Liverpool Cotton Exchange Building is an office block in
Old Hall Street,
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. The commercial building, which originally had a
Neoclassical façade, replaced the 19th-century cotton exchange in
Exchange Flags in 1906. Between 1967 and 1969 the building's exterior was given a contemporary mid 20th century design.
The building is used mainly for offices; retail facilities operate at street level.
History
The business of the cotton exchange was originally conducted outdoors on Exchange Flags, behind
Liverpool Town Hall
Liverpool Town Hall stands in High Street, Liverpool, High Street at its junction with Dale Street, Castle Street, and Water Street, Liverpool, Water Street in Liverpool, Merseyside, England. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for E ...
. The first Cotton Exchange Building was built in 1808 adjacent to the flags. The present building in Old Hall Street was designed by Matear and Simon (
Old Liverpool Cotton Exchange Building in Old Hall Street (built 1905; largely demolished 1967–69)), built by the Waring-White Building Company, and was officially opened by the Prince and Princess of Wales on 30 November 1906. The building cost around £300,000 build and the opening took place in the company of 3,000 guests. Its façade was in
Neoclassical style, with
Baroque
The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...
towers at the angles.
Its exterior decoration included statues. Inside the building was the latest technology for communicating with cotton trading elsewhere in the world, including telephones, and cables linking directly with New York, Bremen and Bombay.
The Old Hall Street front was replaced with a modern-style façade designed by Newton-Dawson, Forbes and Tate in 1967–69, and the former main exchange hall was replaced by a courtyard.
[ In addition to offices, the building also incorporates retail facilities.][
The building was home to Liverpool's registrar's office and coroner's courts up until January 2012. Up to 100,000 people a year used to visit the offices to register births, deaths and marriages before the facility was moved to St George's Hall.
The ]suffragette
A suffragette was a member of an activist women's organisation in the early 20th century who, under the banner "Votes for Women", fought for the right to vote in public elections in the United Kingdom. The term refers in particular to members ...
, Edith Rigby, planted a bomb in the building on 5 July 1913, and although it was later stated in court that ‘no great damage had been done by the explosion’, Mrs Rigby was found guilty and sentenced to nine months' imprisonment with hard labour.[Mrs Rigby committed to trial, The Times, 18 July 1913, page 14, column c.]
Architecture
The building is in seven storeys, and the modern front on Old Hall Street, facing southwest, has 21 bays. The sides and back of the building are largely unaltered from the original design. There are two levels of basements which originally contained the building's coal bunkers, restaurant and ballrooms. The façade on Edmund Street, facing northwest, has retained cast iron
Cast iron is a class of iron–carbon alloys with a carbon content of more than 2% and silicon content around 1–3%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloying elements determine the form in which its car ...
panels decorated with wreaths, made by Macfarlane's of Glasgow. The back of the building, on Bixteth Street, is faced with Portland stone
Portland stone is a limestone geological formation (formally named the Portland Stone Formation) dating to the Tithonian age of the Late Jurassic that is quarried on the Isle of Portland in Dorset, England. The quarries are cut in beds of whi ...
, and the Ormond Street front is in brick. Inside the building the colonnade
In classical architecture, a colonnade is a long sequence of columns joined by their entablature, often free-standing, or part of a building. Paired or multiple pairs of columns are normally employed in a colonnade which can be straight or curv ...
formerly surrounding the trading floor is still present. The columns are monoliths
A monolith is a geological feature consisting of a single massive rock (geology), stone or rock, such as some mountains. Erosion usually exposes the geological formations, which are often made of very hard and solid igneous rock, igneous or ...
of larvikite, quarried in Norway and polished in Aberdeen.[ 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 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 ...
.[
]
See also
Architecture of Liverpool
References
{{Liverpool B&S
Commercial buildings in England
Cotton industry in England
Commercial buildings completed in 1906
Grade II listed buildings in Liverpool
Grade II listed commercial buildings
1906 establishments in England