Afraid I can’t help, Barb, but have you tried contacting Billy Butler or Stan Ambrose at BBC Radio Merseyside? I’m sure they’d do their best to assist. Phone numbers are 0151-709 9333 and 708 5500.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/liverpool/hi/tv_and_radio/newsid_8238000/8238746.stm

Best of luck, and please give us an update if you achieve a result.

I.m just wondering does anybody have the words to a song my dad used to sing about Liverpool. I think it may have been called “Im coming home to you sweet Liverpool” and the words mention “the sugar in love lane”?

I don’t know about any railway running into the refinery, certainly not while I was there and there is no mention of one in John Watson’s book on the history of the refinery.

The first photo is of the refinery from Sprainger St. Straight through the railway bridge behind the truck is the Works Entrance and access to the main yard.

Above the railway bridge is what appears to be a square tower with an enclosed bridge alongside leading to the big building on the left. This is the Char House lift, the bridge leads to the Recovery and Yellows Pan Floors.

The building immediately behind the truck is the W Warehouse.

The second picture as you say is of the Chisenhale St side of the factory and shows the vehicle door to what I think is 84 Shed.

Behind that is the Specials Building (the trunkings up the outside wall were part of the dust collection system).

The long,enclosed bridge carried Specials Sugars up to the Senior Sifters and Rotex screens at the top of the Specials.

The brick building to the left behind the long bridge is No1 Refinery and the building to the right and behind the Specials Building is the Recovery House. The two pipes you see running diagonally down the wall are Condenser Tail Pipes.

Mike- perhaps you could email BBC Radio Merseyside’s “A Team” with your query. They may make an on-air appeal for information.

This is Chissy, isn’t it? An excellent pic from Dave Sinclair’s collection.
http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2165/2361931442_bba3993f06_z.jpg

From Dave Sinclair again. Either Sprainger Street or Little Howard Street. Can anyone identify which one it is?
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2419/2361129029_5b206ecd11_z.jpg

Incidentally, I’ve seen evidence that a railway ran across Little Howard Street at ground level- a set of rails set into the pavement seems to be all that remains of it. Don’t know whether it had anything to do with the refinery; if it did, it had stopped operating well before I joined T+LT.

I have a question and wonder if anyone out there can give me an answer. As a Yellows Pansman I boiled those sugars sold in 500g and 1kg bags in the shops as light and dark soft brown sugars.

The large bags, 56lb/25kg bags for industrial use were packed in the Yellows House on the packing floor then sent by conveyor over a bridge to be stowed in the “W” Warehouse.

My question is, where were the small bags as sold in the shops packed and who by? I can’t for the life of me remember!

Yesterday the 22nd of January was 31 years since the 90 day redundancy notices were issued to the Tate & Lyle Love Lane refinery workers and if you look at the last few blogs you will see a picture of some of the workers response to that devastating decision.

The headline in the Guardian, on the 30th of December 2011, was an eye catching “Thatcher’s ministers wanted to abandon Liverpool”! Tate & Lyle obviously did!

The account went on to disclose how Thatcher’s closest confidantes had come close to “writing off Liverpool in the aftermath of the 1981 inner city riots” and how they’d opined “the ‘unpalatable truth’…that they could not halt Merseyside’s decline”. The mild mannered, quietly spoken Sir Geoffrey Howe who was then Chancellor of the Exchequer had exhorted her “not to waste money trying to ‘pump water uphill’ telling her the city was ‘much the hardest nut to crack’”.

What I find most offensive having been actively involved as a member of the Merseyside Socialist Research Group in trying to counter the spurious explanations for so called Merseyside militancy was that “Thatcher’s closest advisors told her that the ‘concentration of hopelessness’ on Merseyside was very largely self-inflicted”!

The habit of scapegoating Merseyside workers has a long pedigree, and was indulged in by slave traders, shipowners, car manufacturers, Mersey Docks and Harbour Company and criminally by Rupert Murdoch’s flagship tabloid, the Sun.

The so called ‘virus’ of Merseyside militancy, was always useful propaganda for employers, despite the objective evidence of defensive responses of workers to continued national and international attempts at restructuring and rationalisations.

On Merseyside we never had rationalisation without the sack and longer dole queues and during the eighties the confrontation between thousands of Merseysiders (leadership and opposition stretched beyond the media portrayal of ‘Hattonistas’) and the Tory government was directly related to cuts in central government support which had thrown the city’s finances and public sector employment into prolonged crisis.

Local struggles often had repercussions beyond the region, but to suggest that as the cause of the ‘disease’, conflates cause and effect, and even virtual reality. The woeful fact despite government denials at that time of “managed decline” was that the UK easily won ‘the lowest cost of exit’ contest in Europe and Liverpool was it’s quickest escape route.

It seems that the thinking in government circles was that everyone but an idiot knows that wages, job security and redundancy terms must be kept poor relative to our European competitors, if ‘we’ are to remain attractive to flows of inward investment.

This commentary is not a blog because although I have found a BT hot spot in a very cold spot in my mother in law’s “Summer House” it is not a very good link and I cannot make the blog function work! Ah well it’s only Sugar and Spice!

Best wishes from Sunderland

The photo in your link is of the bag lads, a bit before my time, but they worked in the Raw Sugar Silos, which were on the left of Burlington St as you went up from the Lane to Vauxhall Rd.

This was where the bags of raw sugar were emptied in the days before bulk sugar became the norm.

Darn. Another duff link. Try this one.
http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/multimedia/nostalgia/images/2011/09/30/appeal-to-save-britain-s-longest-running-community-paper-liverpool-s-scottie-press-100252-29518276/

According to the caption- T&L Liverpool workers, 1975.
http://momedia.kyte.tv/mv/ref/1109/30/19/3540995-at210911bscottie6_jpg-nopRef.jpg?h=e7e7fc3c053b648eadfa5175466f3a15

There has been much recent media furore about Sir Geoffrey Howe’s attitude towards Liverpool 30 years ago, especially his idea for a “Managed Decline” of Liverpool.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-16355281

But it was no secret. Peter Kilfoyle referred to it in 1995-
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debate/?id=2005-01-12a.401.0 (2nd Paragraph).

Bob Wareing alluded to it as early as 1991-
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199091/cmhansrd/1991-06-24/Debate-5.html (column 733)

I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned it before on this Guestbook, too, though my comment will have dropped off now. Anyway, Tate’s is remembered in this “Guardian” article, 11 paragraphs down-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/dec/30/thatcher-battled-cabinet-wets-national-archives

PS- The following post appeared on the message board of “RealClassic” motorcycle magazine on 3rd January 2012. No useful replies were received.

‘Hi, gang. Bit of a long shot, but can anyone remember an article in a UK publication which referred to Geoffrey Howe (now Baron Howe of Aberavon) being arrested for riding a motorcycle drunk in a Mersey Tunnel? The only thing I know for sure is that (a) it was presented as a fact and (b) I couldn’t have imagined it.

I can give some facts about the article in question, but they may not be too useful. For example, I know it was published between 1979 and 1986- but this was long after the actual incident occurred.

Here’s where the memory gets hazy. The four chief suspects for the article would have been the “Liverpool Echo”, “(Liverpool) Daily Post, “Private Eye” or the pre-Fayed “Punch”. For some subliminal reason, I favour the latter- but I could most definitely be wrong.

Geoffrey was the MP for Bebington, a safe Conservative seat since 1950, from 1964 to the General Election of 1966, when he lost out to Labour’s Edwin Brooks. By 1970, Bebington was in Conservative hands again, but by this time Geoffrey had moved constituencies to Surrey, where he was duly elected. It’s tempting, perhaps, to think that his failure in Bebington was down to a local scandal- such as being caught drunk on a motorcycle in the Queensway tunnel (the other Mersey Road tunnel, Kingsway, had yet to be built)- but I think it would have been highly unlikely for an ambitious right-wing MP to have used a bike as transport, even in the 1960s. Besides, such was the swing to Harold Wilson (who had attended a local school, Wirral Grammar) in 1966 that Bebington’s defection to Labour wasn’t all that unusual a result in that particular election.

I wonder, though, how much time Geoffrey spent in the Liverpool/Wirral area prior to 1964? Perhaps he assisted the sitting Bebington Tory MP, Sir Hendrie Oakshott, with a view to taking over the seat when he stood down. (Geoffrey had failed twice to get elected as MP for Aberavon, the last occasion being 1959).

As I said- I couldn’t have simply imagined this article. The second and last time I saw a reference to Geoffrey Howe as a motorcyclist was in the long defunct “Big Bollards” rally fanzine, when he was listed alongside people such as T.E. Lawrence, actor Sir Ralph Richardson, Everton’s Dixie Dean and glamour model Felicity Devonshire as what we would now call a “celeb” motorcyclist.

No doubt message boarders could add to this list, and may also be tempted to allude to the recent revelation that, in 1981, Geoffrey advocated a “managed decline” of Liverpool.’

Sadly, we lost Joe Bennett of T+LT early last year, too.

http://paulanderson.pikfu.net/set1922408/media68370515.html

I was sorry to read of the death of your father, I was a Process Apprentice at Tate’s in 1965 and Bobby Austin was one of the Pansmen who taught me about sugar boiling. Later, when I was a Pansman myself, I was one of those who would relieve him at the end of his shift, please accept my condolences. Mike Greenall.

My dad was Bobby Austin of your Film. Sadly he died on 31 December 2011.  His family feel blessed to have this accessible recording of his interview on sugar, taken as part of your reserarch. We gratefully thank you for this.

I have just read an interesting fact on the inacityliving site, 22 rows down on the Tate and Lyle page,the photo on the far right of the 1847 building, in the text it says that this was apparently a listed building. So much for history!  http://inacityliving.piczo.com/?g=43514575&cr=7

Wow ... Brilliant film ..  that brought back memories. My late mother
Betty Sampson worked in Tates as a cleaner ... she retired 1968 / 69
And how well I remember her coming home .. with her blue overalls on ..
I-am now in my seventies so it is many years ago .. My father used to meet
her at Norton street ( No. 3 bus ) ... when she was on the 2 till 10
shift ..
Somewhere in amongst the family photos is a photo of mum being given
a bouquet of flowers on the day she retired .. the girls who presented
her with them were wearing their turbans and overalls.
My father was eternally gateful to the small pension he received
because of mums service with Tates. Thanks to all ex Tates workers.

Sad that,I wonder why the hall was targeted? Why do I know the name Tony Mcgann? Is he an ex-employee of the refinery?

Its about time some employment was put back into the area, an office block is at least a start. I agree with your comment re Love Lane being depressing, it certainly was the last time I was there, the road was full of litter, the area behind the green fence was overgrown and generally a mess and the large open air sub station on the corner adds nothing to the general appearance of the area.

Just as a point of interest, I recently came upon this site www.peoples-stories.com It contains peoples recollections of Liverpool’s recent past.

I had a look and there was nothing about T&L at all, so I added a short one about my time at Tate’s, have a look, see what you think. I might add some more as I think this sort of thing should be recorded somewhere for future generations. I know it sounds a bit pompous but when you think there are people living in the area now with families of their own who don’t even know the refinery existed, let alone where it was or what it was like.

Its a pity there is no facility on this site to add permanent articles as I feel this is where such memories should be recorded, the comment section is all very well, but the older comments do disappear as new ones are added.

In case visitors to this guestbook haven’t heard about what happened at the Eldonian Village Hall recently-
http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news/2011/11/04/petrol-bomb-attack-on-liverpool-s-eldonian-village-hall-cctv-video-100252-29717550/
http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/multimedia/news/latest-news/video/2011/11/04/cctv-petrol-bomb-attack-on-liverpool-s-eldonian-village-hall-100252-29719681/

The good news is that no-one appears to have been injured. The bad news is- as far as the Village Hall is concerned- well, just about everything else, really.

A day or two after the incident, I telephoned the Hall (0151-476 6231) to find out whether there was some sort of renovation fund to which I could make a small donation. By chance, I got straight through to Tony McGann. It appears no such fund exists at this time, but Mr. McGann seemed very pleased that a non-Eldonian was interested enough to contact him to make such an offer, describing it as a “boost”. I don’t think I’d ever met or spoken personally to Mr. McGann before, but he strikes me as the sort of admirable person to whom everyone he meets is a mate until he or she proves otherwise.

Immediately after talking to Mr. McGann, I rang up Roger Phillips’s mid-day phone-in on BBC Radio Merseyside. Since I managed to give the producer the impression that I was a responsible citizen who had something original and worthwhile to contribute to the programme- thereby stretching my skills of deception to their limits- she squeezed me on as last caller of the day. Once on air, I voiced my sincere regrets about this particularly mean and vile act of arson (“The area rose from the rubble of the Tate & Lyle Refinery”) and passed on my best wishes to Mr. McGann and his team. I also managed a short plug for the “Love Lane Lives” website (as did another contributor on Roger’s 16/11/2011 programme, coincidentally; Roger is a good friend of Ron Noon, and attended the leaving party when Ron retired from JMU).

Ironically, the arson attack occurred shortly after there was news of a potential financial shot in the arm for the district.
http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2011/11/02/hi-tech-plans-to-pipe-hot-water-directly-to-north-liverpool-homes-and-businesses-92534-29703570/

The office block pictured in the artist’s impression in this “Daily Post” article is recognisably situated on the current southern corner of Voxy and Chizzy.
http://www.fixmytransport.com/stops/vauxhall-liverpool/chisenhale-street-chisenhale-street

The paper edition of the “Daily Post” (though not the electronic version) also featured a drawing of the proposed heat and power plant itself; the artist has located this latter building on what looks suspiciously like the southern corner of Pall Mall and Chadwick Street- opposite what used to be Home Trade (now Williams Liverpool), although our old friends the bollards didn’t appear in his picture.
http://www.liverpoolviews.co.uk/dale/loveln/chadwick.html

The “Daily Post” report assets that “The new office block AND THE ENERGY PLANT will be built on land off Vauxhall Road and Chisenhale Street”. If the artist’s impression is set at the location I think it is, this statement won’t be strictly true. Whichever way you look at it, it looks as though Love Lane will be by-passed as far as new buildings are concerned.

I know nothing about the science regarding these things, but there’s a small electrical substation near the western end of Chizzy (next to the former Bridge Inn, now Robertshaw Decorators). It’s the fenced-off brick building above street level with green doors on the top right of this photo-
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_KY1Ez0TsjN8/TUaJ22KGWCI/AAAAAAAAMU8/XKSzjc7hoFI/s1600/93+Chisenhale+Street+4.JPG

Perhaps it is intended that this substation and the proposed energy plant would “back up” each other, which makes some sort of sense. However, I would prefer to see the new plant located next to the huge grid substation on the northern corner of Burly and Love Lane (and, as substations go, it’s big, all right- it’s an open-air construction, presumably because the relevant authorities didn’t want to enclose it within a building). It’s the only structure along the entire length of the eastern side of Love Lane, which otherwise consists of rather depressing, fenced-off scrubland separating it from the Eldonian Village. Some development in this specific area would be welcomed.

(Please see the 5th paragraph down on this link for a reference to the Burlington Street Grid Substation- http://www.bigdig.liverpool.gov.uk/projects/current/Powersystems.asp )

.

Interesting clip, did “ordinary” people really talk like that, I’ve got my doubts. Certainly not in Liverpool!

More to the point, if sugar had been Nationalised then, would the refinery still be operating now? Even with the advent of the “Common Market” as it was called. The factory was quite capable of refining Beet, and often did when necessary. To convert to Beet refining 100%,it would only really have needed a crushing plant as, from Filtration onwards, the process was much the same.

Thanks for clarifying the railway lines issue, Mike. There’s still plenty of evidence that Exchange Station once existed- unlike the Refinery situation. Still, it probably made some kind of sense to remove all traces of the Refinery once the decision was made to close it. To me, the place was a thing of beauty and a joy to behold, but anyone without a connection to T&L may have thought otherwise.

I’ve just found this video about the UK nationalisation of the sugar industry. No sound until 0 minutes 57 seconds.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hs_TglyXw2A

.

I remember the workshops under the railway arches in Love Lane, particularly one opposite the Works Entrance that appeared to specialise in repairing fiberglass Reliant cars. Cannabis growing is a novel use for them though!

Reference the railway bridges, the ones in use now were disused prior to the opening of the underground railway and the ones nearest to the refinery, that is, the ones now removed, carried the railway into what was Exchange Station.

Now a correction, in my last entry I said, with reference to the picture looking up Burlington Street, that the offices would be to the left, I should have said to the right on the same side as the refinery.

Hi, Mike,

Really informative and detailed descriptions on your part, especially bearing in mind that the Refinery wasn’t the main subject of most of the photos.

I described the drawing of Burlington Street as a “red herring” because the caption attached to it on the “Love Lane Lives” site suggested it was a picture of Love Lane itself. It’s on this page-
http://www.lovelanelives.com/index.php/sugar/

Picture no. 835 was posted to illustrate where the train was headed, i.e., here…
http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/l/liverpool_exchange/index.shtml
…and not here-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moorfields_railway_station
There is also a reference to the Refinery by “Mike Caird”, posted on 07 July 2011 (3rd comment down), accompanying the photo. Have a look-
http://www.time-capsules.co.uk/picture/number835.asp

Your suggestion that the bridge over Love Lane facilitated railway deliveries to (and, presumably, collections from) the Refinery makes sense. By the time I arrived at Tate’s, the Liverpool operation had nothing at all to do with the railway, which struck me as odd as the two were literally side-by-side. Of course, diverting deliveries to rail at that time would have meant that less work would’ve been available for Silver Roadways/Tate + Lyle Transport. (Work on the construction of Lockfields began in 1960, the same year the aerial shot was taken.) And how comfortable would T&L have been using a nationalised form of transport?

Additionally, around this time, Ernie Marples- Minister of Transport (and MP for Wallasey)- invited the one-and-only Dr. Richard Beeching on to an advisory group dealing with the financial state of the British Transport Commission. By June 1961, Beeching was chairman of the British Railways Board. He reduced the importance of the lines running alongside Love Lane by determining, for example, that all long-distance routes to Liverpool should terminate at Lime Street, and that Exchange Station should close (along with Liverpool Central “High Level”, Liverpool Riverside and Birkenhead Woodside). It’s conceivable T&L (in the North-West, at least) got wind of these plans in advance and decided to concentrate on road transport, which had largely reverted back from being a nationalised industry in the early 1950s. Conjecture on my part, I know. Anyway, I never saw a single freight train on the Northern Line during my time at T+LT, and we had a good view of the railway at Lockfields- the viaduct formed its western boundary.

Moving off topic a little- before the Beeching Reports (1963 and 1965), there were two bridges carrying rail routes to and from the direction of Exchange Station across Chadwick Street, Little Howard Street, Sprainger Street, Whitley Street and Upper William Street. In each of these cases, the bridges nearer Love Lane have since been removed, leaving the bridges nearer Great Howard Street to carry the current Northern Line. The single bridges over Stone Street and Glegg Street are wider than the others, as they formed part of the rail junction where the lines converged. Pre-Beeching, Stone Street, Glegg Street, Maddrell Street and Sherwood Street had a single bridge- they still have.

The corner of Chadwick Street and Love Lane is now part of the grandly-named “Chadwick Court Industrial Centre”. Otherwise, most of the Love Lane railway arches are still there; the more easterly route the trains used to take is now overgrown. Nearly all the arches are occupied by businesses involved in the budget end of vehicle repairs*, and these enterprises have a rooftop jungle rather than a rooftop garden. Here’s Little Howard Street, for example-
http://www.liverpoolviews.co.uk/dale/loveln/love1.html
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_vy9pl-YeIoE/S9TAi25xFpI/AAAAAAAACA4/6fPeQ9mtNKo/s1600/DSCI0006.JPG

Sprainger Street-
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nocturnaljournal95/5850746042/
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_bIzo7-VX8ww/TAOryirEMdI/AAAAAAAAAU4/ZFX-05cj3Kg/s1600/Sprainger+Street.jpg
http://www.liverpoolviews.co.uk/dale/loveln/spraing1.html
http://www.liverpoolviews.co.uk/dale/loveln/spraing.html

Whitley Street-
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_vy9pl-YeIoE/S9TAx01msEI/AAAAAAAACBA/sSMvPPFjcvk/s1600/DSCI0005.JPG
http://www.liverpoolviews.co.uk/dale/loveln/whitley.html

Upper William Street-
http://www.liverpoolviews.co.uk/dale/loveln/william.html
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_vy9pl-YeIoE/S9TBFhHZcuI/AAAAAAAACBI/CASDUk-G9a8/s1600/DSCI0004.JPG
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_vy9pl-YeIoE/S9TBFhHZcuI/AAAAAAAACBI/CASDUk-G9a8/s1600/DSCI0004.JPG

Corner of Love Lane and Upper William Street-
http://www.liverpoolviews.co.uk/dale/loveln/love4.html

Stone Street-
http://www.liverpoolviews.co.uk/dale/loveln/stone.html
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_bIzo7-VX8ww/TAA8cVuQpYI/AAAAAAAAAUg/jM04P525SpU/s1600/Stone+Street.jpg
http://www.yoliverpool.com/forum/showthread.php?2178-Guess-the-location/page233 (Please scroll down to 2nd posting down on this page, by “wsteve55”, and click on picture.)

Glegg Street-
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_vy9pl-YeIoE/S9TBkEqKo_I/AAAAAAAACBY/sSQZgKD16gU/s1600/DSCI0002.JPG
http://www.liverpoolviews.co.uk/dale/loveln/glegg.html

Maddrell Street-
http://www.flickr.com/photos/maddiedigital/2244916768/
http://www.liverpoolviews.co.uk/dale/loveln/maddrell.html

Sherwood Street (the blue fence, bottom right, marks where the entrance to Lockfields used to be)-
http://www.liverpoolviews.co.uk/dale/loveln/sherwood.html

The northern section of Love Lane. This photo is taken from where the gate of Lockfields used to be-
http://www.liverpoolviews.co.uk/dale/loveln/love2.html

Crossroads of Burlington Street, Whitley Street and Love Lane. The Refinery would’ve been to the left (east) of this pic-
http://www.liverpoolviews.co.uk/dale/loveln/love5.html

Crossroads of Chisenhale Street, Chadwick Street, Pall Mall and Love Lane. Again, the refinery would have been on the left; Chadwick Street Industrial Park is behind the railings on the right (west). And our old friends the bollards have turned up again-
http://www.liverpoolviews.co.uk/dale/loveln/love.html

Chadwick Street, Pall Mall and the bollards-
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_vy9pl-YeIoE/S9TASJOkQDI/AAAAAAAACAw/rOoiyFqaw9s/s1600/DSCI0007.JPG
http://www.liverpoolviews.co.uk/dale/loveln/chadwick.html

Junction of Chadwick Street and Great Howard Street-
http://www.rbiassets.com/GetImage.ashx/86814950971/160+2111.jpg/medium

The area of Love Lane in front of where the Refinery used to be. (It was on the right [east].) Note the road-narrowing garage again in the distance (on the Burly/Whitney Street/Love Lane Crossroads)-
http://www.liverpoolviews.co.uk/dale/loveln/love3.html

Regarding the bridge across Vauxhall Road; perhaps it serviced Numbers 236 to 258 Vauxhall Road (as mentioned in the 1938 Kelly‘s Directory), the Farries premises we discussed on 17-18/10/2011. Remember, we ascertained that they would’ve been on the eastern side of Voxy, as opposed to the Refinery side.

*”NEARLY all the arches are occupied by businesses involved in the budget end of vehicle repairs…”
“Nearly”. But perhaps not absolutely all of them…
http://www.themissinglist.co.uk/canabis-farms-shut-down-by-transport-police-liverpool
http://www.policespecials.com/forum/index.php?/topic/79068-cannabis-farm-in-arches/
http://northernrailways.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1362
http://www.clickliverpool.com/news/local-news/12910-cops-weed-out-cannabis-gangs.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/7610716.stm
http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news/2008/10/09/five-arrested-over-city-cannabis-farms-100252-21998538/

http://www.yoliverpool.com/forum/showthread.php?2178-Guess-the-location/page233 (Click on pic.)

It was the reference in the 9/10/2008 Echo to the Love Lane arches being “classed as railway land” that led me to state (in this Guestbook on 11/10/2011) that I suspected the viaduct that bordered Lockfields was the responsibility of British Rail when I was at T+LT.

Can’t honestly say I do recall the advert you mention. The picture index14 shows the Home Trade and Bulk Gran Delivery Silos in the top right corner.

Picture index18 shows the TL Bulk Silos again, behind them is the “D” Top (the tall reddish brick building) with the elevators and bridge carrying the sugar to the top of the Conditioning Silos ( tall silver towers to the left).

Picture index17 shows more of the refinery, in the foreground is the Home Trade again, behind is the bridge (the long black structure) carrying the Special Sugars to the Specials building which is just visible. Again the Conditioning Silos to the left, and in the distance, the reddish brick building with the steelwork on the roof is the Recovery/Yellows/Filtration House with the Boiler House chimney to the left.

Picture index16:- a closer shot showing the Bulk Delivery Silos again, the old warehouses fronting onto Love Lane, the “D” Building again and to the right, just in shot, part of a large drum shaped building with a bridge going to its top. This was the 10,000 Ton Silo, as its name suggests, it could hold up to 10,000 tons of refined TL Gran.

Picture index26, from the age of the train and the fact that the Lane is still cobbles looks to have been taken from either the top of the old Office Block or the Warehouse alongside the Works entrance, but either way, a bit before my time!

  Picture number 835 doesn’t appear to have anything to do with the refinery,is it there by mistake?

  Picture exchangejunction looks to have been taken from the Office Block area, looking at the scaffolding,possibly during construction of the new block? And, yes, it was a strange place to build a garage!

The picture you describe as a red herring is most certainly not, this is a drawing done looking up Burlington St from Love Lane, if it had continued a bit further down,in would have shown the old office block to the left.

The buildings to the left I think were old warehouses, demolished by my time, but leaving about ten foot of wall standing, a gate had been put in and this was Tate’s main car park.

  The bridge you see going over the road, carried the Raw Sugar Conveyor from the Raw Sugar Silos on the left of Burlington St into the Melt House which was on the right of the street.

  The lorry you see reversed up to the wall on the right and apparently tipping, would have been delivering a load of lime to the Lime Shed which was in this area.

The high building on the right and behind the buildings fronting onto Burlington St was the Filtration House, and last,but not least, the chimney at the top of the picture was the Boiler House chimney.

As you say,the aerial shot was taken before my time, but I believe the refinery had previously been connected by the bridge shown on the picture to the railway for delivery purposes. You will have noticed that there is no Home Trade Warehouse in this shot.

As a point of interest, If you look at the top, centre of the picture where the Fairrie Building is, you will see a bridge there crossing Vauxhall Road to more buildings on the other side of the road, these were once part of the refinery though disused and were disposed of I believe, about the time I joined the company.

This is a repost, in that I’m sure it appears elsewhere on the “Love Lane Lives” site. (It appears on the “Streets of Liverpool” website.)
http://streetsofliverpool.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/Tate.jpg

I believe the photo was taken in 1960, so it’s before your time, Mike. It seems to have been taken from a south-westerly direction; hence the top of the pic would be north-east.

Going from right to left of the photo- on the eastern side of Love Lane, Chisenhale Street and the canal are easily identifiable. So is Burlington Street, and a side street running parallel to it (but slightly north of the Refinery) which I now know to be Atlas Street. At the bottom of the photograph, the streets running between the western side of Love Lane and Great Howard Street are more-or-less concealed by the two railway bridges that ran over each of them. (One set of these bridges was, I believe, removed in the 1960s or- more likely- the 1970s. You may remember this happening. In Ron‘s film, there‘s a clip of an articulated T+LT tanker heading into Home Trade between 25 minutes 21 seconds and 25.26; it can be clearly seen where the bridges had been taken from Chadwick Street, Little Howard Street and Sprainger Street.)

Just left of centre at the foot of the photo, there’s a construction which appears to emerge from the first or second floor of the Refinery. It extends westwards across Love Lane and at least one set of railway tracks. Do you know what this was? Apart from a building on (I think) Sprainger Street, where tins of Lyle’s Golden Syrup were stored, it was always my impression that Refinery activities were confined to the eastern side of Love Lane.

This picture would appear to be a red herring.
http://www.lovelanelives.com/cs_images/sugar_factory_tate_and_lyle_burlington_road_liverpool.jpg

On the “Love Lane Lives” site it’s described as “Tate & Lyle Refinery, Love Lane, Liverpool”. It too shows a construction that crosses overhead. Yet the link itself suggests “Burlington Road” [sic], and, however old this picture is, and whichever viewpoint was taken, the buildings leave no room at all to accommodate the railways running parallel to Love Lane.

And, while on the subject of railways- this photo was definitely taken FROM the Refinery building.
http://www.fluidr.com/photos/kerryp28/tags/exchangejunction (Click to zoom.)

That’s Whitley Street running under the railway bridge. Even though the bridge itself is missing, the crossroads it overshadows is recognisable to this day. The garage-type building (with the red door) is still there. I wonder to this day who allowed it to be built there, because it had the effect of narrowing Love Lane exactly where it didn’t need to be constricted- on its northern section, which was the direct run between Burlington Street and the Tate + Lyle Transport Depot at Lockfields. (Burly would be to the right- i.e., the east- of this photo. Click “Show Map“ for a modern take of the immediate vicinity.)

Note that there’s scaffolding visible on the right of this photo. Perhaps it was taken by a construction worker employed on repairing the Refinery building. Pity the photograph isn’t dated on this site, but we probably know where the train ended up-
http://www.time-capsules.co.uk/picture/number835.asp

Here’s another pic that appears to have been taken from an upper floor of the Refinery. I’m guessing here that the coaches are over Little Howard Street and the engine is about to cross Sprainger Street, so the photo could’ve been taken from directly above the Works Entrance. There appears to be an articulated wagon laden with sacks turning into Love Lane from Chadwick Street, and the City Centre can be seen in the south-
http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/l/liverpool_exchange/index26.shtml

Here’s the Refinery from the railway-
http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/l/liverpool_exchange/index16.shtml
http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/l/liverpool_exchange/index17.shtml
http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/l/liverpool_exchange/index18.shtml

Pall Mall is on the extreme right (east) of this pic. A few T&L buildings are discernible to the north-
http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/l/liverpool_exchange/index14.shtml

Not a bad haul of photographs, even though I found most of them by accident.

(LOL) Hey, Mike- have you thought of starting your own microrefinery in NZ? There doesn’t seem to be much you don’t know about the noble art of sugar manufacture.

“Preserving Crystals”- that brings back memories. Used in jam making, IIRC.

Do you recall the “Superfine” TV advert? Does anyone else? I didn’t just imagine it, did I?

Nothing special about Superfine, the grades of Specials Sugars produced at Liverpool were in order of size:- Superfine, Fine (Castor), Mineral Water Gran (similar to TL Gran but boiled from Fines Liquor, Two Gran, Twos Crystals, Preserving Crystals, Coffee Crystals, and on very rare occasions, Ones.

The larger the grain, the longer the sugar took to produce, so Superfine was just a smaller grain than Fine (sold as Castor Sugar) and very easy to boil. The pan was just “shocked”, that is, grain induced to form by introducing a large amount of Icing Sugar to the evaporated charge, then when sufficient grain had been produced, the pan was put on a feed of liquor to fill it up.

Once full,it would be “boiled in”, then dropped to the machines for drying. It took under an hour to produce, which is quite fast in pan boiling terms, a relatively easy grade to boil.

THE MYSTERY THAT WAS “SUPERFINE”.

Maybe Mike or another former refinery worker can help me out with this one.

Around 1968, Tate & Lyle launched a television advertising campaign extolling the virtues of what was apparently a new brand- “Tate & Lyle Superfine”. (I can be fairly accurate about the date, because these adverts appeared around the time I joined Birkenhead Institute Grammar School as an 11-year-old; one of the schoolhouses there was named after Sir Henry Tate. Richie Aldcroft, who was in the same year as me throughout my time at B.I., was in Tate House. He left in 1973 to start work at Love Lane and stayed until the end. That’s what I call brand loyalty.)

I don’t know whether the Superfine commercials were broadcast nationally or merely regionally, because I rarely left Merseyside in those days.  The ads themselves started with a voice-over informing us of how good Superfine was, to a jolly, bouncing musical background. At the end of the advert, a number of Beverley Sisters soundalikes put words to the music. These aren’t the exact lyrics, but they’re approximately right:

“Put Superfine on your table;
It’s super-versatile*,
‘Cos Superfine is brand new sugar-
And it’s made by Tate & Lyle.”

The last three words- the company name- were then repeated, this time by a male whose voice could be described as either reassuring or syrupy, depending on the extent of your individual predilection for puns. Memory fails me for the moment, but it could even have been that this final “Tate & Lyle” line was depicted as being sung by Mr. Cube.

Anyway, Tate & Lyle Superfine started appearing in 2lb bags in the local shops, and I do remember it as being finer (in the sense of “more refined”) than standard TL Gran. Consequently, I believed Superfine to be a sort of “TL Gran de-luxe”, a view not shared by one of the local corner shop grocers in Bidston, R.G. Tapp of Hoylake Road, who sold both products at exactly the same retail price. Not that Mr. Tapp- who I liked immensely, because he discussed football with me as though I was an adult- was short of commercial nous, but, like myself, he was a long-suffering Tranmere Rovers supporter and thus didn’t encounter words like “super” and “fine” very often.

(I could go off at a tangent here and start discussing the events surrounding the 1968 FA Cup 5th Round Cup tie between Everton and Tranmere, beginning with George Yardley’s injury and ending with the match’s connections with Lancashire’s recent Cricket County Championship title- via allusions to Brian Clough and Frank Worthington- but I won’t. Unless someone really wants me to.)

Tate & Lyle Superfine did indeed appear on household tables for a time, but gradually disappeared from shop displays. It’s not difficult to see why; in that day and age, shoppers were unlikely to go out of their way to specify or purchase Superfine, which in all retail outlets apart from Mr. Tapp’s was 2d or 3d above the price of the well-established and trusted TL Gran.

And so, that was that. At the time, I believed it was a case of a brand that failed to capture the public’s imagination despite extensive advertising, a fate which has befallen many short-lived grocery products (e.g., WFLA milkshakes, Cadbury’s Toffee Buttons, Dine instant potato mash.) I never heard of Superfine sugar again…

…until I joined the T&L organisation in 1977. That’s when I found out that Tate & Lyle Superfine was still available- albeit in 50kg sacks, which would put a bit of a strain on the old dining table. It seemed to be a bit of a rarity, though- in all my time at T+LT, I only booked in two damaged sacks. (It wasn’t a permanent fixture on the Sugar Returns Sheet, which listed all the popular packages, sacks and syrups- TL Gran, Light Soft Brown, Wrapped Small Cubes, Icing, Soft Rich Brown, Fowler’s Treacle and so on. We had to create a special column for Superfine using hi-tech Bic biros.)  However, the fact is that there was a demand for it, however small. Somewhere out there, one or two commercial bakeries, pharmaceutical companies or whatever were specifically ordering Superfine sugar, and the refinery was supplying it.

But was Superfine a separate sugar in its own right? My confusion here is compounded due to “Superfine” sugar in North America being known as “Castor” sugar in the UK. Were those 2lb bags of Tate & Lyle Superfine actually Tate & Lyle Castor Sugar in a different package? This is possible; but the TV ads suggested that Superfine belonged “on your table”, presumably for tea, coffee etc.. Castor, in packages of that size, is better known for its use in home baking.

UK industries have frequently participated in what the motor industry terms “Badge Engineering”. An Austin A60 Cambridge was more-or-less a Morris Oxford (Series VI) or a Riley 4/72. A Sunbeam Stiletto was a cosmetically altered Hillman Imp. A 650cc AJS Model 31 was, to all intents and purposes, a Matchless G12. McEwan’s 80/- bitter is the same beer as Younger’s IPA (outside of Scotland, at least). We know that Superfine wasn’t TL Gran. But was Tate & Lyle Superfine an entity in itself or a “rebadged” sugar from the T&L range? Does anyone from the refinery know?

*”Versatile” seems to have been a buzz-word for TV grocery commercials of this era. Those responsible for the marketing of Carnation evaporated milk, presumably tired of their product being seen solely as anaemic phlegm to be poured over tinned peaches, decided that Carnation was “as versatile as an egg”. Their television advertisements featured a can of Carnation being cracked open, “egg-style” on the edge of a mixing bowl, giving viewers the impression that evap could be used in baking. Amongst those who still remembered this slogan in the mid-1990s was Ray Wilkins, who, as QPR manager, used the phrase to describe Ned Zelic when he signed him for the club in 1995. Ray was subsequently derided for this comment after Ned, who cost £1,250,000, managed a mere 11 first team games (no goals) before moving to Eintracht Frankfurt in 1996.
http://qprreport.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=14738
http://www.wsc.co.uk/content/view/2571/29/
http://www.headington.org.uk/adverts/tea_coffee_milk.htm [Scroll down to “Carnation Evaporated Milk (4).]
No-one seems to remember Carnation’s follow-up campaign, which is a pity as far as the “Love Lane Lives” site is concerned. These later TV advertisements claimed that “Carnation is versatile as sugar”.

.

Could’ve done with a treacle well, Mike, as alluded to by the Dormouse in Chapter 7 of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”.

The refinery shown opposite Raymond St and Hornby St became part of Tate’s and was still there during my time, though disused by then, although part of it was used for the production of liquid sugar. There is a picture of this building somewhere on the inacityliving site, it shows it in the distance looking along Vauxhall Rd toward the city centre. It looks very like a prison!

I remember there was still quite a bit of very old plant there, Pans, Receivers etc (and even a steel air-raid shelter left over from the war)all which should have been preserved but no doubt went as scrap.Just prior to my time there, there were factory buildings opposite, (on the other side of Vauxhall Rd) which were linked by a bridge over the road.

A bit more on “wells”, I think there were five.  I call them wells though I think only two were actually wells, one I saw a drawing of, was bricked all the way down. Others were bore holes. As you know, sugar is boiled under vacuum, the production of which which requires Condensers. The well water was used as cooling water these condensers. It was recycled through the cooling towers, (made of wood incidentally) you probably remember seeing them, then pumped back for re-use. Some was lost in the process, evaporation etc., so this was made up with more well water.

Corporation water was also used in the refining process, but most defiantly not for condenser water as this was metered and had to be paid for and the volume used was quite considerable.

I remember reading in the Echo I think it was, about the water level rising in the underground tunnels after the closure of Tate’s and the fact that the pumps had to be upgraded. Another down side of joining the Common Market!!

I rather think, Mike- and I’m always open to correction- that these entries mean (moving from south to north, away from the City Centre) “At 224-226 Vauxhall Road is The Green Man Inn. Then there’s Vauxhall Road’s junction with Green Street. 336 Vauxhall Road is Farries. Then there’s Voxy’s junction with Hornby Street. 238 to 246 Vauxhall Road is Farries again, followed by the junction with Raymond Street. North of Raymond Street on Voxy, at numbers 254-258, is the Farries Works Office. Further again north is Tatlock Street…” and so on.

Portland, Raymond, Hornby and Tatlock Streets (as mentioned in the Kelly’s) can be seen here on one of the 1893 maps. As indicated by the Farries even (as opposed to odd) “house“ numbers, they join Voxy on its eastern side-
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/mapsheet.aspx?compid=55207&sheetid=10190&ox=1395&oy=1191&zm=1&czm=1&x=331&y=33

I noticed a few months ago that Tatlock Street is still there. So is Green Street, which runs alongside The Green Man (as featured in Ron’s film and “The Boys from the Blackstuff”). And lo and behold, its current address is 224-226 Vauxhall Road- just as it was in the 1938 Kelly’s.
http://www.drinksinliverpool.com/pubs-and-bars/the-green-man-liverpool/61/970.html
http://www.whoseview.co.uk/business/The-Green-Man-Kirkdale-Liverpool-338697.html

I didn’t know about the wells, Mike, but I’m glad you mentioned it because it clarifies something. On 25th October 1978 H.M. Queen Elizabeth II officially opened Moorfields railway station. (I was there, too, on my way back from an early shift. She didn’t nip into the Wine Lodge opposite for a quick one, incidentally.) The station had been more-or-less fully operational for about six months anyway- in fact, the Northern Line platform had been in use since May 1977.

But I digress, as per. Once the Refinery closed, it was difficult not to notice that the railway serving the Wirral platform at Moorfields (which forms part of the loop) was frequently flooding; it was not unusual for the water level to be higher than that of the rails. This was because once T&L ceased operations, the company also stopped using water; consequently, the water table in the area was dramatically altered. Merseyrail (or their predecessors) still haven’t been able to completely control the problem to this day.

So I knew that Tate’s in Liverpool used a heck of a lot of water, but I didn’t know where they got it from. Now I do. Thanks, Mike.

Looking at those maps it looks as though the refinery in 1893 took up a very small area on the right side of what was then a public road, Java St. It certainly expanded a lot in later years. The area indicated as “Refinery” on the map was primarily old warehouses when I was there.

I notice in the last column of the street directory that there are three further addresses for Fairrie and Co, 336 Green St, 238 to 246 Hornby St and 254 to 258 Raymond St (Works Office).I wonder where these streets were? Somewhere nearby presumably?

Did you know that the refinery had several wells on site and used a considerable quantity of water from them?

It’s darn frustrating, Mike. That map is one of several from the “Yo Liverpool” site and the postings concentrate on Eldon Street. I’m looking for “static” maps that venture slightly further west but have thus far been unsuccessful.

Here’s the same area in 1893.
http://www.yoliverpool.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=19745&d=12026597434

And in 1927-
http://www.yoliverpool.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=5187&d=1202659743

This is an extract from the 1938 Kelly’s Directory. Farries is down as being at no. 253 Vauxhall Road, on the corner of Black Diamond Street- which you mentioned on 27/7/2011.
http://www.yoliverpool.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=23134&d=1316893668

This link’s a bit awkward to use (assuming it works), but it can show the area we’re looking for. Again it’s from 1893.
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/mapsheet.aspx?compid=55207&sheetid=10190&ox=709&oy=1431&zm=1&czm=1&x=427&y=292

Yes, I knew of the doctor’s surgery.I had to attend there when I changed jobs in the refinery, once when I finished as a Process Apprentice, and again when I went on the Pans.

I walked round the area a few years ago and, with the exception of the Bridge Inn and the bollards at the bottom of Chisenhale St, I recognized nothing! The housing development is very nice, but it doesn’t provide anyone with a living!

The map is interesting, there is a sugar refinery indicated above Burlington St, presumably this was Fairrie’s? When I was there this area was take up by 149 Shed, a raw sugar storage facility, behind which were the engineering shops and the remains of the old refinery (Char House etc.)Also I remember the refinery property went right up to Vauxhall Rd.(Bulk Sugar Unloading Bay).

  Across the road where Baths are indicated was the Refinery Coal Yard,a conveyor took it over the canal to the Boiler House and on the corner of Vauxhall Rd and Burlington St was Tate’s club, the Crystal Club.

I notice two more streets within the refinery area, Eccles St, which I do remember but had forgotten about and Clement St, which I did not know of.Looking at the map,and from what I remember, I think this street must have been in the area of, or even under the Specials Building. I also note the presence of a tannery, this presumably explains why the area of the Specials Building was known as “The Tannery”.

It would be interesting to see the next map section to the left of this one to see what is shown on the rest of the refinery site in the early 1900’s.

Mike- re your posting on 29/7/2011- more by accident than design, I’ve discovered Java Street. It’s on this 1908 map-
http://www.yoliverpool.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=5186&d=1202659743

Apparently, the Burly canal bridge was (is?) also known as Houghton Bridge, as well as “Bridge B”.

So, Mike-you had a Bonnie in the 60s/70s???  Lucky so and so. When I was an office boy in my first job (this was prior to my joining Tate’s) I fell in love with a T120V that used to be parked off Leece Street.

You know they’re making them again, don’t you? Apparently the current Triumph factory at Hinckley, Leicestershire, is producing and selling more machines per annum than Meridan ever did. More over-600cc bikes are sold in the UK by Triumph than any by Japanese manufacturer. They’ve been making “retro” Bonnies since 2000 and over 71,000 have been sold.
http://www.motorcycledaily.com/2000/08/16aug00triumphbonneville/
http://www.triumphmotorcycles.co.uk/

But that’s all more than a little “off-topic”. Yes, there was a dental surgery within the refinery complex. Also- IIRC- there was a part-time GP surgery there, too. I started at T+LT on the same day as a girl who was a little younger than me, and we both had to report to the Refinery to undergo a health check in a medical room there about a week later. I understood this was company policy.

Research reveals that the Leeds-Liverpool Canal historically ran as far as the aptly-named Leeds Street, which has changed quite a lot since 1981. There is an “Old Leeds Street” off Old Hall Street, opposite which are these monuments/buildings-
http://www.towpathtreks.co.uk/photodisplay.asp?ino=1099
http://www.towpathtreks.co.uk/photodisplay.asp?ino=1098
http://www.towpathtreks.co.uk/photodisplay.asp?ino=0001

The beam-type “arch” in the last photo (0001) is inscribed “Gateway to the East”. The St. Paul’s district of Liverpool is unrecognisable to anyone who remembers it from as late as the mid-1990s.
http://www.clickliverpool.com/business/business-news/1213104-liverpools-st-pauls-square-discovers-property-is-still-a-sound-investment.html
(Incidentally, the famous Eye Hospital- “the site for sore eyes”- was demolished in 1996.)

PS- My current motorcycle is a Kawasaki ER-5. More relevantly- and this is true- I have my old 1970s T+LT patch sewn on to my bike jacket.

The first photo (0012) brought back some memories, I used to park nose in to the wall on the right but as near the refinery as possible,less distance to walk! Though if I was on my motor bike, a Triumph Bonneville, I would park in the main car park as it had a bike shed.

The canal had been filled in from Chisenhale St in the town direction. Water was still discharged into the section of the canal between Chisenhale St and Burlington St from the factory, I think it was cooling water from the Power House, though I might be wrong there.

Regarding females working in the Refinery,I don’t think at that time anyone even considered that they would want to. It was definitely a male preserve, particularly as in one dept,the Char Houses,which were hot at the best of times, in very hot weather the Wet Char Men would work naked!

I’ll take your word ref the dental surgery, I never went there,in fact, I didn’t know there was one.

Over all, taking in the offices, packing department etc, I would think women outnumbered men by quite a large margin in the total workforce.

If you type in “sugar centrifuges” to the search engine some photos come up. The first picture shows a battery of machines very similar to those used in the Melt House. In fact, the company who made them still exists, Western States (westernstates.com)

I didn’t know that that car park belonged to Tate’s, Mike. That’s another bit of former T&L property that still remains in the immediate vicinity, then.

In the 1970s, most of the T+LT employees parked their personal vehicles in the grounds of the derelict Melias building. I didn’t have to, though; there was space specially reserved within Lockfields for motorcycles. Due to the relatively high pay offered by Tate’s I was able to purchase a Honda 400/4, which was the first-ever of my bikes not to be a banger. I obtained discounted insurance for it courtesy of a scheme operated through the Tate & Lyle News, too.

The railway viaduct that formed the western border of Lockfields is another example of existing tangible evidence of the T&L organisations presence in the district, though I suspect it could have been British Rail’s responsibility when I was there.

Here are some recent photos of the “Pall Mall“ (or” Home Trade” car park-
http://www.towpathtreks.co.uk/photodisplay.asp?ino=0012
http://www.towpathtreks.co.uk/photodisplay.asp?ino=0011
http://www.towpathtreks.co.uk/photodisplay.asp?ino=1097

The text accords with your reference to “the site of the Leeds-Liverpool Canal after it was filled in“. The area covered by Burlington Street, Chisenhale Street, Pall Mall, Love Lane and the southern end of Great Howard Street is peppered with evidence of long-gone canals and/or disused railway tracks;
http://www.towpathtreks.co.uk/llc/liverpool_canal.html
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nocturnaljournal95/5850746042/

You hint about the scarcity of females at the Liverpool Refinery, Mike. That would have been quite correct as regards the actual industrial refining side- which, as you point out, was where you were employed- and I take your point that this would mean that you wouldn’t have personally known too many female Tate’s employees. However, I should point out to those who weren’t aware of it that at T&L there were female canteen staff, clerks, telephone operators, packers, domestics and that terrible dogmatic dragon who acted as receptionist in the Refinery’s dental surgery (which I always thought should have been called the “dental sugary”, but my puns were never up to much). The ratio of males-to-females was far more heavily biased towards the former at T+LT than it was at the “general” Liverpool refinery, yet I still remember 20 or so ladies who had day jobs at Lockfields during my time there.

Let’s not forget that this site is sub-titled “The Girls and Boys from the White Stuff”…
http://www.scottiepress.org/gallery/lastday.jpg
http://www.bbc.co.uk/legacies/work/england/liverpool/

I know the warehouses you mention, the car park behind was one of Tates’ car parks, I used to use it on occasion. I was on the site of the Leeds Liverpool canal after it was filled in.

I don’t know that there would be much to go into a heritage site after all this time. Almost everything would have been lost or destroyed by now, some of the plant would have been an Industrial Archeologist’s dream, it was so old, long gone now though.

Yes, I think you must get the Anorak of the Year award for that bit of research! Whoever he is, he must be one of the last apprentices taken on before the closure.

I looked at the site you mention, but don’t recognize either of the names from the time I was there (1965 till closure), but then I only really knew the male employees as no women worked in the actual refinery itself. No doubt that would be considered sexist these days! The only women I remember in the refinery were those working in the Tailor’s Shop on the Sweetland Press floor where filter cloths etc. were made for use in the plant.

I have added myself just in case anyone I knew looks in, but don’t hold out much hope!

On 3rd August 2011, I posted the following-

“To have worked at the Liverpool refinery for a minimum of 12 months, a person would have to be at least 47 years old now.”

And I may well have found such a person. Take a look here, 4th and 5th lines down under the heading “Education and Training”:
http://www.people4business.com/seller-266088.htm

Do I win the T&L (Liverpool) Anorak of the Year Award?

.

I’ve just found this. It may be useful. Perhaps the members could be alerted to the existance of the “Love Lane Lives” site. (Don’t ask me to do it though- I’m useless at I.T..)

http://who-remembers-me.com/profile/Establishment/1291412/tate___lyle_liverpool.html

Mike- re your idea of leaving one of the older warehouses standing as an Industrial Heritage Site.

It could still be possible for a Tate & Lyle (Liverpool) heritage site to exist in the immediate area. As we know, there are no buildings on the eastern side of Love Lane at all these days, with the exception of an electricity power sub-station on the corner of Burly.

However… along the eastern side of Pall Mall there is a row of empty warehouses, once the property of the Liverpool Warehousing Company.
http://www.towpathtreks.co.uk/photodisplay.asp?ino=0005
The most northerly of these- No. 90, Pall Mall- is the next building along to what was once Home Trade; in fact, the car park behind the warehouses shares a short boundary with the former Tate’s property.

Liverpool City Council takes an occasional interest in these warehouses, putting forward the idea of converting them into offices or hotels.
http://councillors.liverpool.gov.uk/mgConvert2PDF.aspx?ID=49059

Now, should this happen- and, given the current economic climate, we’re looking a long way into the future here- would it not be possible to dedicate some space at No. 90 to a T&L Heritage Museum? There’s even a small doorway already there to accommodate it.

(This isn’t No. 90, but it illustrates the type of door to which I refer-
http://www.liverpoolviews.co.uk/dale/pallmall/palllee.html
No. 90 is pictured here, beyond the wall-
http://www.flickr.com/photos/exacta2a/3460219748/
On the extreme left of the wall is the original T&L brick gatepost.
Usual “flickr” rules apply to the latter link.)

Ron would certainly be in support of some kind of Tate & Lyle (and T+LT) heritage centre. Some might say it would be more appropriate if it were to be based in the Eldonian Village or a corner of the Tate Gallery at the Albert Dock. Appropriate, yes- but unimaginative.

http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/views/letters-to-editor/2010/12/06/daily-post-letters-92534-27772901/

Yes, the photo on the right, that building is the end one of a row of old warehouses which fronted onto the Lane.

As you say, you tend not to forget old skills, no doubt all automated now and the skills long forgotten. I do think this sort of thing should be written down as at some time in the future local historians will be asking what was done here and how, but get very few answers as the knowledge will have died with those who knew.

The three photos below all show the factory from more or less the same direction. The building with Tate and Lyle written on it housed the Yellows, Filtration and Recovery Houses.

If you look closely, you can see a section of the building projects forward of the main building and slightly lower, this housed the Milling House(icing sugar production)but production was moved over to the Specials Building leaving this building empty.

Looking at the far right photo, the “Tate and Lyle” building, come down 3 “squares” from the roof of the main building i.e. the first row of windows. That was the Yellows Pan Floor which was where I worked. You got a great view of the Mersey from there.

Once a sugar craftsman, always a sugar craftsman, hey, Mike?

“The dark building, to the left of the Home Trade Silos was one of the very old warehouses which, in my opinion, should have been preserved as industrial heritage but wasn’t. It is actually on the refinery side of Chisenhale St though it doesn’t look like it here.”

Are you referring here to the photo on the right of the aerial shot, with the Minis parked on the western side of Pall Mall in the foreground?

Yes,I do still think of granulated sugar as TL Gran, mind you I did spend quite a few years boiling it! Even now I look at granulated sugar from other producers and think we would never have got away with some of the stuff they sell these days, far too much dust,what we would have termed a “dirty” Pan.The machines would have had difficulty drying it and the Pansman responsible would have been told so by the machine men in no uncertain terms!

If you look at the picture alongside the aerial shot,which,incidentally was taken before the building of the Conditioning Silos, you will see the bulk sugar delivery silos in the Home Trade Yard. In the background, behind the two conveyor bridges, you can see a round/cylindrical building. This was the 10,000 Ton Silo, for bulk storage of refined TL Gran, from this Silo it went to various delivery/packing points in the packing dept.

The dark building,to the left of the Home Trade Silos was one of the very old warehouses which,in my opinion, should have been preserved as industrial heritage but wasn’t.It is actually on the refinery side of Chisenhale St though it doesn’t look like it here.

http://inacityliving.piczo.com/?g=42204765

10 out of 10 for identification, Mike. Do you still refer to the 2lb/1kg bags as “TL Gran”? I do. There was also an interim period, I believe, when the bags were labelled as weighing a precise 2.2lb.

Follow the railway line north (“up” on the photograph) and there’s a yard with two long sheds which have pale coloured roofs. This is Lockfields. It was separated from the Refinery on the eastern side of Love Lane by the head office and warehouse of Melias (which closed in the early 1970s after a disastrous attempt to create a supermarket chain named “Merlin”) and properties that I think belonged to the Liverpool Warehousing Company, though I’m wide open to correction as regards the latter. There was also a dingy side street on the eastern side that ran parallel to Burly, though I can’t name it or even guess as to where it ran. It’s gone now.

There are no buildings at all on the eastern side of Love Lane these days, apart from an electric substation on the corner of Burly (which is now closed to motor vehicles at its junction with Love Lane and Whitley Street), on the opposite side to where the Reception entrance used to be. Love Lane is separated from the Eldonian Village by two fences and a strip of scrubland. Williams Liverpool, on the corner of Pall Mall and Chissy, stands on the site formerly occupied by Home Trade and AFAIK is the only identifiable section of where the old Refinery stood- and even then you’d have to know what you were looking for.

As you’ve said in a previous posting, Mike, you stood on Burlington Street bridge a few years ago and didn’t recognise a thing. That’s understandable. But take a look at these reposted photos of Chisenhale Street.
http://spikesaycheese.weebly.com/uploads/4/7/3/5/4735364/7037304.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/newfolder/1401190754/

On the left, behind the old Bridge Inn and fenced off, is a rather bland brick building with odd-looking chimney-style metal vents on the roof. It’s part of the current Williams Liverpool complex, but looks old enough to have previously been part of T&L. (There are also a couple of sections of wall around the Williams yard that may remain from Tate’s occupancy, too.)

I’ve walked around the former Refinery site several times recently- up Chissy, along Voxy, down Burly and the entire length of Love Lane- and this rather mundane building is the only one I’ve seen that could have conceivably been used by Tate’s in a former life. Accordingly, I’ve written to Williams asking if they could shed any light on the matter and am currently awaiting a response.

Oh, yes- and there’s something missing from Love Lane that should be there, but isn’t. There’s the small matter of the Refinery, of course, but it took me three or four strolls along the Lane before I realised what else it was.
http://1.2.3.10/bmi/www.lovelanelives.com/images/uploads/IMG_2361_thumb.JPG

Not a single “Love Lane” street sign. Not one.

Its a pity the aerial photo of the factory on the link you give is during the demolition phase, and as you say,it would be good if these photos could be added to this site but it might be of interest to try to name a few of the buildings still standing.

At the bottom of the picture,white roof and overhead conveyor bridge to two bulk sugar silos is the Home Trade Warehouse.

Above that in the picture is a very long conveyor bridge, this linked the “D” Top on the left end of the bridge with the Specials
s Building where the Special sugars(larger crystals,icing sugar etc.) were sieved and packed. The “D” Top was a switching point for refined sugars, conveyors took the refined sugar from here to its various packing and delivery destinations.

To the left of the “D” Top you can see tall whitish towers, there were 4 of these, Conditioning Silos. All the TL Gran(the sugar in the 2lb/1kg packets) passed into these silos from the bridge conveyor housed above them. This conveyor was fed by two elevators which were in turn fed with sugar from the Granulator Floor in No1 Refinery.

The building to the right of the Conditioning Silos elevator housing and behind the bridge to the Specials Building, was No1 Refinery, where the refined sugar was boiled and dried.

To the right of that but lower than the red brick building behind,is a grayish building, the Char Houses, where filtered brown liquor was decolourised by filtering through bone charcoal.

The large red brick building behind housed three departments, the left end of the building was the Yellows House( producing Soft Brown Sugars,the near side of the building housed the Recovery House and the far side,not really visible on this picture housed the Filtration House.

To the right of this building,partly demolished with the large chimney was, as you might guess, the Boiler House, I think it had four Simon Carves boilers and a 10 megawatt turbine.

Yes, that’s from Ged Fagan’s website. The INDIVIDUAL photographs have been “Right-Click Protected” to prevent them from being misused. It’s difficult to critcise Ged for taking that course of action.

It’s worth pointing out to “new users” that they should scroll down that page to find as many Tate & Lyle-related pictures as possible (including one featuring those pesky bollards on the corner of Pall Mall and Chadwick Street).

The pedant in me forces me to state that the name of the Tate’s driver alluded to in the introduction to that page is Jimmy Hodgers, not Jimmy Hodges. He drove a small van (Bedford TK) and its fleet number was 472. An immensely popular man who sadly became a widower during my time at Lockfields.

Scroll down to the 11th row of this page (also from Ged’s website) for 13 Tate’s-related pics, as well as a brief history of the Refinery;
http://inacityliving.piczo.com/?g=42204765

Perhaps an eminent local historian (anyone spring to mind?) could approach Ged regarding the possibility of posting individual images on the “Love Lane Lives” website. His terms of copyright certainly don’t seem too draconian-
http://inacityliving.piczo.com/?g=40730981

I have just found this link,if it opens ok,it shows quite a few photos of the refinery and surrounding area.
http://inacityliving.piczo.com/?g=43514575&cr=7

You have got me on 84 Shed. It rings a bell,I think it might be the Delivery Shed which opened onto Chisenhale St. but I am not sure,as I say, I am more familiar with the refining process than the packing side,though I do have a fair idea of how it worked. It’s a pity no one from Packing comments on here, they would know far more than me.

As to the truck skipping a load of sugar at a depot,it certainly is not at the refinery, as you say there were no houses nearby, with the exception of the Bridge Inn, I think the nearest residential area would be across Vauxhall Road.

The more info, the better, as far as I’m concerned, Mike.

Here’s a pic from Paul Anderson’s splendid “Northwest Trucks” website.
http://paulanderson.pikfu.net/set1922408/media61995783.html

Paul describes the Fodens as being at “one of Tate & Lyle’s depots”. Do you think this photo was taken at Love Lane? I can’t remember any houses being in close proximity to the Refinery.

This photo was taken at Lockfields during my time there-
http://paulanderson.pikfu.net/set1922408/media68360962.html

I worked at the eastern end of the building in the background, in the Traffic Office.

BTW- another place to which I consigned returned sugar/syrup but never visited was 84 Shed. Any information on this location?

That explains it, I thought you had gone very quiet, if you want to know anything else,feel free to ask.

A bit more about reprocessing,a.k.a. re-melt. The Specials Building(Tannery) had a Melter,it also had a chute into the Yard from which refined sugar unfit for packing was discharged into a trailer similar to the bulk Raw Sugar trailers which did the dock run.

When full,this trailer was taken round to the Raw Sugar Intake point on Vauxhall Road and was discharged there so the contents went right through the refining process for a second time.

Thanks for the info, Mike. My computer’s been down, hence the delay in posting my response.

As to your query ref 71 Shed, I have to admit, I don’t know a lot about the packing side, but from what I remember, this was the Shed from which the Small Packets (supermarket deliveries etc.) were discharged.

Any damaged or contaminated sugar from shops etc., would be returned here for reprocessing. The packages would be emptied into a melter, basically a tank with a stirrer and a water feed, the sugar would be dissolved and pumped back into the refinery for reprocessing. It would not be re-packed as there could be no guarantee that it had not been contaminated.

The Greg’s dad link opened ok, I stood on Burlington St bridge a few years ago and didn’t recognize a thing. As you approach the bridge from Vauxhall Rd,on the right used to be 149 Shed which held about 10,000 tons of raw sugar.
I remember, as a child, going to the refinery with my father to pick up his pay and watching tipper trucks dumping raw sugar into hoppers set into the wall of this building. I can remember watching, fascinated as the sugar disappeared into the building as screw conveyors moved it away.
This was before the raw sugar discharge point, which took the bulk sugar wagons, was in use on Vauxhall Road

Here’s an area where you may be able to enlighten me, Mike. In the course of my job booking in the damaged packets, sacks, tins etc.- my official title was Shift Sugar Returns Clerk- I occasionally dealt with “Orders to Collect” (OTCs). These occurred when a customer, usually a supermarket, had stockpiled enough damaged T&L products as to make it worthwhile to arrange for them to be picked up and returned on the T+LT wagon during the course of a delivery.

I believe these “damages” ended up at 71 Shed. Do you know what happened to them upon their return to the refinery? Were they destroyed, or recycled, or did some other fate await them?

Any information gratefully received, as usual.

It figures, Mike.

Please try this link instead. 6th post down (by “gregs dad”). I’m beginning to think that the Kingsway Tunnel ventilation building visible on this pic is actually on the Liverpool side of the Mersey, given that said tunnel runs beneath where Home Trade used to be.
http://www.yoliverpool.com/forum/showthread.php?5870-New-Canal-Link/page16
(There’s also an recent photo of Burly Bridge [the former “Bridge B”] on this page.)

Afraid those links won’t open!

Found another photo of the “former” bridge at Chisenhale Street, this time from 2009 and taken from the eastern side. According to the canal enthusiasts’ websites, this was “Bridge A” and Burly’s was “Bridge B”.

http://1.2.3.12/bmi/farm4.static.flickr.com/3661/3452550178_b2f86f007f_o.jpg
http://1.2.3.12/bmi/farm4.static.flickr.com/3661/3452550178_b2f86f007f_o.jpg

In the distance is the Chadwick Street railway bridge and, on the opposite bank of the Mersey, the Kingsway Tunnel ventilation building at Seacombe.

Bound to be a few around, Mike. The question is- given their age, are they “computer-savvy”? (I’m certainly not- look at the number of duff links I’ve posted. I only learned the basic stuff after being dragged kicking and screaming into Civil Service departmental I.T. training around 1998.)

Another query. Do all the surviving ex-T&L Liverpool workers know about the “Love Lane Lives” site? Ron’s done a heck of a lot to promote the Tate’s employees’ cause in the local media. This includes, for instance, the interview with Margi Clarke on City Talk, on which he mentioned http://www.lovelanelives- but, to be blunt, not everyone listens to that particular radio station. (It’s rather in a state of disarray at the moment, with an audience listening figure of 4 per cent.)

What you could consider, Mike, is emailing BBC Radio Merseyside. If any former Love Lane worker is listening to a radio station, it’ll be that one. It was on Roger Phillips’s mid-day programme that my foreman at T+LT, Randall (Alfie) Holford, publicised Jim Smith’s 100th birthday party; I get the impression that Roger may be a friend of Ron’s.

I know that Radio Merseyside’s “A-Team” broadcasts a “Where are they now?” feature at least once a week, usually on one of Billy Butler’s weekday afternoon programmes.

Besides anything else, your comprehensive knowledge and accurate memories of the refinery may be of interest to the station, especially given that 2011 marks the 30th anniversary of the closure of Tate & Lyle (Liverpool).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/england/merseyside/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/england/radiomerseyside/presenters/roger_phillips/phillips.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/bbc_radio_merseyside

I would be interested to know how many of the Pansmen who taught me how to boil sugar are still around. I know Bobby Austin still is, but that’s it, I’m afraid.
When I went on the Pans,I was only 24, I think all the others must have been at least ten years older than me, which puts them in their seventies now.

You’re right- we could do with a few more people contibuting to this “Guestbook” comments page (misdirected Ukrainians notwitstanding).

No need to be too pessimistic- there were plenty of T+LT survivors at Jim Smith’s 100th birthday party last year, a few of whom are still working.

To have worked at the Liverpool refinery for a minimum of 12 months, a person would have to be at least 47 years old now. However, given the changes in the school leaving ages since the Second World War, it’s possible for someone to have worked at Love Lane for 20 years and be only aged a comparatively young 64- i.e., below the present UK pension age for males. So there must be more than a few ex-Tate’s staff out there who could make valid contribuions to this page. And don’t forget their relatives, either.

Yes, it wasn’t a good time, I was unemployed for 15 mths, then got a job in a factory in Bootle which paid the bills but not much more,the pay was poor, to say the least, I stuck it for 8 yrs.
In 1990 I became a Prison Officer, the starting pay in 1990 was the same as the pay I finished on at Tate’s, gives some idea of how well paid T&L workers were.
I retired at the end of 2007 and now live in NZ. Its a pity more ex employees don’t contribute to this site,it would be interesting to know what others are doing and to read what they remember of the refinery.Mind you, I was in my early 30s when the plant closed, most of the people I worked with were quite a bit older than me,so there might not be too many left!
If you want to know anything in particular about the plant, feel free to ask, though I’m not sure this “comment” section is the place for it.

Sounds like the closure caused a bit of a domestic crisis, Mike. How long was it before you all regained substantive employment? It took me until 1989. Which is not to say I didn’t have a few temporary jobs in the interim…

These involved five different employers in all, and I won‘t bore everyone to death by listing them. But the first one was obtained through somewhat mysterious circumstances.

You may remember that, towards the end, the DHSS (as was) dispatched several of their Jobcentre staff to the Crystal Club. The reasons were twofold; to see if any of the Refinery and/or T+LT staff could fix themselves up with another job, and to take details from the employees to be relayed to their local Jobcentres, so that the officers there would be prepared when the redundant ex-Tate’s people came in to sign on for the first time.

As it happened, the DHSS officer who dealt with me in the Crystal Club was a chap named Ronnie James, who I’d grown up with in both primary and grammar schools in Wirral- he‘d been in the same year as me. This may or may not have been unconnected with what subsequently happened as regards to my employment.

When I visited the Birkenhead Jobcentre to register as available for work, Mrs-Behind-the-Counter said she had no trace of my details- until I said I’d recently been finished up at Tate & Lyle. Once I’d given her that information, she immediately pulled out a separate box file containing documents alluding to myself and others. Obviously, the records of ex-Tate & Lyle personnel were being kept separate from the “rank and file” unemployed.

But why? I don’t know, exactly. But in June 1981 I was offered (by phone, via Birkenhead Jobcentre) a temporary position with the now-defunct Merseyside County Council. It may be that Ronnie James had pulled something out of the hat for me. Or perhaps former Tate’s workers were being singled out for, if not priority for available jobs, at least some kind of special treatment for political purposes. For instance, a Conservative MP could point at someone like me and say, “We’re doing our best for Liverpool’s Tate & Lyle workers. Look at this person- he’s got another job already, thanks to our Jobcentre staff!” even though said employment only lasted four months in my case.

My post with Merseyside County Council involved counting the cash taken at the Mersey Tunnel toll booths and compiling statistics about the vehicles using Queensway and Kingsway, on about two-thirds of the wages I was earning at Tate’s (and no, I didn’t consider pocketing some of the toll money for which I was responsible to make up the shortfall. That would’ve been a little too pro-active, even for me). I’ve had worse jobs- before and since- but after Tate’s the atmosphere seemed rather mundane and, quite frankly, a bit unfriendly. The reason the job was temporary was because the toll booths were about to go automatic, the plan being that, when this happened, the toll collectors would then transfer to the cash-counting department. So, while there were no permanent vacancies, myself and a few others were drafted in as a stop-gap measure to cover for those in the department who had decided to leave or to retire. What happened after I left and the toll collectors took over the cash counting has become a bit of a legend in the history of Merseyside fraud, but this website is not the place to relate it. Unless someone specifically asks me to, of course…

As you point out, Mike, Tate’s did go through a kind of “wind-down” phase after April 1981. One afternoon, when I was working at the Merseyside County Council/Mersey Tunnels main office (Steers House in Canning Place), Pat Bartley, a deputy foreman at Lockfields, called in to purchase a set of tunnel tickets for the drivers of T+LT vehicles to use; this would have been at least as late as July 1981, and possibly even August.

As for dear old Ronnie James- I already knew that, prior to 1977, he’d married his childhood sweetheart, Jackie (with whom I was also at primary school- Gautby Road in Bidston- but she was in the year below Ronnie and I). They both worked in Liverpool and lived in Wirral; on the odd occasions I took the ferry back to Birkenhead, I’d sometimes see them arriving at the Landing Stage together. By the 1990s they were running a pub in Liverpool City Centre, with Ronnie earning himself a reputation as a popular and generous manager.

He was murdered on the pub premises one night after it had closed, apparently by a burglar. Ronnie’s killer has never been brought to justice.

Can’t say I know very much about the pubs round the factory other than their names and that they were used by various sections of the workforce. We lived out of town, initially traveling in by bus, eventually by motorbike and then car, so having a drink near the plant was not a good idea! Though I did once attend a retirement “do” in the Crystal Club and went rolling home, luckily by bus, I was feeling quite “unwell” by the time I got home!

As a family we were quite badly affected when the factory closed. My father worked in the refinery as a Process Clark for a lot of his time there,I think he finished working in the Sales Room,as a point of interest,he was one of the last to go,he stayed on after the plant closed to do the final finishing up of loose ends,so to speak, I think he was still there when the demolition started.

My father in law worked on Huskisson Dock as a Foreman,unloading the Sugar Ships, and I worked in the Plant, so, all in all the closure did us no favours.

“And here’s a photo of “The Goat”. The “T” was still lying horizontally two days ago.”
http://www.flickr.com/photos/carrie132/3822960404/

I’m taking up more space on this website apologising for my clumsy errors and omissions than intelligent people are with their contributions. Oh,heck.

http://1.2.3.9/bmi/thumbs2.ebaystatic.com/m/meAM_41Pa1vrp4ddr76KB6g/140.jpg

OK. Please forgive me. The photo of “The Bull” and “The Brown Cow” to which I was referring, including an allusion to a blue van, can be found here- four rows down, fourth pic from the left.
http://www.123lcc.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/liverpool.html

And this picture of “The Bull” on the junction of Great Howard Street and Dublin Street should turn out- although, for some reason, it’s referred to as being near Seacombe, a small river’s width away.
http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1697124

And here’s a photo of “The Goat”. The “T” was still lying horizontally two days ago.

Our team came second in tonight’s quiz at the “Egremont Ferry” and consequently won nothing. (First Prize is six pints.)

Well, that’s just great. 3 of the first 4 links don’t work.

Try this for Vauxhall Road pubs-
http://www.flickr.com/photos/newfolder/499911119/in/set-72157600224739998
-then click on “Vauxhall Road pubs” on the right.

I’ll try to correct the rest later. But now I’m off to the pub. It’s quiz night.

I don’t think there’s much that’s too irrelevant to mention about the refinery- although I know myself that I tend to go off at a tangent at times.

I suspected there was a difference between Demerara and Lon. Dem., and research suggests that I was right. My grandmother was a bit of a health faddist; she ran a café on the front at West Kirby in the 1960s. Under the impression that “brown” sugar was better for the diet than “white”, she offered customers nothing but London Demerara in the sugar bowls. Ah, such innocence.

Pubs. One of my favourite subjects to this day. “The Green Man” is apparently thriving, judging by the number of customers sitting outside at tables on warm Sunday afternoons. There’s a pub called “The Glasshouse” on Vauxhall Road bang opposite the Refinery site- perhaps it’s had a name change since the 1980s. It looks a lot tidier now than on the photo on this page (usual Flickr rules apply).
http://www.flickr.com/photos/newfolder/sets/detail/

Dods Vaults appears on the 6th and 7th rows down on this page-
http://inacityliving.piczo.com/?g=41057337&cr=7

At T+LT, office staff tended to use “The Goat” (currently closed) on Great Howard Street. This was opposite Whitley Street, so some of their clerical counterparts from the Refinery often liaised with them in there. Myself, I used to prefer drinking with the Lockfields drivers and ancillary staff at “The Bull” or its “overspill” pub, “The Brown Cow” once my shift had ended. These two watering holes were on the corners of Dublin Street at its junction with Great Howard Street.
http://1.2.3.9/bmi/www.123lcc.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/post/zBonded Tea Wharehouses 11.JPG
“The Brown Cow” is now the “Atlantic Café”; “The Bull” (with the blue van outside in the above photo) is presently closed. In the background is the Stanley Warehouse; some claim this is the world’s largest all-brick structure, while others opine that this honour belongs to the railway viaduct in Stockport. I’m digressing again. Here’s a picture of “The Bull”-
http://liverpoolinvestmentsolutions.com/assets/images/portfolio/commercial/Portfolio_The Bull_0000.jpg

4th photo down and clickable, a Dickensian photograph of the old “Brown Cow“, taken from Glegg Street. (Ron might term it “Bleasdalian”, given that he referred to Bleasdale as a “scouse Dickens” 3 minutes 14 seconds into the film.)
http://www.yoliverpool.com/forum/showthread.php?46298-Liverpool..-the-way-I-see-it..-the-photographs-of-Gerard-Fleming.

And, on the subject of films- Tate & Lyle is referred to in the silent video here at 0 minutes 23 seconds.
http://www.homesandcommunities.co.uk/eldonians-liverpool

Regards,
http://1.2.3.9/bmi/thumbs2.ebaystatic.com/m/meAM_41Pa1vrp4ddr76KB6g/140.jpg

As a further point of useless information, the overhead bridge you see in your picture:-
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/193/chisenhalestflyhouse293.jpg/
Carried the conveyors taking Granulated Sugar to the Home Trade Warehouse for packing in 56lb bags(eventually 25 Kg bags), thence to the wagons for delivery. These conveyors also fed two Sugar Silos in the Home Trade yard for bulk delivery by tanker of Granulated Sugar.

You’re showing me up with your comprehensive knowledge of the Refinery again, Mike (LOL).

I have to say I’m pleased with myself about finding this photo of Chissy.
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/193/chisenhalestflyhouse293.jpg/

Moggie Minor Traveller, Austin A35, Ford Anglia van, Austin Cambridge.. a real period piece.

Not as good as discovering that the British Bee Keepers’ Club has declared that Silver Spoon is poisonous to bees, though…

I remember the Bridge Inn, though I never went in it, I would think it was popular with those employed on the packing side as it was much closer to them. I imagine it must have closed shortly after the factory did. Most Refinery workers used pubs like The Dodds Vaults, The Crystal Club or The Green Man.

I only visited Lock fields once myself, when I first started work, all I remember is the flight of locks allongside the lorry park and the large workshop.

As to the grades of sugar, Demarara sugar was actually produced there. London Demarera was refined white sugar sprayed with syrup to look and taste like the real thing. Yellows sugar as sold in the shops was what was known as Light Soft Brown and Dark Soft Brown.

In the refinery, Light Soft Brown was known as Fourths and Dark soft Brown was known Primrose. These were the grades boiled in the Yellows house which were on general sale.

The former “Bridge Inn” on Chizzy, a popular haunt for Love Lane refinery workers-
http://spikesaycheese.weebly.com/uploads/4/7/3/5/4735364/7037304.jpg?413
http://www.towpathtreks.co.uk/photodisplay.asp?ino=0014
http://www.towpathtreks.co.uk/photodisplay.asp?ino=0016
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_KY1Ez0TsjN8/TUaJ22KGWCI/AAAAAAAAMU8/XKSzjc7hoFI/s1600/93+Chisenhale+Street+4.JPG
http://1.2.3.9/bmi/img12.imageshack.us/img12/919/chisenhalebridgedepth.jpg
http://1.2.3.9/bmi/i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii259/Digitech1/ChisenhaleStBridge.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/newfolder/1401190754/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/carrie132/4041979491/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/carrie132/4041979491/in/pool-885571@N25
(Please note that if the “please click here” message appears when you attempt to access the last 3 “Flickr” photographs, you may have to click more than once.)

Here’s a company listing for the present occupiers, Robertshaw Decorators Limited-
http://www.companiesintheuk.co.uk/ltd/robertshaw-decorators
I thought the business had shut down, but, when I walked past there at the end of June 2011, a tube light was illuminating the first floor.

These two pictures are pre-1970s:
http://1.2.3.11/bmi/img193.imageshack.us/img193/6519/chisenhalestflyhouse293.jpg
http://1.2.3.10/bmi/img593.imageshack.us/img593/5372/chisenhalestbridgeandcw.jpg

Another photo of those pesky Pall Mall/Chadwick Street bollards. In the background- the former “Bridge Inn”, and the current residents on the Home Trade site, Williams Liverpool (grey building).
http://1.2.3.12/bmi/i36.photobucket.com/albums/e28/quincyg/blogging pix/Picture1162.jpg
Anticipating the vagaries of Photobucket, here’s another version of that pic in case the larger one goes off-line.
http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTpo0cMbXPY95GLDCHfo6wN75ThsivNg5trnJLQ4PMlbovnN16s

I’d better acknowledge a mistake I made in an earlier posting.  The address I gave for Williams Liverpool, the BMW/Mini dealer whose building now occupies the land where Home Trade used to be, was “No. 1, Pall Mall”. It’s the address the company gives on its website.
http://www.williamsliverpoolbmw.co.uk/service/
However, on further consideration, it struck me that not only would Number 1 be at the other end of Pall Mall- the Liverpool authorities traditionally used a system of “the nearer the Town Hall, the lower the street number”, according to a bobby in James McClure‘s “Spike Island“- but it would be on the opposite side of the road, since all the other addresses on the Eastern side of the Mall have even numbers. I should have realised this earlier, having worked for a few days at Hamilton House (26, Pall Mall) for the NHS in the mid-1990s. The building occupying the location where No. 1 Pall Mall should be is the prosaically-named “Pall Mall House”, part of the Mercury Court complex which was built on the site of Exchange Station.

Incidentally, the short southern section of the Mall, between Tithebarn Street and Leeds Street, has somehow earned itself a Department of Transport designation, which I find rather cute. Officially, it’s the B5182.
http://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/wiki/index.php?title=B5182

(PS- Further research has revealed that the “WhatDoTheyKnow” website seems to be under the impression that the B5182 designation extends as far North as Love Lane. Better still, on January 18th 2011 an RAC traffic bulletin alluded to the “B5182 Burlington Street”.
http://www.google.co.uk/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4DSGI_en-GBGB345GB364&q=B5182#sclient=psy&hl=en&cr=countryUK|countryGB&rlz=1T4DSGI_en-GBGB345GB364&tbs=ctr:countryUK|countryGB&source=hp&q=“A5038 Vauxhall Road / Burlington Street”&aq;=&aqi;=&aql;=&oq;=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=21d40f2c79fa0163&biw=1372&bih=684&pf=p&pdl=500
This would mean that the B5182 would run the full length of Pall Mall and along Love Lane past the Refinery site before making a sudden right turn up Burly- highly unlikely, as the bottom (Western) section of Burlington Street has been blocked to motor traffic from Love Lane and Whitley Street for years. Don’t be mislead. If the amiable anoraks of SABRE state that only the southern section of Pall Mall is the B5182, treat it as gospel. SABRE know their UK roads.) 

(PPS- Ron describes the closure of the Liverpool refinery as “matricide”. It wasn’t totally unique to the area, though-
http://liverpoolmurders.blogspot.com/2011/05/chisenhale-street-murder-of-mother-by.html
Oooh. Grisly.)

You’ve even beaten Google with Java Street (Liverpool), Mike.

What a memory. All very interesting to someone like me, who was heavily involved with the Refinery while rarely visiting the place. There again, there must’ve been a few Refinery workers who wouldn’t have known their way around T+LT Lockfields, although there were many exchanges of staff between the two. They were, after all, only one or two minutes walk apart.

You mentioned in an earlier post that you worked as a Pansman in the Yellows House, which processed soft brown sugars. The word “soft” suggests that you dealt with varieties such as Light Soft Brown, Dark Soft Brown, Soft Rich Brown- but not Demerera, which had larger grains. Am I right?

Here’s another street name you won’t find on any current maps, Java Street, this also ran through the refinery,diagonally from Burlington Street to Love Lane. As you came down Burly, you passed the Crystal Club, then the coal yard, then over the bridge. The next building was the new boiler house, I say new, as the shell of the old one still existed behind it.
As you passed the boiler house, there was a vehicle gate on your left, more or less opposite the Raw Sugar Silos, this gate ,when open, gave access to Java Street. It ran through the factory, the old boiler house and the “M” and “L” Char Houses on its left and the Recovery and Filtration Houses and main yard on its right. It came out on Love Lane via the vehicle gate next to the time clocks (works entrance).
Presumably,at some stage this was a public road, but certainly not in 1965 when I started work.

I’m good at posting duff links, Mike. Sorry. :-(

Thanks for clarifying which entrance you meant. At Lockfields we had our own time clock(s), hence my confusion about where the Refinery clocks were situated.

Oddly enough, I don’t think I ever used the Refinery’s Works entrance. On the odd occasions I went there (e.g., to visit the canteen when I was on a rare 0900-1730 or 1100-1900 shift), I used the Reception door (Burly/Love Lane). After all, it was nearer to Lockfields…

I am afraid the links to Hein Lehmann images won’t open, but the Hein Lehmann factory link does,yes, there are the type of machine used in the Recovery House and also in the Yellows House (soft Brown Sugars). These machines were only used for sugars which retained some syrup. For sugars which needed to be completely dry, Asea Landsverk were used.

As a point of interest I have a flow diagram of the refinery dated 1945, which shows 28 m/cs drying sugar from 6 Pans,one Machine Man ran two machines.After modernization there were 18 m/cs drying the sugar from 7 Pans with 2 men running the whole floor. 

As to which entrance is which, the one on the corner was the Reception entrance,i.e. visitors to the factory. The one opposite Sprainger St was the Works entrance which also gave access to the main yard. The next entrance past the warehouses was Livermill Place.If the gate was shut you could easily miss it.

Here are some images of contemporary Hein, Lehmann sugar centrifugals.

http://1.2.3.9/bmi/www.heinlehmann.de/images/zuckerzentrifuge.JPG
http://1.2.3.9/bmi/www.heinlehmann.de/images/zentrifuge.jpg
http://1.2.3.10/bmi/www.heinlehmann.de/images/zentrifugenstation.jpg
http://1.2.3.10/bmi/www.heinlehmann.de/images/konti12dc.JPG
http://1.2.3.10/bmi/www.heinlehmann.de/images/konti1230.JPG
http://1.2.3.11/bmi/www.heinlehmann.de/images/Konti12Rohrzucker.jpg

For further details and descriptions, please click on this link-
http://www.heinlehmann.de/index_engl.htm
-then click on “Products”, and again on “Sugar centrifugals”.

I’d never heard of Black Diamond Street before, Mike. It appears here-
http://home.clara.net/mawer/ref-liverpool.html
-which leads us to a multitude of sugar-related stories involving the Jager family, surviving members of whom, it seems, can be contacted via email.
http://georgejager.com/home.asp

Back to Liver Mill Place. I vaguely remember the area as you describe it. You’ve referred to “the Works entrance with the Time Clocks”. Was this entrance on the corner of Burly and Love Lane, or the one on Love Lane which was about equidistant to (and between) Burly and Chizzy (and approximately opposite Sprainger Street)?

Using Google to jog your memory (if necessary), can you recall which of the side streets running between Love Lane and Great Howard Street was nearest to being opposite the Liver Mill Place gate?

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&rlz=1G1DSGI_ENUK442&q=Love+lane+liverpool&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq;=&hnear=0x487b21358863db5d:0xec61e6c26fab8f04,Love+Ln,+Liverpool+L3+7&gl=uk&ei=c7gxTpDYLcW3hAfC_diJCw&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CBwQ8gEwAA

(Hope that link works…)

Have nice day! Much useful information, nice design, but this color hurts your eyes. ? http://bluebookcars.blogspot.com  Blue book of cars <a href = “http://bluebookcars.blogspot.com”>Blue book of cars</a>

I’m genuinely impressed by your attention to detail, Mike.

Unfortunately, due to the time difference, I’ve got to crash out in order to get to work in the morning. I’ll try to assemble something vaguely as interesting as your postings within the next few days.

Regards,
MWW

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sugarpacketchad/3526304474/in/set-72157602312558735
http://www.librarything.com/work/4053516
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=1974-11-11a.141.0

Apologies if a bit too technical, yes, there machines were centrifugal machines used in the sugar industry. Asea Landsverk were indeed Swedish, and resembled an industrial scale spin drier and stood about 3’ high by about 4’/5’ across. The machine would charge with sugar, spin at high speed to dry it, then reverse direction and plough out through the base of the machine onto a conveyor.
Hein Lehman were a different design,a continuous drying machine,picture a cone standing on its point,spinning at high speed,the cone is made of a fine mesh through which syrup will pass but not the sugar.The sugar rises by centrifugal action up the cone till it goes over the top.The sugar goes one way whilst the syrup goes another.

Liver Mill Place was,I think originally a public road, if you picture walking past the refinery from Lock Fields direction, you pass the Works entrance with the Time Clocks, continue past the old warehouses, there was a large vehicle gate to your left and, when open ,you could see a roadway running into the factory.This was Liver Mill Place and it was here that the tank farm was built.If you carry on past the factory,the next road you come to is Chisenhale St.

  If you want another street name, try this one, Black Diamond Street. It was also inside the factory but on the Fairrie side, by the engineering workshop.

If you want any further info, feel free to ask.I could go into a lot more detail but try to keep it simple on here.

Cheers, Mike, for yet more interesting stuff, but steady on with the technical terms, please- I was an ‘umble transport clerk at Lockfields who rarely ventured into the Refinery proper. (LOL)

Google searches lead me to believe that the machines to which you refer,
Asea Landsverk and Hein Lehmann, were sugar centrifugal machines.
http://www.heinlehmann.de/index_engl.htm

One of the few references I could find to Asea Landsverk (Swedish, I think) appears near the foot of a page which can be discovered by Googling “Azucarera Guadalfeo Salobre-Granadapedia“. This alludes to a cane sugar factory in Andalusia that closed in 2006 but appears to have been preserved for historical reasons. (Spanish-English translation button ahoy.)

(See also- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allmänna_Svenska_Elektriska_Aktiebolaget )

Now, Livermill Place- part of the Love Lane Refinery, it seems (unless I’ve misread that bit), but was it named after a street over which the Refinery was built? It certainly seems to have been a public thoroughfare at some stage.
http://yourarchives.nationalarchives.gov.uk/index.php?title=Place:Liver_Mill_Place,_Liverpool_Registration_District

On this document, a “Liver Mill Yard” is associated with Love Lane.
http://www.liverpool-genealogy.org.uk/Streets1851/StreetsL.htm (Scroll down to “Love Lane”, then another two lines down.)

I’m more than willing to be corrected on any (or all) of this.

MWW

Between 1965 and the early 70’s There was a lot of investment in the refinery, the Recovery House had new machines installed, Asea Landsverk and Hein lehman. A new Pan was installed as well. No 1 Refinery was redesigned, 18 Asea Landsverk Mcs replaced a whole floor of manual machines and quite a few operators too, new Granulators were installed. A tank farm was installed in Livermill Place for the delivery of liquid sugar,in fact right up to the announcement of the closure, jobs were being done which need not have been, I think it was all political and done with major compensation in mind.

Thanks for your prompt reply, Mike.

So, there was still serious investment in the Liverpool refinery in the early 1970s. However, if the theory put forward in the film by Ron (between 37 and 38 minutes) is correct- and I can see no flaws in it- it was only a few years later, in the mid-seventies, that the company made the initial decision that Love Lane was to close.

From 1977, we still had the occasional new vehicle added to the fleet at T+LT- the last one as late as 1980- but wagons are a transferable asset; they could operate out of London or Greenock just as well as they could from Liverpool.

That’s a good question,I would guess between 1970 and 1972 as I worked in the Lab then and remember assisting one of the Tech Lab staff collecting samples from the base of the silos. I became a Pansman in 1972 and they were in operation then.

That’s an informative post, Mike. What year was it when the Conditioning Silos were built?

I sometimes wonder what was going through the minds of those manning the heavy plant involved in the destruction of the refinery- or, at least, those who were from Merseyside. Were there any pangs of regret, or did they merely see it as “another job”?

As I post this, there’s heavy plant on the “refinery site” again- this time involved in constructive tasks, as more houses are added to the Eldonian Village.

The first photo in this sequence is of the Conditioning Silos being demolished.I can remember watching these being built,the process went on 24 hrs a day,casting the concrete and moving slowly upwards.Dry air was blown in at the base through the sugar which cascaded in from the top,this was to ensure the sugar was dry before it was packed/delivered.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/timbalimber/sets/72157625633596286/with/5275311630/

THE LATECOMERS- WHITWORTHS SUGAR.

In 1987, a pallet of granulated 1 kg. packs of granulated sugar branded “Whitworths” arrived at Peter Johnson’s Park Hampers premises in Bidston. I know this because, at the time, I was working at Park as a casual goods inward checker; the company also brought in Tate & Lyle products via T+LTD at Brighouse.

I inspected one of the Whitworths packs, expecting to find small print to the effect that the sugar had been produced by the British Sugar Corporation or Tate & Lyle on behalf of Whitworths, but no such statement existed.

Now, though I’d never heard of Whitworths sugar, I’d heard of Whitworths; an irritatingly-unforgettable TV jingle from the 1960s informed viewers that their dried fruits were “a girl’s best friend”, the word “diamonds” being substituted by “Whitworths” in the commercial.
http://www.whitworths.co.uk/about_us/heritage/1960s

The company, formed in 1886, specialises in baking products and is based in the Northamptonshire town of Irthlingborough, a place I’ve had a soft spot for ever since the Rothman’s Football Yearbook took its first tentative step into science fiction by referring to it as “Earthlingborough”.

“Whitworths Granulated Sugar” wasn’t available to the public until mid-1985- four years after Love Lane ceased production. It was essentially industrial beet sugar bought on behalf of Whitworths from British Sugar by a company called Napier Brown.
http://www.whitworths.co.uk/about_us/heritage/1980s

Unfortunately… it appears that Napier Brown sort-of-forgot to tell British Sugar where the 25,000 tonnes of the stuff they’d supplied them with was going to end up, which led to more than a few words being exchanged at an EEC Commission hearing in 1988.
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:31988D0518:EN:HTML

Hey-ho. Anyway, it would now appear that Whitworths isn’t going to be listed in the Top Two of best-selling UK sugars in the foreseeable future, as this “Essay Coursework” (which I suspect is a euphemism for “dissertation you can lift directly from the internet although you shouldn‘t, really”) points out-
http://www.essaycoursework.com/essay/chapter-conclusions-ampamp/28017

To be fair, the Whitworths brand now offers a wider range of sugars than it ever has done before.
http://www.napierbrown.co.uk/pages/retail-.aspx?pageid=25

So, that’s a brief history of Whitworths sugar so far. It appears that it was never a rival to Tate’s while the Love Lane refinery was operating. But probably the most fascinating fact I’ve discovered while putting in a little research for this posting is that beet sugar is poisonous to bees. No need to take my word for it- just ask the Bee Keepers’ Association.
http://creativeliving.10.forumer.com/a/whitworths-sugar_post8725.html

It’s yet another little snippet of information with which you can amaze your grandchildren.

.

It’s just me being pedantic and showing off my knowledge of Hebden Bridge, t/l.

That’s an impressive photostream of yours. I’d recommend it.

Thanks to MWW from Wirral for pointing out my mistake. 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/timbalimber/5830056371/

Here’s a bit of a novelty. One of the photos on this page is a still from the “Love Lane Lives” video. It shows Liverpool refinery workers campaigning outside the House of Parliament, watched by a police motorcyclist.
http://findallvideo.com/tag/john-moores-university

“L.A.B.” on the “RealClassic” motorcycle magazine’s message board has watched the video and traced details of the police bike, which still exists.

L.A.B. noted the following-

“On full screen view, the bike’s registration number can be read at 24 mins 23 secs. = ELA 171J

It’s a Triumph obviously (J reg. but probably a pre-OIF Saint).

ELA 171J still exists and it’s currently taxed but it’s no longer white.

The vehicle details for ELA 171J are:

Date of Liability 01 07 2012
Date of First Registration 04 02 1971
Year of Manufacture 1971
Cylinder Capacity (cc) 650CC
CO2 Emissions Not Available
Fuel Type Petrol
Export Marker Not Applicable
Vehicle Status SORN
Vehicle Colour RED.”

(Note; An “OIF Saint”, which apparently succeeded the motorcycle in the photo, is an “Oil In Frame” Triumph TR6P Saint [“Stops Anything In No Time”], a version of the Triumph Trophy 650 motorcycle adapted by the factory for the constabulary.)

Eight poignant photographs (well, ten, really) of the Love Lane refinery tumbling down in the mid-1980s, by “Timba Limber”.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/timbalimber/sets/72157625633596286/with/5275311630/

On his photostream, he’s got a few pics of the 2011 “Africa Oye” festival at Sefton Park, which I attended accompanied by my 8-year-old daughter. She enjoyed it immensely. Therefore, I may forgive Timba Limber for describing the navigation that runs through Hebden Bridge (where I went on honeymoon) as the “Leeds and Liverpool Canal”. It is in fact the Rochdale Canal.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/timbalimber/5830056371/in/photostream

In a 1992 speech, Prime Minister John Major- “The Greyest Tory Ever Sold”- alludes to his “Mr. Cube childhood”.
http://www.johnmajor.co.uk/page1430.html

On the other side of the political fence, Jon Snow somewhat exaggerates the influence of the refinery over the City of Liverpool, and the University of Liverpool in particular.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2004/mar/15/mondaymediasection.studentmediaawards

Jon was expelled from the Uni in 1970, and went on to become a Channel 4 newsreader. The “fledgling” and “desperate” BBC Radio Merseyside, with its “dingy Merseyside offices”, hasn’t done too badly since, either. (300,000 regular listeners, according to Wavertree MP Luciana Berger.)
http://alumni.liv.ac.uk/NetCommunity/SSLPage.aspx?pid=843
http://www.edms.org.uk/2010-11/1640.htm

.

“Tribune Magazine” article on Tate & Lyle, 18th November 1949.
http://archive.tribunemagazine.co.uk/article/18th-november-1949/15/an-open-letter-to-m-cube

“Tribune Magazine” again, 9th October 1953.
http://archive.tribunemagazine.co.uk/article/9th-october-1953/6/another-lump-for-mr

Same source, 22nd January 1954.
http://archive.tribunemagazine.co.uk/article/22nd-january-1954/6/come-off-it-mr-cube

Same publication, 1st February 1957.
http://archive.tribunemagazine.co.uk/article/1st-february-1957/9/n-www101in-kerrs-column-

It’s that Cube again. 31st January 1958.
http://archive.tribunemagazine.co.uk/article/22nd-january-1988/24/dangermr-cube-and-his-friends-are-starting-again

References to the Tate and Lyle Employees’ Action Committee and Liverpool refinery workers, 26th October 1973.
http://archive.tribunemagazine.co.uk/article/26th-october-1973/4/will-mr-cube-attack-the-tory—-government

Merseyside unemployment and the threat to the refinery, 28th November 1980.
http://archive.tribunemagazine.co.uk/article/28th-november-1980/11/as-labour-marches-in-liverpool-tory-policy-throws

Impending closure of Love Lane, 6th February 1981.
http://archive.tribunemagazine.co.uk/article/6th-february-1981/3/tate-and-lyles-liverpool-closure-is-result-of-c

Here’s one for the social historians. “From Cane to Cube”, a short film from 1950 sponsored by Tate and Lyle, doesn’t refer to the Liverpool refinery directly, but is introduced by our favourite six-sided friend. The text on the page on which it features is as fascinating as the film itself, and confirms many of the points covered by Ron on the “Love Lane Lives” site.

To be fair, “From Cane to Cube” does make reference to the sugar industry’s involvement in the slave trade. Perhaps ominously, towards the end a Mr. Cholmondley-Warner sound-alike refers to “raw beet sugar, grown at home by our British farmers“.

“From Cane to Cube” can be found on this page.
http://www.colonialfilm.org.uk/node/593

In the “Context” section of the aforementioned page, we’re informed that “The completed film, ‘From Cane to Cube‘, was intended primarily for school audiences. An advertisement in ‘Film Sponsor‘, headed ‘A New Film for Schools!’, explained that it was ‘specially produced for school audiences’ and was available for a free loan from the Films Bureau, Aims of Industry Ltd..” One wonders if the current Tate and Lyle company is releasing similarly educational films nowadays…
http://www.dairyfoods.com/Articles/DPI_Ingredients/BNP_GUID_9-5-2006_A_10000000000001018333

Er… right.

.

The land upon which Home Trade used to stand is now an after-sales care centre for Williams Liverpool, a BMW/Mini dealer.
http://www.williamsliverpoolbmw.co.uk/service/

Williams’s grey building- No. 1, Pall Mall- is clearly visible in this photo;
http://1.2.3.13/bmi/www.towpathtreks.co.uk/assets/images/LLC/1liverpool/liverpool15.jpg

The company has a showroom on the corner of Great Howard Street and Leeds Street.

http://www.20thcenturyimages.co.uk/trolleyed/3/18/2011/index.htm I recognize this photo, though taken 5 yrs before my time. Bulk Refined Granulated Sugar Silos.Under construction here.Behind them would be the Home Trade Warehouse.During my time,the Warehouse Foreman’s office was in the building alongside the wagons parked on the right of the photo.

Brilliant stuff, Paul. I also thought it was an excellent idea to include the potted history in the right-hand sidebar.

Interesting to see photographs of two more drivers I knew- Bert Peroni and Joe Bennett.
http://paulanderson.pikfu.net/set1922408/media68929337.html
http://paulanderson.pikfu.net/set1922408/media68370515.html
http://paulanderson.pikfu.net/set1922408/media68306149.html

This photograph must have been taken at Lockfields. The vehicle wash shed, which ran almost the entire length of the eastern perimeter of the site, is the building in the background.
http://paulanderson.pikfu.net/set1922408/media68732154.html

The caption to this picture explains the “relationship” between Silver Roadways and Tate + Lyle Transport Distribution (T+LTD). Thank you for the clarification.
http://paulanderson.pikfu.net/set1922408/media68414950.html

This must be a rarity- a colour pic of a vehicle in T+LTD livery (although the vehicle was based in Scotland at the time).
http://paulanderson.pikfu.net/set1922408/media68566318.html

Sincere thanks again,
MWW

.

I don’t know if you were aware but the host server Fotopic which i used for my Northwest Trucks website went into liquidation last March.

Since then i have managed to retrieve all the pictures and detailed descriptions.

As a result i have started a new website which is on a similar format to what i had before, the site is still in development, but over the coming months more features will be added.

Here is the direct link to the Tate & Lyle gallery on the site http://paulanderson.pikfu.net/set1922408/

A few pics associated with Tate and Lyle Transport…

Here’s a bulk sugar tanker on Queens Drive. There are also a few interesting links on this page.
http://www.roadtransport.com/blogs/big-lorry-blog/2011/01/classic-tate-lyle-foden-tanker.html

This modern-day photo was taken on the corner of Love Lane and Sherwood Street, where the entrances of T+LT and Melias were both situated.
http://1.2.3.9/bmi/www.cylex-uk.co.uk/rev_images/news/pic_ALL-MAKES-OF-CARS_028365_large.jpg

Lockfields today. T+LT was situated on the southern bank of the Leeds-Liverpool Canal.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/radarsmum67/3481402698/in/set-72157617401377890
http://www.flickr.com/photos/radarsmum67/3480580227/in/set-72157617401377890
http://www.flickr.com/photos/radarsmum67/3481394474/in/set-72157617401377890

Just found this slideshow (9 photographs) from the Liverpool “Daily Post”:-

http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/multimedia/nostalgia/images/2011/04/25/tate-lyle-liverpool-images-from-the-past-92534-28580061/

Most of these photographs are comparatively modern, but the locations should be instantly recognisable to former Tate & Lyle Liverpool employees.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_KY1Ez0TsjN8/TUaJ22KGWCI/AAAAAAAAMU8/XKSzjc7hoFI/s1600/93+Chisenhale+Street+4.JPG

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/97/220529742_b9cfb96083.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/64/220529740_cf1ade5130.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3570/3814874207_e453043c9c.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/253/460480684_70b0c7a25d.jpg

http://1.2.3.11/bmi/i229.photobucket.com/albums/ee262/south_liverpool/Pall_Mall_16.jpg

http://1.2.3.12/bmi/farm4.static.flickr.com/3661/3452550178_b2f86f007f_o.jpg

http://1.2.3.13/bmi/www.towpathtreks.co.uk/assets/images/LLC/1liverpool/liverpool10.jpg

http://1.2.3.10/bmi/www.towpathtreks.co.uk/assets/images/LLC/1liverpool/liverpool17.jpg

http://www.20thcenturyimages.co.uk/trolleyed/3/18/2011/index.htm

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_KY1Ez0TsjN8/TUaPjbzQLfI/AAAAAAAAMVM/wmDL5vZtJkI/s1600/Tate+Chisenhale.jpg

This wall is opposite the Pall Mall/Chadwick Street bollards and would have bordered Home Trade.
http://1.2.3.9/bmi/farm4.static.flickr.com/3615/3460219748_75845c532e_o.jpg
http://1.2.3.9/bmi/www.towpathtreks.co.uk/assets/images/LLC/1liverpool/liverpool52.jpg
http://1.2.3.13/bmi/www.towpathtreks.co.uk/assets/images/LLC/1liverpool/liverpool15.jpg

This business is under the railway viaduct, on the northern section of Love Lane that linked the refinery to Tate & Lyle Transport. It would have been opposite Melias in the 1960s.
http://www.bugandbus.co.uk/contact-us
http://www.site-fusion.co.uk/files/writeable/uploads/webfusion814/image/workshop.jpg?undefined