Work appears to have started on a former cinema in Wavertree which was branded an ‘increasingly rare survivor’, according to The Liverpool Echo.
image: Former Abbey Cinema Wavertree – By Phil Nash from Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 4.0 & GFDLViews, Attribution, via Wikimedia Commons
…landmark site – which featured in the original draft lyrics to The Beatles song In My Life…
The Liverpool Echo writes:
Last year, supermarket Lidl announced its intention to tear down the former Abbey Cinema building on Church Road North in Wavertree, which was deemed to be “beyond economic repair.”
This was to make way for a new store to be built there.
However, after rallying public support, Historic England, the public body which protects old buildings, officially recommended the landmark site – which featured it the original draft lyrics to The Beatles song In My Life – for a Grade II level listing.
This means it cannot be demolished.
Concerns were raised when signs were put up on the former picture palace, saying “demolition in progress”, as work appears to be carried out.
But the ECHO understands this is not demolition work, instead it is renovation work inside the building itself.
Sarah Charlesworth, Listing Adviser at Historic England previously said: “The Abbey is an increasingly rare survivor from the 1930s heyday of cinema, designed by the Liverpudlian architect Alfred Shennan.
“The building’s striking internationally-influenced architecture and the many special features of its interior design, including its wooden mosaic flooring and shell-like ceiling domes, will now be protected for future generations.
“The Abbey has proved to be versatile enough to serve a range of purposes since it closed as a cinema, so we hope that the owner and the local community will now come together to find a sustainable new use for this remarkable building.”
After news the building was saved from demolition, ECHO readers were quick to have their say.
One reader said: “You can’t knock it down it’s a landmark been there forever its Wavertree’s front door.”
Another wrote: “Well done to the action committee. Needs some TLC but have always enjoyed looking at this building.
“Most of the buildings today have no character and are blocks, remind me of Legoland with windows.”…
“Liverpool has many old cinema buildings being left to rot, let’s take this opportunity and move on.”
Liverpool planning and tourism expert Jonathan Brown, who wrote the listing application, previously said to the ECHO : “To replace an elegant 82 year old survivor of the Blitz with a single storey shed in a car park is like recording over an Oscar-winning epic with a wobbly home movie.”
