in the Hamburg photo is an Opel Kapitan 2-door saloon.  You can get a 1:35 scale kit of one of those in one of the military modelling ranges.

 

At least the goods depot photo does have some useful identifying marks on it - like "LMS"  and "DS STA" visible below the top floor windows (even if the rest has been painted out to confuse the Germans..) so you can tell its not in Bremen!

 

[Ruffnut Thorston]

The Overhead Railway had to dip down to get under a pre existing high level goods line. This looks like one of the ramps of the dip to my eyes.

[Bassettblowke]

I didn’t know about the dip, the location Of this photograph is just before the Sandon and Canada docks you can see the line takes a dog leg to the left. Not much left in the area, the old Midland/LMS goods shed has gone as have all the sheds on the dock side of the line now replaced by the Sandon dock water treatment works. The only remaining constant being the old dock estate boundary wall and Regent Road commonly referred to as the dock road. The Dock estate is up for major redevelopment by Peel Holdings with Everton FC relocating to the dock estate, as part of this future development the dock road has been upgraded with resurfacing work, cycle paths etc naturally this has entailed the covering up or removal of some of the old railway lines and cobbled road surfaces.
Whether  the wholesale redevelopment of this long neglected area actually pans out following the effects of the current pandemic on the economy remains to be seen. 
As a teenager fresh from school I worked opposite the Clarence dock power station on Cotton street,  sadly in those days I took little interest in the surrounding area. The company I worked for was called Link Line more familiar by its former name the Liverpool Cartage Company. Link Line was the antithesis of It’s former business, cartage and warehousing, the company in its new form was all about shipping containers and point to point collection and delivery for the Irish Sea trade.

Just  around the corner from Sandon out of site lay The Huskisson branch docks No’s 1 to 3 the centre one No2 was the berth of the SS Malakand a Cargo Liner in the process of being loaded with a cargo of bombs for the RAF in the Middle East, She  was destroyed by a massive explosion having caught fire during a raid. Desperate attempts were made to scuttle her at her berth but to no avail. Subsequently after the wreckage had been cleared of unexploded bombs what remained of Malakand was left in situ and the whole dock filled in the area becoming known as the Malakand area.

heres a picture which shows the aftermath if you look to the left background you will see the Overhead line still miraculously standing. 

Edited August 23, 2020 by Bassettblowke

[Ruffnut Thorston]

The dip went under the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway coal tip branch.

 

The L&Y bridge was built before the LOR, as a vertical lifting bridge to give clearance for exceptional loads on the Dock Road, but it wasn't used very often.

 

 

From The Engineer...

 

Sourced from:-

 

http://www.historywebsite.co.uk/genealogy/Parker/OverheadRailway.htm

 

More LOR info here..

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liverpool_Overhead_Railway

 

At Bramley-Moore Dock, the railway dropped to road level to pass under the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway (L&YR) coal tip branch. As the gradient was 1 in 40 this was known as the switchback.[15]

 

A photo, in the comments is a good account of the area...

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/72213853@N03/8175864352

 

 

 

Also, a caption for the photo previously posted shewing the wartime damage...

 

Hope this internet image is of benefit, it is taken during World War Two 1940-1941 during the German bombing campaign. The view is from the internal rail bridge over the dock road & rail system at Wellington Dock, so that bridge is not seen. It looks north toward Sandon Dock and shows the LOR switchback clearly, having suffered a direct hit to its brick structure with rails twisted crazily. The East Wellington high level coaling terminal is to the left and the great LMS Sandon Dock Goods Station building to the right with the shops and pubs below on Regent Road.So the section depicted in your picture was severely damaged and repaired, as were many portions of the LOR, not just the elevated metal sections that have been published in the past.

 

http://liverpoolblitz70.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/overhead-railway-blitz3-sandon-dock.jpg

 

Edited August 23, 2020 by Sarahagain
more added

[Bassettblowke]

Thanks for posting that picture and the links, it makes visualising what was once there a lot easier, I frequently drive down Regent Road to escape the heavier traffic and the lights on Derby Road. Much has changed and it’s often difficult to place what was once there also with the exception of listed buildings much of what is left from the past is disappearing fast.