The Town Hall, then called the Exchange, was at the north end of Castle Street with houses and shops built close up to it. Behind was a small open space with several houses and some butchers' shops, called the Old Shambles, extending from a continuation of Old Hall Street. By 1790, along with the widening of Castle Street, the Shambles, with its exit onto Water Street, had been demolished to make way for the construction of a new Exchange Alley. The fire of 1795 had consumed the second Exchange and had led to its reconstruction and renaming of it as the Town Hall. In the year 1801, it was proposed to erect a Quadrangle on the North Side, to comprehend an extensive Range of Offices for Mercantile Purposes, and a Suite of Rooms on a very large and commodious scale, for transacting Insurances and other Business, in the manner of Lloyds. The Piazzas and Quadrangle, were to be built in the same Style of Architecture as the new Town Hall and called the Liverpool Exchange, with the Buildings surrounding them called the Exchange Buildings.
The first Exchange Building was then built in 1803-8 by John Foster Senior, possibly together with James Wyatt, in the Neoclassical style and was a fine Georgian building, which was opened, according to the 1810 directory, on the 1st of January 1809. It was indeed in perfect sympathy with the Town Hall for which he was also partly responsible.
 |
| A View of The Quadrangle of the New Liverpool Exchange |
After fifty years it was decided to replace it with a more commodious building and in 1862 work started on its replacement, a Gothic building designed by T H Wyatt in a style described as Flemish Renaissance by Picton, who added that the Newsroom "is a noble apartment, free from all obstructions and well-suited for its purpose." These French Renaissance Exchange Buildings replaced the earlier buildings on the same site, with the new building being built between 1863 and its opening in 1867. Surrounding on three sides the area known as 'the Flags', in the centre of the fourth side stood a monument to Nelson, they contained two hundred and fifty public and private offices, as well as a Newsroom and Stock Exchange. No expense was spared in fitting out the interior; pilasters of red Scottish granite, marble pedestals and French Caen carved stonework. The building also contained a novel invention known now as a 'lift'.
However, like its predecessor, it was to survive for little more than half a century with work starting on its replacement, the current neo-classical Exchange Buildings, in the 1930s, being rebuilt by Gunton & Gunton in 1937. The War stopped work temporarily but the demolition and replacement was completed by the early 1950s.
The present building is Grade II listed, and was adapted during the course of its construction with the creation of a bomb-proof bunker in the basement of Walker House (formerly Derby House), to house a military command headquarters. From this facility, which became known as the Western Approaches Command Headquarters, the campaign against the German submarine fleet in the Atlantic during World War II was planned and directed.
see also:- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2021/10/remembering-liverpool-sructures.html
No comments:
Post a Comment