Big fire tonight in the lovely old house that was part of Rockferry High, listed building such a shame it was a grand house.. wonder how that started?

Ravenswood. I think we all knew this was coming but we hoped it wouldn’t

Big hole in the roof round one of the chimneys but with so much woodwork inside the building its difficult to tell how much damage has been done.

Full marks to the fire services.

Still damping down this afternoon. Structure doesn't generally look like its been over-cooked.

Nothing to stop the whole area being built on now I suppose!

No patch of green anywhere along the eastern side of Wirral is safe from shoddy little houses being crammed onto it!

Should try and get that or at least part of it habitable and put someone in to look after it , otherwise eventually it will go like so many other listed buildings go , up in flames gone forever...

That is why scaffolding is there, it is supposed to be getting turned into flats. Developer said it would cost £1m before the fire to refurbish thanks to council not maintaining it.

Probable perpetrators were caught on the site's security CCTV, only a matter of time before they get the knock on the door.

Ravenswood has had its structural survey and it is classed as having 20% damage but is structurally sound.

The building was insured.

They are going to remove and store the chimneys and part of the roof as a precaution in case of high winds. They are also allocating community patrol 24/7 alongside Occulus the current security firm.

Torus, the developers, are still intending to rebuild it.

Good , I’m glad , such a lovely house . I used to clean it years ago during my stint as a school cleaner. Used to love it when I was there on my own , thinking about all the grand people going down that lovely staircase.

I used to be around after school quite a bit, there were a couple of cleaners looking busy in Ravenswood, you'd go back an hour later and they were still doing the banister. I think they just preferred being in that building than the rest of the school. I quite liked the main building as well, the new concrete buildings were just trash.

Ravenswood seems to be the building that refuses to die. I joined Rock Ferry in Sep 1983 and I recall Ravenswood was inaccessible thanks to scaffolding and boards as there had recently been a fire (fellow students used to mention names of people they said had committed the arson attack but won't mention the names here). Once restored, it was a 6th form building. Around the back, you could still see names and dates that had been scratched into the stones and the concrete over the years, some dating back to the 50s and even before. You could get a real sense of history of the place. I was only ever allowed in there once to sit a biology exam I'd missed in 1985 or 86 IIRC, but it was a handsome building with beautiful features.
I was saddened to hear of the demolition of my school but was happy that one part of it would continue to exist, albeit as flats. I hope that this latest damage is superficial and that the building can be saved again.

Hi Edward, see you've just joined so welcome.....nice to read your post about Ravenswood I've often wondered about the history of it and who lived their in the past . There is some information but not a lot.
Like reading posts from other parts of the world, how are you managing with this Corona virus?

Hi Cools. Apart from what I've already written, I know nothing else about Ravenswood's history. Have you seen this video?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEtBRGzdQ3I

One of the guys from my year, Stacy Conroy, made this video just before the place was demolished. Sad to watch it, but it brought back loads of good memories. Over here, coronavirus means we are under a curfew, which pretty much means lockdown. We've got around 190 infected cases and 7 deaths, so nothing like back home! How about you guys?
.

Yes I have seen that video , it's a good one. Pretty bad here with this virus but London seems to worse for it. We in lockdown and really should only be going out for essential shopping, medical reason or excercise meaning maybe a walk pretty much near home and if course social distancing..A lot of people not adhering to it though . We'll all just have to pray that things will get back to normal soon but I guess we've all got to be patient and do what we're told.

Thank you for this link! I was a pupil at RFHS (1950 - 1958) and watched this with nostalgia and great sadness. I just left a comment there

Don't know if I've asked this before but wonder what happened to that lovely stone freize above the main entrance? Surely they wouldn't destroy it most prob in someone's garden .

The council was asked that question. They said they had no plans to preserve it. The demolishers might have decided it was worth a few bob though.

From September 2014

Thanks DD...hopefully it was taken/ sold to someone and is somewhere being cared for. Sure they could have made money for charity by selling off some things, even a brick or two people would have liked maybe stick in their garden or whatever. Soppose a salvage team came in first and took all the good stuff. Wouldn't it be nice to know what happened to that carving , anybody give an answer?

Ravenswood has its new roof on and it looks like they are in the process of replacing the windows.

What eventually is the plan for this house DD? I heard it was to become a hub or something for community. Are bungalows for the over 55s still the plan on the land .

From memory (buyer beware!).... there's a three storey old people block and about 40 houses and 30 bungalows, Ravenswood getting converted into apartments.

There will be no through road between Ravenswood Avenue and Highfield South, so vehicle-wise the estate will be divided in two

The plans have changed numerous times. I'll try and dig out the current one later on. The last problem I recall was making sure the bin lorries had adequate access and turning everywhere.

The rest of the land has been handed over to a trust which seem to have no viable plans as how they are going to manage it - after the two groups had a war of the worlds and one achieved dominance, information is kept fairly close to their chests.

Thanks DD, a fair bit of housing on the land then. At least Ravenswood will be looked after and saved, such a grand house. Do you mean the sports Fields which were promised to be used for community sports and maintained.

Two sports fields, there has already been a barney. Some footballers have been using one for a few years but they have been kicked off.

Torus got planning permission back in February 2020 but then in October they reduced their offer for the site from £2.1m to £1.2 because of the increased cost of refurbishing Ravenswood.

Bear in mind the site was valued at over £3m and that the council had already paid for the demolition of the other buildings and basic clearance and levelling of the site.

The security at the site was poor, part of the conditions for demolishing the site were that the Council was supposed to provide a security plan in 2014 which never seemed to materialise.

The layout on the Torus site is roughly right, it doesn't look like there are any bungalows now? The road along the bottom is Highfield South, only the small block of houses at the top right have access from Ravenswood Avenue. The original plans had a different layout.

https://www.placenorthwest.co.uk/news/torus-revises-bid-for-fire-damaged-rock-ferry-site/

https://www.torus.co.uk/news/torus-awarded-planning-permission-for-rock-ferry-housing-scheme/

The development looks great on that pic. Be interesting when all done to take a walk around and have a nosey.