Last week, Olivia visited the Archaeology team from the Museum of Liverpool on site at their exciting archaeological dig, undertaken as part of the ‘Galkoff’s and the Secrets of Pembroke Place’ project. In partnership with Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, they have been excavating the cellars of two demolished court houses, now located underneath a car park on Oakes Street. Court houses were typical homes for the working class in the mid 19th century and Pembroke Place is the location of the last surviving buildings of this kind in Liverpool. During the dig, the team have found everything from shoes, beer bottles, pottery, a soap dish and dominoes made from bone and it was amazing to see how much survived in such a small area. As part of the project, the iconic green tiles that formed the outside of Galkoff’s butcher’s shop have also been removed and will be displayed at the Museum of Liverpool in a special exhibition in October. For more information about the project, check out their website: http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/mol/galkoff/

Vanessa Oakden, Curator of Community Archaeology at Museum of Liverpool, was working on-site and it was a good opportunity to catch up about the archaeological test-pitting that we’ll be carrying out around The Old Library next year. From looking at historic maps, it seems that the land on which the library was built used to be fields, although that’s hard to imagine now! This means we might not find the same kind of items as in a built-up, urban environment but we will be recruiting volunteers later in the year to carry out research into the Tuebrook area, which we hope will give us some clues about where to dig and what we might find. Keep an eye on our volunteering page for more details about this exciting project.

The Museum of Liverpool will be using the research they’ve carried out and the finds from their excavation to build up a better picture of what life used to be like in Pembroke Place. We hope to do the same for our local area and will be working with the community to display what we find inside The Old Library when it re-opens, helping people to learn more about our heritage and preserve it for future generations.

We had a great turn-out for our project re-launch event this week with around 70 guests from the local community and our partner organisations turning up to hear about our plans for The Old Library.

Vanessa Oakden, Curator of Community Archaeology at the Museum of Liverpool, and Jo Harrop from Placed talked about some of the activities we’ll be running over the next 12 months. Vanessa will be leading our archaeology activities which include recording the historic features of the building, a social history research project that will contribute to our heritage interpretation inside the building and help to determine the location for our final project – a community archaeological dig in the grounds of The Old Library. We’ll need lots of volunteers to help out and the Museum of Liverpool team will be providing training so keep an eye on our Volunteering page for how you can get involved.
 
Jo from Placed talked about the workshops for young people that we’ll be running with local schools next year. Through hands-on activities such as site analysis, design-drawing and model making, students get a taste of real world challenges for architects, designers and engineers working in the world of heritage regeneration.  Placed will also be running a five day summer school in 2019 for 13-17 year olds focusing on historic libraries across Liverpool and how these can be regenerated for future use, raising aspirations and awareness of opportunities for careers in architecture, planning, heritage and the built environment. We’re really keen for young people from the local area to take part in these inspiring projects so look out for these exciting opportunities early next year.  

Then it was over to the design team. Nick Berry from OMI Architects gave us a brief history of The Old Library and why it’s so important to bring the building back to life before handing over to Alan Gardner from Arcadis who is leading on the conservation elements of the project. Alan explained how we will be restoring some parts of the building and creating new interventions in others, making the best use of our budget and ensuring that the new spaces are fit for both our childcare and community services. Nick then gave us a detailed overview of the thinking behind the new plans, particularly in terms of how we can create a safe, private space for our childcare facilities whilst also making a welcoming and open area for the public side of the building that will be used by our local community.

By creating a ‘secure line’ through the building, our design team have overcome these challenges and Nick went through our plans for each floor of the building which include a new extension on the south front (with a green tiled facade to match those that survive inside the building), a fire escape that doubles up a children’s slide and new doors and windows on all sides, opening the building up to the re-landscaped grounds and providing opportunities for outdoor play. We will be putting in a lift and creating equal access so that everyone can enjoy  the building’s impressive original entrance hall which will house our heritage interpretation displays. We will have a café in the centre of the building which can flow out onto the new outdoor terrace and lots of flexible space throughout including a hall for events and community activities, work stations, offices for tenants and a meeting room in The Old Library’s iconic turret.   

Work is due to start on-site early next year and the build should take around 12 months so The Old Library will be fully open in 2020. We were really pleased to receive such positive feedback on the plans which we’ve been working on for so long and it was lovely to catch up with some longstanding supporters, as well as meeting  new members of our local community who are keen to get involved. Thank you to everyone who came along and for the generous donations we received on the night.

Over the next few months, we’ll be going  out to tender for the contractors who are going to make these plans a reality, recruiting new volunteers and organising our next community activities.  Keep an eye on our Volunteering page and Events & Activities page to see what’s going on or join our mailing list to receive monthly project updates.

 As always, thanks for your continued support for The Old Library project.

Gaynor and Olivia attended Locality’s ‘Power of Community’ event last week, hosted by Safe Regeneration in Bootle. Locality provides support for community organisations and has built a national network of members so it was good opportunity to catch up with other groups based in the North West. Locality are also running a ‘Save our Spaces’ campaign to protect publicly owned places, such as libraries, parks and town halls, from being sold off for private use so it was very fitting that Gaynor was invited to speak about The Old Library project in the afternoon. It was a great chance to share our plans for the building as well as some ‘top tips’ for others embarking on similar projects and we were encouraged to receive such good feedback from other members.

We also loved learning more about the work of Safe Regeneration and their exciting plans for the future. CEO Brian Dawe gave us an overview of how this social enterprise has developed into a thriving centre for innovation, arts and the environment. They have not only created a positive change for their local community in Bootle but now work with community organisations across Europe to encourage neighbourhood regeneration.

Based on the Liverpool-Leeds canal, we enjoyed a tour of the Safe Regeneration hub and the land surrounding it, complete with chickens, a micro-brewery and community pub! With amazing plans for the future including building affordable housing, a hotel, a canoe club and sourcing geo-thermal energy to sustain it all, we were so inspired by the impact they have made on their local area and the opportunities created for the people living around them. We’re looking forward to supporting Safe Regeneration’s ongoing projects and continuing to learn from this fantastic community organisation.