Comments on: Griff Rhys Jones On Liverpool St Station

By: Sue Lloyd

Sue Lloyd — Sun, 14 May 2023 13:12:07 +0000

Why is it necessary to redevelop Liverpool st & Spitalfields, I tell you why people with money always want to make more money, there is no consideration for History any more, it just about how much money you have, I think it’s a sorry state of affaires.

By: Sue

Sue — Fri, 12 May 2023 14:52:54 +0000

I have never been to Liverpool Street station but I love historical buildings. The developers’ visualisation of their proposed redevelopment of Liverpool St Station makes me feel sick and depressed in equal measure.

As somebody has already pointed out, visitors come to London to look at our lovely historical buildings so why I we hiding them? People rave about the Shard and the Gherkin which I don’t understand. Those glass monstrosities could be in any city. Our history and our old buildings are important and interesting. They say a lot about us as a nation. We must save them and give them breathing space.

By: Pauline Taylor

Pauline Taylor — Fri, 12 May 2023 12:04:46 +0000

Thank you Griff for an excellent piece it is so well written and is a lesson for us all in how to get our message across. As an Essex girl from the city of Colchester I have so many memories of Liverpool Street station from the days when it was surrounded by bomb sites to my first train journey on my own to stay with friends in London, being put on the train by my mother at Colchester and being met by her friend’s husband at Liverpool Street. The way that we, as children, always used to look at the name of the engine that had pulled us there and the noise, the smoke and the steam, the station was such a magical and exciting place and holds so many happy memories for me.

Like you Griff I remember the approach to the station in the train and all the strange archways and infrastructure of tubes of metal and wires and I could never understand how anyone could know what the purpose of all that tangle of stuff was. Later on we loved days trips to London as art students arriving and leaving at Liverpool Street sometimes with John O’Connor or Richard Chopping but often on our own visiting art galleries and shopping for clothes and having the time of our life. Liverpool Street station featured in all those happy times and I should hate to see it destroyed to be replaced by this hideous monstrosity.

I wish you every success with your campaign to save it, at least you stand a better chance now that Mr Johnson is no longer mayor of London as if he had called it in we all know what the outcome would have been !

By: Paul Loften

Paul Loften — Fri, 12 May 2023 10:52:53 +0000

Well yes, for me the station also holds a bagful of personal history from when it was a place for human beings instead of artificial intelligence designs and concourses . But what use do human beings have now? Let’s face it. Empty trains , empty offices , empty concourses but overflowing bank accounts for those contractors and suited gentlemen involved in this upgrade to nowhere

By: Pam Dewey

Pam Dewey — Fri, 12 May 2023 10:15:13 +0000

As an Essex Girl living near the Eastern terminal, Southend Victoria, for more than 70 years I wholeheartedly support Griff RJ and thank him for his article and you for directing our attention to this travesty. Signed and shared widely.

By: aubrey

aubrey — Fri, 12 May 2023 09:35:06 +0000

I love station’s space. It was a playground of my childhood. I am appalled and despair at this “improvement”.

By: Lorraine Whebell

Lorraine Whebell — Fri, 12 May 2023 09:27:52 +0000

I’m an Essex girl ?as Griff said I feel it’s my station too!
This must not be allowed to happen..I can only hope common sense wins the outcome of this preposterous plan.

By: Jill Wilson

Jill Wilson — Fri, 12 May 2023 08:25:27 +0000

Although Liverpool Street Station is not “my” gateway into London (I’m Victoria and London Bridge) I’m very happy to support the campaign to stop this proposed development which is yet another horrendous example of the ugly glass monstrosities which are blighting our city.

And as we have so recently been reminded our thousand year history is one of our greatest assets, and should be protected accordingly.

Perhaps it is time to get His Majesty involved?

By: Lizebeth

Lizebeth — Fri, 12 May 2023 06:21:18 +0000

Please Gentle Author, can you post in a subsequent blog any well-known person, government official, or body, that we can write to to protest this looming (in every sense) monstrosity? It is catastrophic that developers continue to be allowed to get away with so-called “improvements” like this, which threaten the very identity of the City of London. B Smith makes the excellent point that London’s economy also depends on tourism, and none of these visitors wants to see the enormous — empty! —office boxes that they have just left at home. This creeping fungus of overscale growths threatens us on every side, in most great cities. But these cities don’t have the thousand years of history that makes London what it is, and which seems to be constantly under threat now.

This development must be stopped and the entire Station listed!

By: Jonathan Madden

Jonathan Madden — Fri, 12 May 2023 06:06:35 +0000

Great post by GRJ, I too am an Essex boy and my feelings and memories of Liverpool Street are much the same. I am utterly appalled at the development plans for this glorious space and building, they are unsympathetic, uncreative, unsuitable and ugly. It tramples all over the harmony and human scale of this beautiful Victorian building, as if its past counted for nothing. I accept change and upgrading may be necessary but surely we can do better than this? Can anyone imagine this type of corporate and visual vandalism being allowed in sensitive areas of any other European city? We never seem to learn, architects, planners and developers with no sense of historical perspective or judgement, yielding to the will of mammon yet again.