23 Russell St, Mount Pleasants, Liverpool

[annron]

Hi
Does anyone know if this property still stands, my 2 x GGrandfather lived there in 1859, he had a surgery there and after he passed away in December 1859 it was taken over by his nephew Joseph Kellett Smith who went on to become a prominent surgeon at the Stanley Hospital, he died in 1904. When Joseph Kellett Smith took it over he extended the surgery to include no 25 Russell St.

Thanks

[colette]

Hi Russell Street is all new housing today i am afraid..

I found this image in my pub book the Warren which was on Warren Street Warren Street ran accross Russell Street so it maybe that the houses were similar..

[annron]

Thanks Colette,

Same everywhere I suppose but when I look at the old photos of my home town (Wigan) and see what's in their place today I think why, those old buildings were so much nicer than the boxes they build today, like the one I live in, no character at all, they surely could have preserved these buildings, but some would say it's progress and we have to move on, such is life.

Chris

[colette]

Hi Chris added photo to post

[colette]

[annron]

Wow thanks Colette for the photo's the especially the one of Russell St.

Chris

[erika]

Col, which book have you got with all these lovely pictures in? I have a few but haven't seen these before.
My relatives lived in 52 Russell Street, think it may have been a butchers shop, which he was.

[MaryA]

I think you will be disappointed when you see the street now, you can use maps.google.co.uk and put in the address. Russell Street runs from Copperas Hill to Brownlow Hill but are all newish residences, I've always thought they look quite incongruous there but suspect it might be one of those areas where they have tried to rehouse the original tenants in the same area.

[Central Scrutinizer]

Delighted to see these pictures and hear the racantations. I was born (1962) and brought up on Russel Street in the and my family all lived in my grandmother's one-bedroomed ground-floor flat on the north side of the street adjacent to waste land which faced down Copperas Hill. To the back of us was the Bullring and the famous Bronte Club which was at which my mother (Dorothy Dunn) was a cook. The centre was run by a leading light of inner city community leadership; Teddy Gold who is still very active in community works but now resides in north London.

Our flat was at the Seymour Street end and numbered 123 so I presume your relative's houses (23 and 25) would have been one of the much older properties down at the Brownlow Hill end. I went to school across the road at St.Nicholas' RC Infants School which used to be on the corner of Copperas Hill and Hawke Street. In those days it was run by some quite teffifying nuns. My form teacher was the evil Sister Philomena and the head was Sister Kathleen. The school was demolished in 1973 and is now the site of the Royal Mail's Mount Pleasent sorting office.

The waste land at the side of our flats was frequently used as a lorry park by unsuspecting drivers who would prequently return to find the contents had been pilfered by the hard-up and needy locals. Pickfords used to have a storage depot adjacent to it.

The picture you have shown above is of the old hotel on the corner of Copperas Hill and the south side of Russell Street. In the row you can see a Hairdressers. In the 1960s - 70s this would be a barbers shop, owned and run by the father of Gerry Marsden (off Gerry and The Pacemakers); my mother used to work for him as a cleaner and also for Jimmy Tarbuck's dad who had a betting shop lower down on London Road. In the same row as that old Hairderessers was my favourite shop; Benny's and oft would be heard the cry "please can I have a penny for Bennys". It was a shop that sold a wide range of sweets, tobaco, cigarettes and snuff. Further up was a great butchers which I think was called Jones (not sure on that point though) which I recall was run by a husband and wife. They used to let people have produce 'on tick' till payday. There used to be a basement grill in front of the shop and it seemed lots of lost loose change would gather there so we local kids would get some bubblegum from Bennys and afix it to the end of a broomstick and go fishing for coins.

Happy days in L3

[MaryA]

Hi and welcome to the forum.

What a lovely description you have given us of the area, one I'm sure many of us will share of similar areas in Liverpool, even if not the same streets. Thank you for your post