Architecture of Liverpool

[10] As Liverpool grew in population, it absorbed certain surrounding areas which now act as its various inner districts (Clubmoor, Edge Hill, Everton, Fairfield, Garston, Kensington, Kirkdale, Knotty Ash, Norris Green, Old Swan, Toxteth, Vauxhall, Walton, Wavertree) or outlying suburbs (Aigburth, Allerton, Anfield, Childwall, Croxteth, Fazakerley, Gateacre, Grassendale, Hunt's Cross, Mossley Hill, St Michael's Hamlet, West Derby, Woolton), with varying architecture in each.

The development of the port began in the mid 17th century, with trade being established with the American colonies and the British West Indies, the first recorded cargo from America being tobacco that arrived in 1648.

There are also larger detached Georgian mansions and villas, such as Allerton Hall built c.1736 for slave traders John Hardman and his brother James, is a rare example in Liverpool of Palladian architecture.

Its sumptuous interiors also by Wyatt, are highly regarded examples of late Georgian architecture, in refined neoclassical style, the actual building work was overseen by John Foster Sr. who was the Surveyor to the Corporation of Liverpool from 1790 to 1824.

[51] The Wapping Tunnel by George Stephenson was created (1826–29) to link Edge Hill and the new railway to the southern docks, it initially operated with a static steam engine hauling wagons through it.

[57] In Brunswick Street is the former Bank of Arthur Heywood and Sons (1798–1800), possibly the design of John Foster Sr.[58] There is an interesting example of a late Georgian Gothic inn building in the Childwall Abbey Hotel.

Built for the Presbyterian's, St Andrew's Church, Liverpool by Daniel Stewart with the facade by John Foster Jr. was long derelict,[64][65] but was restored in 2015 as student accommodation.

Some prime early examples are the Lyceum by Thomas Harrison (1802), the Wellington Rooms by Edmund Aikin (1815–16; a grade II* listed building, now at risk in a "very bad" condition[66]).

[111] Peter Ellis was an obscure architect and civil engineer who, nevertheless, designed the pioneering Oriel Chambers (1864)[112] in Water Street as "one of the first office buildings to be clad in glazed curtain-walling"[9] in its rear courtyard.

Well ahead of its time, the building was severely criticised in The Builder of 16 June 1866 as a "large agglomeration of protruding plate-glass bubbles", a "vast abortion" without any aesthetic qualities.

[113] In all likelihood, however, it was studied by young John Wellborn Root who spent some time in Liverpool to escape the American Civil War just when Ellis' building had been finished.

[121] See the Alfred Waterhouse section below for buildings designed by him, including Royal Infirmary, University of Liverpool, the Turner Memorial Home and the Seaman's Orphanage.

[151] By the late 19th century Liverpool was a cosmopolitan city, there were many immigrant communities, many seamen passing through the port including natives of West Africa and the Far East, Chinatown dates from the 1860s, not many have left traces of their often temporary places of worship.

[191] The Philharmonic Dining Rooms on Hope Street built (c. 1898 – 1900) designed by Walter W. Thomas,[192] not only have a flamboyant exterior with Art Nouveau style ironwork and intricate internal decor but are also noteworthy for their ornate Victorian toilets, which have become a tourist attraction in their own right.

[195] The former Higsons Brewery on Stanhope Street dates from 1887 by James Redford, it was extended in 1902, in bold red brick and terracotta decoration in a Renaissance style, it was built for Robert Cain who also commissioned the Philharmonic Dining Rooms and The Vines Pub.

[211] Sandown Park is a residential estate laid out in the late 1840s designed by Cornelius Sherlock in a picturesque manner, only a few of the original early Victorian villas survive, the development was aimed at the lower-middle-class.

[217] The most notable house in the area is The Towers (1874), 44 Ullet Road, a large Gothic pile, built for cotton broker Michael Belcher designed by George Ashdown Audsley.

[219] Mossley Hill Drive on the eastern edge of Sefton Park was developed in the 1880s with a series of redbrick and terracotta villas, No 1 Gledhill is by James Francis Doyle for stockbroker R.W.

Much later (sometime around 2000) dubbed the Three Graces they are from north to south: In front of these buildings at the water's edge are the memorials to the men of the Merchant Navy who sailed out of the port during both world wars.

[226] The Vines public house on Lime Street is the grandest of the era, built 1907, in exuberant Edwardian baroque style, to designs by Walter W. Thomas for brewer Robert Cain.

[242] It was in this period that the Liverpool Blue Coat School was rebuilt on a new site in Wavertree, designed by Briggs, Wolstenholme and Thornely, and constructed 1903–06, in a typically Edwardian Baroque style.

[243] Also Roman Catholic is Saint Philip Neri Church designed by Matthew Honan (killed in first world war), in a Byzantine style, simplified in execution by M.J. Worthy & Alfred Rigby.

The greatest architectural loss was The Custom House, the then Liverpool Museum was gutted by incendiary bombs in 1941 and the interior rebuilt 1963–69 by the city architect Ronald Bradbury.

[270] The Atlantic Tower Hotel, situated on Chapel Street next to Saint Nicholas' Church and near Pier Head, opened in 1972[271] and was designed to resemble the prow of a ship to reflect Liverpool's maritime history.

This ambition led to its listing as a UNESCO World Heritage Site between 2004 and 2021, and also to plans for redevelopment of Mann Island, the area between Albert Dock and Pier Head.

Beating off illustrious competitors like Richard Rogers, Norman Foster and Edward Cullinan, in 2002, Will Alsop won the so-called Fourth Grace competition for the site and received the go-ahead with his project The Cloud.

His full-size details, although Classic in spirit, are essentially modern in character; every suite of mouldings received due consideration as to its placing, and its ultimate relation to the scheme as a whole.

Albert Richardson[313] "In Liverpool, I beheld long China walls of masonry; vast piers of stone; and a succession of granite-rimmed docks, completely inclosed, and many of them communicating, which almost recalled to mind the great American chain of lakes: Ontario, Erie, St. Clair, Huron, Michigan and Superior.

Nikolaus Pevsner, South Lancashire (The Buildings of England), 1969 "one of the purest monuments of the Greek Revival in England", English Heritage "Among English civic buildings of its date, Liverpool Town Hall is probably only second to London's Mansion House in its richness...This is probably the grandest such suite of civic rooms in the country, an outstanding and complete example of late Georgian decoration..." Sharples, 2004 "next to those in the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, the best proportioned rooms in Europe" Prince of Wales, 1881[316] "One of the masterpieces of Victorian commercial architecture, and among Cockerell's greatest works... Only three bays wide, but overwhelmingly massive and powerful."

In the 1920s, Liverpool's Catholic Archdiocese conceived a truly Brobdingnagian cathedral – larger than St Peter's, Rome – and commissioned the architect Edwin Lutyens to make the concept a reality.