Truth behind 'The Atkinson'

Finally started to add some information to the images and as the Church section looks so daunting i decided to kick things off with the buildings along Lord Street.

Anyone who has visited Lord Street will probably go on about the countless shops but without doubt the area around the Town Hall and The Atkinson is by far the most interesting section of this part of town which dates back to the early 19th century.

I've only been resident in Southport for 12 months and although I have taken stacks of photo's and visited umpteen buildings i'm still learning about the place and only this week realised 'The Atkinson' was originally two separate buildings.

Just goes to show that you cant take everything on face value, not even 150 year old buildings!

I was researching the history of The Atkinson on their website and they began with a paragraph about Cambridge Hall which was built in 1873. To that day i had never heard of Cambridge Hall and always just thought the humungous building next to the Town Hall was just The Atkinson.

Apparently The Atkinson was originally two buildings, Cambridge Hall and Manchester and Liverpool District Bank. The merger was completed in 1923 and have lived a very dysfunctional life up until a few years ago.

To cut a very long story short (more details on main website) it has been closed, developed, closed, developed and finally was reopened for business in 2013 and is now home to a theatre, studio, cafe, shop, exhibitions spaces, library and museum.

Elsewhere the Romanian foster is settling in nicely, Frankie actually went off lead yesterday and thoroughly enjoyed himself mooching on the beach. Still a bit camera shy but we'll soon sort that out. Still busy around the house and garden, we have chopped a big tree down (well almost) and the garden looks twice as wide now and we have added some of our favourite pictures to the lounge. We had three images put onto canvas and have hung them on the old picture rail like they used to years ago and they look wicked.