Remembering Liverpool Structures - Liverpool Post Office

 

Liverpool's status as Britain's second port made it an important centre for the postal service and before the opening of the Victoria Street building the General Post Office was located in the Custom House in Canning Place. This specially designed building was constructed in Victoria Street with the foundation stone laid in September 1894. The designer was Henry Tanner, a Principal Architect (Chief Architect from 1898) in the Office of Works. The Victoria Street building was exceptionally ambitious, originally resembling a Loire chateau with an eventful skyline of shaped gables, chimneys and pavillion roofs. It was opened by the Duke of York in July 1899 with the frontage to Victoria Street of 226ft., to St. Thomas Street of 254ft and to Stanley Street of 260ft, and a yard comprising 103 feet square with the site covering nearly two acres of ground. An all electric building with 5 electric lifts and lit throughout by electricity, power was generated on site rather than supplied from the mains. In front of the second-floor there were four figures representing England and Scotland and Ireland and Wales, the two pairs standing hand-in-hand with ten smaller figures representing colonies and below them figures typifying Commerce and Industry, and Electricity and Engineering. The total cost of the site, including premises in Cumberland Street and Whitechapel, was estimated to be about £200,000, with approximately another £100,000 required for building purposes, and for supplying fittings, engines, electric-light wires, and pneumatic tubes. The building was considered absolutely fire proof  with very little woodwork being used, except in the way of furniture and fittings. The new buildings contained the following offices; Public, sorting, packet, parcel and registered - letter offices, telephone-room, telegraph-instrument room, yard, bag and basket-room, and telegraph messengers' and delivery room. On the second floor were the scullery, kitchen, and carving, serving and dining-rooms, the latter measuring 30ft. by 73ft, and having seats made for 190 persons. The walls of these rooms, and of all the staircases and retiring-rooms, were of white glazed bricks, with dado of dark tiles. The inner vestibule and the postmaster's staircase, inside the west door in Victoria Street, were of Hopton Wood Marble. The doors were made of teak, and the public office counter of sabicu, a hard Cuban wood, with the other fittings being of mahogany.

Rebuilt after War damage

Victoria Street suffered heavy bombing during the blitz and the General Post Office and the Government Building were both hit. The damage to the government building was judged to be so severe that it was demolished and its basement foundations to this day remain, as a car park.
The Post Office however was rebuilt, but without its French chateau style upper tiers and the upper floors being particularly damaged removed. The interior was gutted after the Post Office moved in the 1970s.

Opened as Met Quarter in 2006 ( Victoria Sreet entrance)

The surviving shell, with the ground floor facade retained, has been converted into the new Met Centre, full of designer shops, with the modern front entrance being in Whitechapel. 

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