The Philharmonic Dining Rooms is a

public house A pub (short for public house) is in several countries a drinking establishment licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption Licensing laws of the United Kingdom#On-licence, on the premises. The term first appeared in England in the ...

at the corner of Hope Street and

Hardman Street Hardman Street is a prominent street located in Liverpool, England, forming part of the A5039 road. It connects Leece Street to the west and Myrtle Street to the east, serving as an important thoroughfare in Liverpool's city centre. The 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, England, and stands diagonally opposite the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall. It is commonly known as ''The Phil''. It 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 I

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

The public house was built in about 1898–1900 for the brewer Robert Cain. It was designed by Walter W. Thomas (not to be confused with Walter Aubrey Thomas the designer of the Royal Liver Building) and craftsmen from the School of Architecture and Applied Arts at University College (now the

University of Liverpool The University of Liverpool (abbreviated UOL) is a Public university, public research university in Liverpool, England. Founded in 1881 as University College Liverpool, Victoria University (United Kingdom), Victoria University, it received Ro ...

), supervised by G. Hall Neale and Arthur Stratton.

Paul McCartney Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained global fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and the piano, and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John ...

performed at the Philharmonic when he was a young musician, and during an impromptu concert in 2018.

Architecture

Exterior

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 ...

stone with a slate roof in an "exuberant free style" of architecture. It has a combination of two and three storeys, with attics and cellar. There are ten bays along Hope Street and three along Hardman Street. Its external features include a variety of windows, most with mullions, and some with elaborate architraves, a two-storey

oriel window An oriel window is a form of bay window which protrudes from the main wall of a building but does not reach to the ground. Supported by corbels, bracket (architecture), brackets, or similar cantilevers, an oriel window generally projects from an ...

at the junction of the streets, stepped

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

turret Turret may refer to: * Turret (architecture), a small tower that projects above the wall of a building * Gun turret, a mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon * Optical microscope#Objective turret (revolver or revolving nose piece), Objective turre ...

s with

ogee An ogee ( ) is an object, element, or curve—often seen in architecture and building trades—that has a serpentine- or extended S-shape (Sigmoid curve, sigmoid). Ogees consist of a "double curve", the combination of two semicircle, semicircula ...

domes, a balustraded

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 ...

above the second storey, a serpentine balcony (also balustraded) above the main entrance in Hope Street, and a low

relief Relief is a sculpture, sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces remain attached to a solid background of the same material. The term ''wikt:relief, relief'' is from the Latin verb , to raise (). To create a sculpture in relief is to give ...

sculpture of musicians and musical instruments. The main entrance contains metal gates in

Art Nouveau Art Nouveau ( ; ; ), Jugendstil and Sezessionstil in German, is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. It was often inspired by natural forms such as the sinuous curves of plants and ...

style, their design being attributed to H. Bloomfield Bare.

Interior

There are 5 floors in total, with the main bar interior decorated in musical themes that relate to the nearby concert hall. These decorations are executed on repoussé copper panels designed by Henry Bloomfield Bare and by Thomas Huson, plasterwork by C. J. Allen,

mosaic A mosaic () is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/Mortar (masonry), mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and ...

s, and items in mahogany and glass. Two of the smaller rooms are entitled '' Brahms'' and '' Liszt''. Of particular interest to visitors is the high quality of the gentlemen's urinals, with pink-marble basins and pink imitation-marble urinal surrounds. File:Entrance of the Philharmonic Hotel.jpg,

gates in main entrance File:The Gents in The Philharmonic (5759407265).jpg, Rose-coloured imitation-marble urinals in the Philharmonic Dining Rooms File:The Philharmonic, Liverpool (5759405193).jpg, Interior view of the Philharmonic Dining Rooms

Appraisal

Pollard and Pevsner, in the '' Buildings of England'' series, state that it is the most richly decorated of Liverpool's Victorian public houses, and that "it is of exceptional quality in national terms". The Grade I listing means that it is "of exceptional interest". Pye describes it as one of Liverpool's "architectural gems".

References

External links

{{commons category-inline, The Philharmonic Dining Rooms
Official website
Pubs in Liverpool Grade I listed buildings in Liverpool Art Nouveau architecture in Liverpool Art Nouveau restaurants Commercial buildings completed in 1900 Grade I listed pubs in England Hope Street, Liverpool 1900 establishments in England