Warehouse

Reasons for Designation

The warehouse at 15 North Street is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * It is a relatively unaltered example of a mid-late C19th warehouse that still retains some original features such as its plan form, timber doors, cast iron columns and cast iron window frames. * It is a good example of a relatively small warehouse built at the time of Liverpool's ascendancy to a port of international significance. * It is a relatively rare example of a warehouse that did not adopt the use of fire-resistant qualities in order to reduce its insurance premiums * It further enhances Liverpool's already significant warehouse population.

Details

392/0/10336 NORTH STREET 17-DEC-08 15 Warehouse

II A warehouse of three storeys with basement and jigger loft built about 1875.

MATERIALS: Brick with stone dressings and cast iron features beneath a slate roof.

PLAN: Rectangular

EXTERIOR: The front elevation overlooking North Street is brick-faced enlivened by blue brick horizontal bands and round-headed and segmental arches to the loading bay and smaller windows respectively. There are metal-framed windows with cast iron lintels and mullions, with some sash windows now obscured by modern boarding. The North Street elevation is asymmetrically disposed with an off-centre recessed loading bay flanked on the left by the original doorway with small stairwell windows to each floor above, and on the right by large tripartite windows to each floor. The loading bay doors are of timber. A later door has been inserted into the right end of the North Street elevation. The elevation is surmounted by a parapet that rises above the slates. The right return has a door at the right end and is otherwise covered in modern render over brick. Two chimney stacks, one truncated, top this elevation.

INTERIOR: Access via the original door leads into a stair compartment defined by a partially curved internal brick wall and lit at ground floor level by a fanlight, now blocked, over the door. The stair is of newel form with wooden treads and gives access to the basement and all floors. Where original the doors leading from the stair compartment are timber. The internal structure of the building is made up of timber floors, with heavy cross-beams, joists and floorboards. The beams are supported at basement, ground and first floor levels by cast-iron columns forming a row down the centre of each floor. The roof trusses have a tie-beam, principle rafters, king post and V-struts, with two sets of side purlins held by chocks on the back of the principle rafters. The king-posts are through bolted to the tie-beams. In one corner of the basement the ceiling has a metal plate with a circular opening, perhaps originally for a metal flue rising through the warehouse to emerge above roof level.

HISTORY: The warehouse at 15 North Street was built about 1875 and is one of only nine surviving warehouses which lie north of Dale Street, within Liverpool's commercial centre. By the time of this warehouse's construction the port of Liverpool had attained international significance in terms of the volume of goods passings through the city and its port and the number of countries traded with. In 1888 R & G Maddox, fruit merchants were the occupants. In 1894 the building was a polish warehouse; the occupiers in 1908 were printers, and in 1929 a wholesale provision merchant used the building. At an unspecified date a staircase was inserted in the building. The warehouse has been used most recently as a night club until the mid to late-1990s. Since then it has remained unused. All insertions associated with this latest phase of use are considered to be easily reversible. The warehouse was linked at an unspecified date prior to 1882 to the adjacent warehouse at 13 North Street. Connection was made between the two warehouses at ground and upper levels, and iron fire doors held in metal frames sealed these new openings. At the same time original windows in the side wall of 15 North Street were blocked, these are still visible at some points in the party wall. The use of timber for windows and the loading bay doors indicates that the builders made no attempt to qualify for reduced insurance premiums offered as an inducement by insurance companies, as a means of improving the fire-resistant qualities of the warehouse.

SOURCES: The Architectural History Practice Ltd., Liverpool World Heritage Site: Review of the Statutory List of Buildings of Special Architectural and Historic Interest (2006) 31-2. RCHME Historic Building Report: Warehouse at 15 North Street, Liverpool, Merseyside. NBR No. 96884.

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: The warehouse at 15 North Street is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * It is a relatively unaltered example of a mid-late C19th warehouse that still retains some original features such as its plan form, timber doors, cast iron columns and cast iron window frames * It is a good example of a relatively small warehouse built at the time of Liverpool's ascendancy to a port of international significance * It is a relatively rare example of a warehouse that did not adopt the use of fire-resistant qualities in order to reduce its insurance premiums * It further enhances Liverpool's already significant warehouse population.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

504738

Legacy System:

LBS

End of official list entry

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