Remembering Liverpool Structures - Exchange Station

Liverpool Exchange was once one of the North West's biggest rail termini. The first station in Tithebarn Street opened in May 1850 as the Liverpool terminus of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway and the East Lancashire Railway, and replaced a smaller one in Great Howard Street. The Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway called it Liverpool Tithebarn Street, but the East Lancashire Railway dubbed it Liverpool Exchange. The train shed had an impressive iron roof designed by John Hawkshaw who, having gained employment working under Jesse Hartley at Liverpool docks, went on to become chief engineer with the Lancashire and Yorkshire railway. With a span of 136 feet span at the widest end and 128 feet at the narrowest end, the total length being 638 feet, the train shed was regarded by Gustav Eiffel as the most important structure of its type and together with the 'Italian style' building was described by contemporaries as 'a handsome piece of architecture'.
Initially the station sat above the street on brick arches towering 90 feet above street level, for road vehicles to access the station enabling the lines behind to cross the Leeds Liverpool Canal. However as commuter traffic grew, the existing station could not cope with demand and so was rebuilt from 1884 to 1888 with the approaches widened to accommodate more tracks. This was completed on the 2nd of July 1888 with the site expanded from the original location to cover Clarke's Basin, the original end of the Leeds-Liverpool Canal. The station continued to be the Liverpool terminus of the LYR and the terminus of the company's Liverpool to Manchester line. Now under four extremely long glass train-shed roofs lay ten platforms, with an access roadway between platforms 3 and 4, providing long-distance services to destinations such as Manchester Victoria, Blackpool North, the Lake District, Whitehaven, Glasgow Central, Bradford Exchange and Leeds Central.

The station was fronted by the Exchange Hotel in Tithebarn Street and passengers would pass through giant arches into the station itself, with its ten platforms under the giant glass roof. Having passed through the arches and under the hotel, passengers had access to a cab circulating area surrounded by shops. Author and First World War poet Siegfried Sassoon frequently lodged in the hotel adjoining the station and it was there in 1917 he wrote his, 'A Soldier's Declaration', which appeared in the press and was read to the House of Commons. 

The local lines to Southport, Preston and Wigan, were frequently packed with commuters, while there were also direct trains heading as far afield as Yorkshire and Scotland. In the latter part of the 19th century over 300 staff worked at Liverpool Exchange. The station was badly damaged in the Blitz of 1941 with a northern section of the train-shed roof being so badly damaged that it required demolition but services were back to normal by 1942.

By the early 1960s the station was as busy as ever, but then the Beeching cuts bit hard. The long distance services were transferred to Liverpool Lime Street in the 1960s and by 1968 its service to Glasgow Central was the UK's last remaining steam-hauled passenger service. When that was withdrawn in 1970, the station only served Southport, Ormskirk and Bolton, with the Southport route in particular being efficient and heavily used. In 1977 a new Merseyrail link line to Southport and Garston was built at a lower level and a new sub surface station (Moorfields) opened nearer to the city centre and on the 29th of April 1977. The last service left Exchange and on Monday the 2nd of May and the first service left its successor station, Moorfields. Exchange's spread and platforms were soon cleared, though the hotel frontage survived and was incorporated into the development of an office block, Mercury Court. In 2013, that block underwent a £5m refurbishment and was renamed Exchange Station. 

see also:- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2021/11/remembering-liverpool-structures-kent.html