Hargreaves Building is a former bank in

Chapel Street Chapel Street may refer to: * Chapel Street, Belgravia, England * Chapel Street, Liverpool, England * Chapel Street, Melbourne Chapel Street is a street in Melbourne, Victoria, running along the inner suburbs of South Yarra, Prahran, Windso ...

Liverpool Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...

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 originated as the headquarters of the Brown Shipley Bank, continued as offices when the bank moved to London, was converted for use by the Liverpool Racquet Club after the

Toxteth riots The Toxteth riots of July 1981 were a civil disturbance in Toxteth, inner-city Liverpool, which arose in part from long-standing tensions between the local police and the black community. They followed the Brixton riot earlier that year and we ...

, and later became a hotel and restaurant.

History

The building is dated 1859, and was designed by the local architect Sir James Picton. It was designed for the banker Sir William Brown as his headquarters. The name Hargreaves was the surname of Brown's son-in-law who ran his Liverpool business. The building continued to be the headquarters of the Brown Shipley Bank until 1888, when it moved to London. It continued to be used as offices until the 1980s. Following the Toxteth riots of 1981, when their building in Upper Parliament Street was destroyed, the Liverpool Racquet Club were looking for new premises. At this time the lease for Hargreaves Building was available for sale, and the trustees of the Club negotiated a 150-year lease from

Liverpool City Council Liverpool City Council is the Local government in England, local authority for the City status in the United Kingdom, city of Liverpool in Merseyside, England. Liverpool has had a local authority since 1207, which has been reformed on numerous ...

. The building was converted for the Club, and it re-opened on 20 May 1985. It contained a dining room, bar, and lounge, a billiards room, two squash courts, a small swimming pool, a gym and changing facilities, and rooms for overnight accommodation. However, by 2001 the membership of the Club had declined and the lease was sold. It has since been converted into a hotel and restaurant named the Racquet Club Hotel and Ziba Restaurant.

Architecture

The building is constructed 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 ...

, with a

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...

basement and a

slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous, metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade, regional metamorphism. It is the finest-grained foliated metamorphic ro ...

roof. It is in three storeys plus a basement. The architectural style is that of a Venetian

palazzo A palace is a large residence, often serving as a royal residence or the home for a head of state or another high-ranking dignitary, such as a bishop or archbishop. The word is derived from the Latin name palātium, for Palatine Hill in Rome whi ...

, but employing Borromini's round-arched false-perspective window reveals of

Palazzo Barberini The Palazzo Barberini () is a 17th-century palace in Rome, facing the Piazza Barberini in Rione Trevi. Today, it houses the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, the main national collection of older paintings in Rome. History Around 1549 Cardinal ...

, Rome. It has five

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 ...

facing Chapel Street, and seven bays facing Covent Garden. In the ground floor are round-headed windows flanked by paired columns. Between the heads of the double-light windows are roundels containing carvings of people involved with the exploration of the Americas. These include

Christopher Columbus Christopher Columbus (; between 25 August and 31 October 1451 – 20 May 1506) was an Italians, Italian explorer and navigator from the Republic of Genoa who completed Voyages of Christopher Columbus, four Spanish-based voyages across the At ...

, Isabella I, Bermejo (a Spanish "adventurer"), Vespucci, Cortez, Queen

Anacaona Anacaona (1474?–1504), or Golden Flower, was a Taíno cacica, or female ''cacique'' (chief), religious expert, poet and composer born in Xaragua. Before the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492, bohio or babeque to the Taínos (the Spaniards ...

of Cuba, and

Francisco Pizarro Francisco Pizarro, Marquess of the Atabillos (; ; – 26 June 1541) was a Spanish ''conquistador'', best known for his expeditions that led to the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire. Born in Trujillo, Cáceres, Trujillo, Spain, to a poor fam ...

. In the second floor are smaller two-light windows under round arches, separated by Ionic

colonettes A colonnette is a small slender column, usually decorative, which supports a beam or lintel. Colonnettes have also been used to refer to a feature of furnishings such as a dressing table and case clock, and even studied by archeologists in Roma ...

. The top floor contains even smaller two-light windows under round arches between panelled

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. Along the top of the building is a

frieze In classical architecture, the frieze is the wide central section of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic order, Ionic or Corinthian order, Corinthian orders, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Patera (architecture), Paterae are also ...

and a

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative Moulding (decorative), moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, ar ...

. The building 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 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 ...

, having been designated on 12 July 1966.

References

{{Liverpool B&S Grade II listed buildings in Liverpool Grade II listed hotels Commercial buildings completed in 1859 Sports venues in Liverpool Hotels in Liverpool

History

Architecture

See also

References