Friday 21 August 2009

High Park Street Reservoir


Dear Sir/Madam,
I have just returned from a visit to Liverpool 8.
Near to Park Strreet Job Centre was a red stone construction that looked at least one hundred years old.
I thought it might be a water resevoir. The structure was about the size of a football pitch - and at one corner it had a tower abour 20/30 feet high.
A Liver Bird was carved over the metal door.
Can anyone tell me what this structure was originally built for, when and who by?
Your faithfully,
Paul Mooney


3 comments:

  1. Hello Paul,

    as a Dingle born lad I know High Park Street Reservoir very well having lost a few footballs that I kicked over the structures walls.

    The Reservoir is a Grade II listed building that provided water to the communities of Dingle and Toxteth for 144 years before it was decommissioned four years ago and is presently undergoing renovation as a community space, thanks to Dingle 2000.

    The covered reservoir held approximately 2m gallons of water when operational and is half the size of a football pitch. Architecturally, the former reservoir is similar to the Colonnades buildings as the Albert Dock, with a masonry roof supported by arches and girders with the outer wall made of sandstone.

    Dingle residents now get their water from Lake Vyrnwy in North Wales and the River Dee.

    Funding for the restoration project included £233,524 from the European Regional Development Fund, £172,000 from the governments Single Regeneration Budget and £166,000 from United Utilities.

    Regards

    Rob Ainsworth

    Programme Secretary/ Web Administrator
    Liverpool History Society

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  2. I remember going to see a relative in High Park street in the late forties. I went with my father to the farm there I believe it was belonging to Idrys Mason a distant cousin. The farm was at No 53 and I saw cows there, a rare sight in the heart of Liverpool. I was about six at the time.Well,well,well.
    Big O

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  3. Think you have mistaken a cow shippen =(dairy)
    for a farm lots of dairies in the thirties with a dozen or more milking cows,certainly no farm in high park st in the 40s,(my stamping ground)cheers joe .
    From memory these dairies came about because they found the milk aided children who sufferd from Ricketts

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