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Bluecoat Chambers
This lovely Queen Anne-style building was founded in 1708 by Mr Bryan Blundell and Rev. Robert Styth and completed in 1725 as 'a school for teaching poor children to read, write and cast accounts'. Originally called the Bluecoat Hospital, it is the oldest surviving building in the centre of the city and is the work of an unknown architect. Blundell was a leading Liverpool shipowner, reputedly the owner of the first ship to enter the town's first dock in 1715, and slave trade. Styth was the first joint Rector of Liverpool, based at St Nicholas Church on the waterfront. Both men were aware of the problems of orphan children in Liverpool, large numbers of whom were left destitute by the loss of their fathers at sea. The school moved to Wavertree in 1906 and was narrowly saved from demolition in 1907 by a donation from soap magnate William Hesketh Lever, funded by part of his winnings in a libel suit against the Daily Mail. The building has had various functions since, latterly an arts centre. There is a delightful walled garden at the back, an amazing haven of peace and tranquility so near to the busy shops. It is currently closed awaiting redevelopment as part of the preparations for City of Culture in 2008. It remains to be seen how it will turn out. |
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St. Luke's Church
The work originally of John Foster the Elder, founded in 1802 and completed by his son to a new design in 1831, St Luke's is a prominent Liverpool landmark, dominating the view up Bold Street. The church was bombed during World War II (1941) and narrowly escaped demolition in the 1950s and 1960s but is now preserved as a memorial to the Liverpool blitz. It is known locally as the 'bombed-out church'. |
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The Vines
This baroque fantasy was built for brewer Robert Cain, one of a number of pubs in the city demonstrating his commitment to flamboyant architecture. Known locally as the Big House, it was constructed in 1907 to the designs of Walter W. Thomas, he of Philharmonic Dining Rooms fame, on the site of an earlier pub owned by one A.B. Vines. The clock was made by the same company that made Big Ben. The interior is similarly sumptuous, with an abundance of carved mahogany, plaster friezes and copper-work. |
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Epstein's Statue
Jacob Epstein's bronze figure on the prow of a ship above the main entrance to the Lewis's department store building dates from 1954-6 and stands for the resurgence of Liverpool after the war. The panels beneath, also by Epstein (1955), show scenes from childhood - the new generation of Liverpudlians (myself included). In fact, the store was devastated in the blitz of May 1941, parts of the earlier building of 1910-23 remaining only at the eastern end on Renshaw Street. Epstein's statue is the origin of the phrase 'standing there like one of Lewis's' applied by scousers to anyone who has been 'stood up'. |
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Lime Street
What is perhaps Liverpool's most famous street was once known as Limekiln Lane, named after the industry operating on the site of the present station in the 18th century. The Steble Fountain in the foreground is backed by the Empire Theatre and Alfred Waterhouse's 1871 North Western Hotel (originally the station hotel, now student accommodation for John Moores University). |
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Liverpool's manufacturing industry in Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of England (1848)
The manufactures of the town are principally such as are connected with the port and the shipping, the promotion of its commerce, and the supply of the inhabitants. There are two sugar refineries carried on upon a very large scale, some extensive glass-houses, breweries, tanneries, salt and copperas works, iron and brass foundries; foundries for cannon, anchors, chain-cables, and the several parts of machinery connected with steam-engines; manufactories for steam-engines, steamboilers, and machinery of all kinds, and for guns, small arms, nails, files, ropes, sails, and cordage; also numerous corn-mills, and mills for grinding mustard, colours, and dye-woods. The manufacture of soap exceeds that of any other place in England, and the manufacture of tobacco and snuff is very extensive; the number of watches made annually, on an average, amounts to 11,500, a number greater than that of any other town, except London. |
