Looks are deceiving on Towerlands Street, what looks like a village square on the edge of one Liverpool's busiest thoroughfares and biggest developments.
The row of redbrick houses are all built in Georgian style with tall rectangular windows and arched doors. All but two are 28 years old. Set off a triangular square with trees, benches and a Grade II listed church on one side, this is the historic centre of Edge Hill.
Despite being only a few metres away from Edge Lane, the street is "nice and quiet", according to Pauline McGuire. The 59-year-old has raised six children and 10 grandchildren in her 23 years on Towerlands Street. Most of her neighbours have lived here longer.
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She told the ECHO: "We all know one another, we all look out for one another. It started off all families when the houses were first built. We all had kids, but since then, they've all grown up and moved out, but we're still all here, so we all know one another."
Now a dead end, the street used to be heaving with traffic travelling towards Hall Lane and into town. Both streets are separated from Edge Lane over a decade ago after that road was widened, and hundreds of homes were demolished. But even before that, kids were safe to play in a shared access alley behind the houses.
One former resident, who had a bus stop outside his house a few doors down on Holland Place, said: "It was very busy. This was just open, it was a nightmare with traffic. Since they closed us off, it's been very quiet. For where we are near the city centre, with all this green here and the back alley, it's kind of like a nice little escape from the city within the city."
Pauline said: "In the summer, we all get our garden chairs out and congregate in someone's garden, so all the neighbours sit in one garden, usually the lady on the end, we sit in her garden. It's just that sense of all the kids playing together, and all the mums and dads getting on. It's really good."
The charm of this road, where "people stop and talk if you're sitting out", attracts the interest of would-be buyers who ask about the "lovely" houses. They're all housing association properties, so Pauline couldn't sell even if she wanted to, and she feels "really lucky" to be living on Towerlands Street, saying: "Nobody's going to be moving out any time soon."
All Saints parish, the occupants of St Mary's Church since 2012, could be forced to move by the cost of maintaining the heating the building. Constructed in simple rectangular style with balconies in 1813, the church has two William Morris windows with "beautiful glass work in lots of different colours", according to Reverend Mike Coates.
He said: "You'll also see some of the windows are in plain glass. That's as a result of the Blitz in the Second World War, those windows were blown out and just replaced with plain glass. I think intentionally the church has never really done anything about it because it wanted to hold on to that idea it being connected with The Blitz."
The Anglican church building was one of 23 Liverpool sites included on Historic England's Heritage at Risk last year, because it "suffers from a persistent dry rot problem in floors and balconies, and cementitious pointing is preventing masonry from drying out".
The National Lottery Heritage Fund has offered grant aid under the Grants for Places of Worship scheme, according to Historic England. All Saints is also applying for other funds. Mike said: "It's like a sponge and it will continue to take money as long as it stands. It's nice to have the historical side of the building, and architecturally, on the outside, it looks quite nice, but the reality is that it is a building poorly built.
"Water is held in the building in places that it shouldn't be. Drains don't drain away, and the roof isn't taking the water away properly. There will be constant problems with it. We have had a series of major work done to it over the period of time that I've been around, including looking at damp and and fixing the tower and doing the main roof, and I am sad to say that I think that, regularly, money will have to be spent on it.
"If we don't do something about it very soon, then we'll lose the building. The church congregation will come to a point where we can't afford the amount of money that needs to be spent on it. And we'll have to hand it over to somebody who can. That probably means, in our location, student accommodation or something."
That last comment reflects recent developments in this area. Nearby pubs have been converted into flats for students, who also occupy many of the houses in Kensington Fields on the other side of Edge Lane. The view of the church tower as you come up the hill has been obscured by the tower blocks of Paddington Village, home to student accommodation, a hotel and The Spine.
Towerlands Street is no stranger to new developments. Joseph Williamson, the 'Mole of Edge Hill', built much of the original houses around here, and continued burrowing beneath the streets to quarry stone. Most of that has now made room for newbuilds, with only a few original buildings remaining on a cluster of roads around Towerlands Street.
Speaking of the towers now dominating the encroaching city skyline, one resident, who asked not to be named, said: "I don't mind it. I know probably some people do considering the neighbourhood used to just be old buildings and now new buildings are popping up closer and closer. I mean, the city is expanding - obviously that's part of life - but as long as they don't start knocking down the old buildings, I think everyone will be fine."
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