The Lost Pubs of Liverpool. A survey of the corner locals the city built by the hundred and lost by the street — photographed before the wrecking ball, exhibited a thousand miles away in a Prague cellar bar.
As a young boy in the back of my father's car, driving down Scotland Road toward the tunnel, I saw pub after pub deserted — down every street, another and another, all the way to the water's edge. Where are we? I thought. What have we done wrong?From the artist's statement — Birkenhead, the 1990s
Returning, 2010
The Central CaféReturned to Liverpool after years in Prague, I found the city crowned European Capital of Culture — and ringed with buildings like this, rotting in plain sight. The Echo was running its 'Stop The Rot' campaign. I started photographing before the rest was lost forever.
Every corner held one once —
six hundred pubs,
a local for every street.
The subject, drawn: the Victorian corner local — a building type Liverpool perfected and then abandoned.
Portraits of the lost
The ParrotHopwood Street, Vauxhall — white render, green tiles, satellite dish still up, shutters down for good. The full portrait of a corner local at the end of its shift.
The Cunard — named for the liners, moored on its corner long after the ships stopped coming.
The Knowsley — a full Victorian prow of a building, sailing nowhere.
The Royal — turret, terracotta and all; they built pubs like castles because that's what they were.
Seaforth Castle — arches bricked, name intact. The name is always the last thing to go.
Boarded, netted, shuttered — each one photographed square-on and level, the way you'd photograph a person who deserved the dignity.
the pitch pine
swift's
buddy's
the corner house
behind the tree
the red victorian
Some still trading, some just painted like they were — the blue Talbot, a lone figure on a parapet, and the Eagle Vaults keeping its green and gold.
the talbot, in blue
the figure on the roof
atlantic corner
the eagle vaults
The Athol VaultsThe roof gone, the sky moved in upstairs — and the fascia still saying its name in gold on green, correct to the last.
What the wrecking ball misses first
The details go last: a ship's figurehead over a doorway, gilded ghost signs, a carved head sharing its wall with a CCTV camera, and brackets that held lanterns for a century now holding sky.
the figurehead
token house — ghost sign
the keystone & the camera
the empty bracket
stained glass, pink door
pub masterThe arithmetic behind the series, by CAMRA's count.
Once they stood at the centre of every working-class community — dockers, sailors, crew and officers alike, at all times, in any of the six hundred pubs which dominated the city. Now the empty, boarded-up shells remind us of a time gone by.From the artist's statement, 2012
The estate agents' boards go up, the buddleia moves in, and the question on every corner is the same: can these relics last the test of time?
for sale or to let
reclaimed by the green
seaforth & litherlandThe title, explained — for everyone who never heard it rung.
Behind the scenes
The posterTime Gentlemen Please — The Lost Pubs of Liverpool. Rory Wilmer Photography (UK), NAPA Bar & Art Gallery, Prokopská, Prague 1. July–August 2012.
NAPAThe hang, the night before — a vaulted Prague cellar, candles lit to test the light, Liverpool's lost corners going up on the walls a thousand miles from home.
Quality controlPrint inspection, Prague method: loupe to the eye, pint in hand. Both instruments essential.
And then the prints went back
to the kind of streets
that had lost them.
I decided to start documenting these buildings before they were lost forever.The whole project, in one sentence