Creating a Sense of Place: Heritage Project

Did you know that St Nicholas Church was built at a cost of £16,000 in 1911. A huge amount of money that paid for top quality craftsmen and top quality materials. But what would it cost today? Well, doing a very basic test using an historic money calculator on the internet the figure translates to £1,851,800.00. Yes, St Nicholas Church would cost nearly 2 million pounds today. I actually think it would cost a lot more but it’s an interesting ‘basic’ starting point!

All of us who worship in St Nicholas and enjoy the beauty of the architecture, the carvings, the windows, are blessed by the generosity of the Harrison family all those years ago and those who have cared for this Church ever since.

And our blessing has become an opportunity. An opportunity to work with the Heritage Lottery Fund, the local community and anybody else who is as keen as we are to preserve this beautiful building for future generations. It is an opportunity that we have entitled ‘Creating a Sense of Place.’ 

St Nicholas Church is a significant part of the Heritage of our Village and local surroundings. The Church is a witness to the Liverpool Sea Front and the wealth created in the region, not through the slave trade but through the trade of foods and drinks from around the globe. The Church is a witness to the bravery of the men and women of the Borough who gave their lives in the service of this country in WW1 and WW2. The Church is a witness to the countless numbers of families who have come through the doors to celebrate significant moments in their lives, the joyful and the sorrowful.

We are blessed to share in the history of St Nicholas Church and so we need to answer the call upon us to do all we can to care for and preserve a Church that is both a beautiful place in which to worship and a site of local and national heritage.

Over the next few months a few of us will be working hard to get the ‘Creating a Sense of Place’ project on the go. It will be a demanding call upon our time and our energies as we seek to bring the project alive and set out our aims and objectives. 

And you can help.

As part of our project we want to dig into the history of the local population. The people who have lived in Wallasey Village, Liscard, New Brighton. What was life like for you? Do you have pictures? Do you have stories about the war years from relatives or friends? Did St Nicholas Church feature in your family life? If so how? 

I’m not looking to get all that information in a couple of days, but it would be great to get as many stories as possible over the next few months.

We are also looking to do some work with Greenleas School to think about WW1 and WW2, to create a drama about what life was like for people living in Wallasey at that time, what work did people do, what did people do socially, what types of hobbies. For example, I believe that St Nicholas Church was a lookout tower in WW2. The look outs were sent ‘up-top’ armed with a packet of cigerettes, a rifle and a few bullets. Hardly a deterent to the German Bombers flying over head who used St Nicholas Church as a mark-point. Can you imagine the conversations the lookouts must have had! I’m hoping the children from Greenleas will create a dialogue between the lookouts, funny or serious! 

In short, we want to get inside the local history, we want to become part of the stories and bring those stories to life. Can you help?   

This is a wonderful opportunity to celebrate our heritage and to find ways to care for and preserve St Nicholas Church because at the end of the day, St Nicholas Church is a root that helps our community ‘Create a Sense of Place’.