Lots of white stripes painted around the bases of the traction poles/lamp posts. These were painted on during the blackout and look quite "fresh", so a wartime or immediate post-war pic at a guess ??
I wonder if this picture is quite a bit later than immediate post-war? The tall building on the horizon directly in the middle of the photo looks like the borough treasurer's office block near the junction of Cleveland Street and Hamilton Square. This was built on the site of an old church in the mid to late 60s and had distinctive orange-tinted reflective windows. It was later cut down to a single storey, which is how it remains today. On the other hand, I may be totally wrong about all this.
No centrally heated, double glazed houses then. With hot and cold running water, en-suite showers with indoor toilets. When my mam mentioned to my dad, all those years ago, that it said in the papers that some people were buying freezers. My dad said,'We've already got one here...the parlour.' lol! There's a lot changed for the better for most of us since that pic was taken. Just a shame that some don't appreciate it and take modern living too much for granted.
Wife and i think that the bus could be the number 10 which crossed the docks to Liscard. I know it's impossible to be definite but the shading is a possible clue.
Re my earlier post. I think I'm wrong about the date of the picture and it almost certainly is the 1950s.
On closer inspection, the building on the skyline that I thought might be the 1960s borough treasurer's office in Cleveland Street looks more likely to be the Mersey Tunnel ventilator on the riverside.
I have a print of this with date on the back and it is 1952. What always strikes me about the scene is the grey frontages of all the houses going down Argyle St. South-before we all could afford Dulux exterior paint etc. Before clean-air Acts as well so all bldgs. uniformly grey around the town. Other point is only 1 motorbike outside the houses near the top! Today there are cars parked outside most houses all the way down the street- and every street in the town i suppose !
I was asking my husband about Argyle Street South the other day! You know the houses there, on the top floors why do they all have like a bricked up middle window split in half by the two properties?
Its nothing to do with the old window tax, the houses are not old enought to have been built when that was going. Its more to with the house builder attempting to balance the look of rows of terraced houses. There where lots of terraced houses in Tranmere like that. Most where pulled down prior to the regeneration of Lower and Higher Tranmere over the last 30 years.
Last edited by jimbob; 1st Apr 201210:44pm.
Ships that pass in the night, seldom seen and soon forgoten
This is an enlargement of the section of the photograph showing the bus, which is a Birkenhead Corporation route 43, from Bromborough Cross to Upton Village (the shortened route 42).
