Then & Now
1901-2018. `Gwalia` otherwise known as Sandfield Tower was built in 1851 for the wealthy American merchant Joseph Edwards who was making his fortune in part thanks to Liverpools booming docking industry. One of several 19th century villas in the Victorian residential estate to meet the same fate, it fell victim to the demise of the city when the docks fell quiet. The building has remained vacant, slowly rotting away since the 1980s with enforcement action against the building’s owners by the council dating back to 2004 still bearing no indication of its future, despite the city's new-found regeneration. Old photographs of the building are extremely rare, and its neglected gardens have slowly become surrounded by newer buildings over the last century, meaning it is unfortunately no longer possible to match the camera angle of the original photo without standing in someone else's back garden!