Looking around Birkenhead Park one can’t fail to be impressed by the beautiful Victorian villas lining the roads, many of them listed. The ESWA building, which overlooks the park, is not quite in this league, but undeniably has character and has been dubbed a ‘good example of rumbustious and rather inventive Victorian gothic’. The building itself presumably started life as a pair of semis which were knocked through. Best known for being the childhood home of Andrew Irvine, a famous mountaineer, it was most recently a Co-op sports and social club (ESWA stands for Employees Social Welfare Association). Newspaper reports suggest this was quite a lively place in its day, but it closed in 2012 and has stood empty ever since. Damage from a fire in 2013 has largely been repaired, but the roof is still only partly tiled, water is getting in and its pretty damp and mouldy in places.
I was interested in the ESWA because I like this type of architecture, even though it was clear from the previous report by Scotty Markfour (https://www.28dayslater.co.uk/threads/eswa-social-club-birkenhead-aug-2017.109597/) that there wasn’t much in the way of furniture left. The nicest features of the building are probably the round-fronted rooms and fireplaces. The main difference between the two reports is that I went round in daytime - actually rather early one morning - otherwise not much has changed. Pictures go from the basement up.
I was interested in the ESWA because I like this type of architecture, even though it was clear from the previous report by Scotty Markfour (https://www.28dayslater.co.uk/threads/eswa-social-club-birkenhead-aug-2017.109597/) that there wasn’t much in the way of furniture left. The nicest features of the building are probably the round-fronted rooms and fireplaces. The main difference between the two reports is that I went round in daytime - actually rather early one morning - otherwise not much has changed. Pictures go from the basement up.
