15-17 Fulton Street

Summary

Warehouses, dating to around 1850, later used for a variety of industrial purposes, including as a corn and provender mill and warehouse, converted into artist's studios/living accommodation in the early C21.

Reasons for Designation

15-17 Fulton Street, constructed in around 1850, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* it is an interesting example of two separate mid-C19 warehouse units contained within a single building;

* it is an important survival of an early fireproof warehouse building; its fireproof features illustrating the changing technology and developments in warehouse design and construction during the C19;

* despite some later conversion works the building's historic character survives well and its original function remains clearly readable in the physical fabric;

* key interior features survive, including concrete and heavy softwood floors, trapdoors, cast-iron door frames, jigger lofts with hoist pulley lines and beams, and the original roof structures.

Historic interest:

* it is an important survival of a mid-C19 warehouse associated with the trade of the international port of Liverpool at the peak of its prosperity and success, and represents the expansion of the dock system northwards from the city centre.

Group value:

* it has strong group value with the nearby dock wall along Regent Road and dock entrances (1848, Grade II), Bramley Moore Dock retaining walls (1848, Grade II), and the hydraulic engine house at Bramley Moore Dock (1883, Grade II), as well as the numerous listed buildings and structures at Stanley Dock, Collingwood Dock and Salisbury Dock, reflecting a chain of process from dock to warehouse.

History

15-17 Fulton Street is believed to have been constructed in around 1850 and was constructed as a single building containing two warehouse units. On the town plan of 1849 there are no buildings depicted on the site, but on the 1:10560 OS map published in 1851 the entire left side of Fulton Street is built up. 15-17 Fulton Street is clearly depicted on a town plan published in 1864 where it is labelled as 'warehouses'. When first built the warehouses were set opposite Fulton Engine Works and a large goods warehouse, with the massive North Docks Goods Station and goods and coal yards immediately to the east and south (now - 2020 - largely demolished and redeveloped, although the former Fulton Engine Works survives in different use).

By 1880 the building was in use as a corn and provender mill and warehouse occupied by Richard Moon. Richard Moon (1844-?) was from a family of millers and merchants based in Liverpool; another family member was (Sir) Richard Moon (1814-1899) who left the family business in 1851 after being appointed a director of the London and North Western Railway Company (LNWR), and later became Chairman. By 1900 15-17 Fulton Street, which has also been known as Star Mills, was occupied by J & J Lonsdale, provision merchants, and by 1910 they had been joined by The Liverpool Warehousing Company Limited and F W Wheatley & Co, paint manufacturers. By 1920 the building was occupied by a number of industrial businesses, including packers, a ship painters, a ship's composition manufacturers, and partly in use as a warehouse for an asbestos packing manufacturer.

The building appears to have remained in various industrial uses (with periods of vacancy) throughout the C20, but by 1970 it had returned to its original function and was operating as warehousing. In the early C21 the building was converted for use as artists' studios.

Details

Warehouses, dating to around 1850, later used for a variety of industrial purposes, including as a corn and provender mill and warehouse, converted into artists' studios/living accommodation in the early C21.

MATERIALS: mellow red brick and cast iron with some pressed-brick and sandstone dressings.

PLAN: 15-17 Fulton Street lies to the east of Bramley Moore Dock and Wellington Dock, and is composed of two warehouse units grouped together within a single building. It is bounded by Fulton Street to the east side, neighbouring buildings to the north and west sides, and a cleared site to the south. The former warehouse is of four-storeys plus jigger lofts (mezzanines that would have originally housed hoist machinery) and basement. It has a rectangular plan with a solid central dividing wall internally that separates the interior into two halves, and a stair at each north and south end. An additional early-C21 stair has been inserted to the centre.

EXTERIOR: the front (east) elevation facing Fulton Street is of a very wide, symmetrical eight-bays, with two gabled units each of four-bays with central loading bays. The ground floor is raised, and at each end of the front elevation are narrow recessed doorways with segmental-arched heads and original sheet-iron entrance doors set within cast-iron frames that each lead onto an internal stair lit by narrow stair windows. The doorways are each accessed via a flight of altered steps. To the centre of the elevation is a later inserted doorway, which is similarly styled and also has a sheet-iron door, and is accessed via a steel stair. The original sheet-iron loading doors to the loading bays have mostly been removed (the basement level doors on the south loading bay survive) and the openings are now glazed, but the cast-iron floor ends survive, along with semi-circular domed cast-iron hoods to the top of the bays, cast-iron hoists and some cast-iron tethering rings. The loading bays are flanked by later tie bars and small windows with segmental-arched pressed-brick heads and sandstone sills set to each floor, most of which retain their original cast-iron bars. Internal sheet-iron shutters have been removed and the windows are now glazed. Basement windows have been bricked up and two openings have been altered and widened with replaced lintels. The building's gables, which each have a small oculus (round window) to the apex, are linked by a brick parapet, all with sandstone copings. Both units have their own pitched roof, which incorporate a number of small modern velux windows, and the dividing party wall rises above the roofline to form a fire break. Downpipes have been replaced in uPVC, but a cast-iron hopper survives.

The side elevations have a single window to the centre of the upper floors in the same style as those to the front; at least one retains original cast-iron bars, but some are now just glazed.

The rear elevation has similarly detailed window openings, some of which have been blocked up, and flues have also been inserted through the rear wall. The south-west and north-west corners of the building are canted.

INTERIOR: internally the building is subdivided into two halves by a brick spine wall that incorporates a doorway on each floor providing access between the two areas; the doorways' sheet-iron doors have been removed and replaced by modern timber doors, but their cast-iron frames survive. There are heavy softwood-timber floor joists and a mixture of concrete floors and softwood-timber floors; the latter are in the southern half of the building and incorporate trapdoors. Cast-iron columns provide support in the basement and on the ground floor, and in the southern half of the first floor, with substantial softwood-timber posts and brick piers elsewhere. Internally the windows have very deep reveals and have lost their sheet-iron shutters.

At each north and south end of the building is a fireproof stair bay comprised of an enclosed brick compartment containing a cast-iron spiral stair with sheet-iron doors off onto each floor level; one of the doors off the north stair has been removed and replaced by a timber door. An additional early-C21 stair has been inserted to the centre front of the building and further timber stair flights have been inserted between some of the floors. The basements' sandstone stairs survive.

The building's formerly open-plan spaces were partitioned on each floor in the early C21 to create artist's studios and heating stoves and flues have been inserted, along with kitchen areas and bathrooms. Later tie rods pass through the building just below the ceilings, and an original hoist hook has been attached to one of the rods.

Both warehouse units retain their original roof structures, including massive Queen-post trusses and side purlins. At the east end of each warehouse is a mezzanine jigger loft (now with later access stairs). Machinery has been removed, but pulley lines and beams survive. The lofts are now (2020) used as sleeping platforms and the base of that in the southern half of building has been extended on one side to the tip of the roof truss.

Sources

Books and journals
Giles, C, Hawkins, B, Storehouses of Empire. Liverpool's Historic Warehouses, (2004)

Other
Liverpool Museum. Liverpool Historic Warehouse Survey: Documentation. Volume 1. 1998

End of official list entry