The Grand Entrance to Birkenhead Park is at the northeast entrance to

Birkenhead Park Birkenhead Park is a major public park located in the centre of Birkenhead, Merseyside, England. It was designed by Joseph Paxton and opened on 5 April 1847. Birkenhead park was designated a conservation area in 1977 and declared a Grade I N ...

Birkenhead Birkenhead () is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, Merseyside, England. The town is on the Wirral Peninsula, along the west bank of the River Mersey, opposite Liverpool. It lies within the Historic counties of England, historic co ...

, Wirral,

Merseyside Merseyside ( ) is a ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial and metropolitan county in North West England. It borders Lancashire to the north, Greater Manchester to the east, Cheshire to the south, the Wales, Welsh county of Flintshire across ...

, England. It consists of three arches flanked by lodges and is in Ionic style. The entrance was designed by Lewis Hornblower, with amendments by

Joseph Paxton Sir Joseph Paxton (3 August 1803 – 8 June 1865) was an English gardener, architect, engineer and Liberal Party (UK), Liberal Member of Parliament. He is best known for designing the Crystal Palace, which was built in Hyde Park, London, Hyde ...

, the designer of the park. The park, and its entrance, were opened in 1847. The Grand Entrance is recorded in the

National Heritage List for England The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, ...

as a designated Grade II*

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

History

Birkenhead Park was the first park in the world to be developed from public funds. It was designed by Joseph Paxton and its construction was supervised by Edward Kemp. Paxton appointed Lewis Hornblower to design the Grand Entrance. His plans were accepted by the Road and Improvement Committee in May 1845, but Paxton was not happy with them and made changes. The Grand Entrance was built by John and William Walker of Birkenhead between 1845 and 1847. The park, with its Grand Entrance, was opened on 5 April 1847 by Lord Morpeth, on the same day that

Birkenhead Docks The Great Float is a body of water on the Wirral Peninsula, England, formed from the natural tidal inlet, the Wallasey Pool. It is split into two large docks, East Float and West Float, both part of the Birkenhead Docks complex. The docks run a ...

were opened.

Description

The Grand Entrance is built in

ashlar Ashlar () is a cut and dressed rock (geology), stone, worked using a chisel to achieve a specific form, typically rectangular in shape. The term can also refer to a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, a ...

stone, and is in Ionic style. It consists of three arches flanked by a pair of lodges. The central arch is the largest, and contains a carriageway, and on either side there are smaller arches for pedestrians. The whole structure is about high. The central arch is flanked by pairs of unfluted columns, and above it is a decorative attic containing the arms of the town and the date. The lodges are identical, in two storeys, and with three

bays A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a ''gulf'', ''sea'', ''sound'', or ''bight''. A ''cove'' is a small, ci ...

separated by

pilaster In architecture, a pilaster is both a load-bearing section of thickened wall or column integrated into a wall, and a purely decorative element in classical architecture which gives the appearance of a supporting column and articulates an ext ...

s. They have

sash window A sash window or hung sash window is made of one or more movable panels, or "sashes". The individual sashes are traditionally paned windows, but can now contain an individual sheet (or sheets, in the case of double glazing) of glass. History ...

s, and at the tops there are

balustrade A baluster () is an upright support, often a vertical moulded shaft, square, or lathe-turned form found in stairways, parapets, and other architectural features. In furniture construction it is known as a spindle. Common materials used in its ...

parapet A parapet is a barrier that is an upward extension of a wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/brea ...

Appraisal

The Grand Entrance was designated as a Grade II* listed building on 29 June 1950. Grade II* is the middle of the three grades and is granted to "particularly important buildings of more than special interest". Hartwell and colleagues comment in the ''

Buildings of England The ''Pevsner Architectural Guides'' are four series of guide books to the architecture of the British Isles. ''The Buildings of England'' series was begun in 1945 by the art historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, with its forty-six original volumes pub ...

'' series that it is "grand indeed". The park itself is designated at Grade I in the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. It influenced the design of

Central Park Central Park is an urban park between the Upper West Side and Upper East Side neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City, and the first landscaped park in the United States. It is the List of parks in New York City, sixth-largest park in the ...

in New York, which opened in 1858.

References

Citations Sources * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Birkenhead Park, Grand Entrance Grade II* listed buildings in Merseyside Neoclassical architecture in England Grand Entrance to Birkenhead Park Buildings and structures completed in 1847 1847 establishments in England

History

Description

Appraisal

See also

References