The Philharmonic Dining Rooms is a

public house A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and was ...

at the corner of Hope Street and

Hardman Street Hardman Street is a major street in Liverpool, England. It forms part of the A5039 and joins Leece Street to the west and Myrtle Street to the west. It lies within the postal district L1 in Liverpool city centre. It is named after the Hardman ...

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...

, Merseyside, England, and stands diagonally opposite the

Liverpool Philharmonic Hall Liverpool Philharmonic Hall is a concert hall in Hope Street, Liverpool, Hope Street, in Liverpool, England. It is the home of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society and is recorded in the National Heritage Lis ...

. 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, an ...

as a designated Grade I

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

History

The public house was built in about 1898–1900 for the brewer Robert Cain. It was designed by

Walter W. Thomas Walter William Thomas (April 1849 – 30 October 1912) was a Welsh architect who practised in the English city of Liverpool and specialised in the design of pubs. Thomas' most notable work is the Philharmonic Dining Rooms on Hope Street, Li ...

(not to be confused with

Walter Aubrey Thomas Walter Aubrey Thomas (1864, Birkenhead, Cheshire – 1934, Wirral Peninsula, Wirral, Cheshire) (also known as Aubrey Thomas) was an English architect who practised from an office in Dale Street, Liverpool. For his training he was articled to the ...

the designer of the

Royal Liver Building The Royal Liver Building is a Grade I listed building in Liverpool, England. It is located at the Pier Head and along with the neighbouring Cunard Building and Port of Liverpool Building is one of Liverpool's '' Three Graces'', which line the ...

) and craftsmen from the School of Architecture and Applied Arts at University College (now the

University of Liverpool , mottoeng = These days of peace foster learning , established = 1881 – University College Liverpool1884 – affiliated to the federal Victoria Universityhttp://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukla/2004/4 University of Manchester Act 200 ...

), 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 worldwide fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John Lennon. One ...

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 finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitruv ...

stone with 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 rock. ...

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 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, circular bay with a narr ...

along Hope Street and three along Hardman Street. Its external features include a variety of windows, most with

mullion A mullion is a vertical element that forms a division between units of a window or screen, or is used decoratively. It is also often used as a division between double doors. When dividing adjacent window units its primary purpose is a rigid supp ...

s, and some with elaborate

architrave In classical architecture, an architrave (; from it, architrave "chief beam", also called an epistyle; from Greek ἐπίστυλον ''epistylon'' "door frame") is the lintel or beam that rests on the capitals of columns. The term can ...

s, 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 is most commonly found pro ...

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 * Objective turret, an indexable holder of multiple lenses in an optical microscope * Mi ...

s with

ogee An ogee ( ) is the name given to objects, elements, and curves—often seen in architecture and building trades—that have been variously described as serpentine-, extended S-, or sigmoid-shaped. Ogees consist of a "double curve", the combinatio ...

domes, a

balustraded 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 con ...

parapet A parapet is a barrier that is an extension of the 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/breast'). Whe ...

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

relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term ''relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the ...

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

Art Nouveau Art Nouveau (; ) is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. The style is known by different names in different languages: in German, in Italian, in Catalan, and also known as the Modern ...

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 Henry Bloomfield Bare (1848–1912) was an architect based in Liverpool, England. Family He was born on 21 January 1848 in Hungerford, Berkshire, the son of Thomas Bare (1805–1891) and Harriet Meggs (1815–1881). He married Clari Sharples (18 ...

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, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...

s, and items in

mahogany Mahogany is a straight-grained, reddish-brown timber of three tropical hardwood species of the genus ''Swietenia'', indigenous to the AmericasBridgewater, Samuel (2012). ''A Natural History of Belize: Inside the Maya Forest''. Austin: Unive ...

and glass. Two of the smaller rooms are entitled ''

Brahms Johannes Brahms (; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, pianist, and conductor of the mid-Romantic period. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, he spent much of his professional life in Vienna. He is sometimes grouped with ...

'' and ''

Liszt Franz Liszt, in modern usage ''Liszt Ferenc'' . Liszt's Hungarian passport spelled his given name as "Ferencz". An orthographic reform of the Hungarian language in 1922 (which was 36 years after Liszt's death) changed the letter "cz" to simpl ...

''. Of particular interest to visitors is the high quality of the gentlemen's

urinal A urinal (, ) is a sanitary plumbing fixture for urination only. Urinals are often provided in public toilets for male users in Western countries (less so in Muslim countries). They are usually used in a standing position. Urinals can be with ...

s, constructed in rose-coloured marble. File:Entrance of the Philharmonic Hotel.jpg,

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

Appraisal

Pollard and

Pevsner Pevsner or Pevzner is a Jewish surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Aihud Pevsner (1925–2018), American physicist * Antoine Pevsner (1886–1962), Russian sculptor, brother of Naum Gabo * David Pevsner, American actor, singer, da ...

, in the ''

Buildings of England The Pevsner Architectural Guides are a series of guide books to the architecture of Great Britain and Ireland. Begun in the 1940s by the art historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, the 46 volumes of the original Buildings of England series were published b ...

'' 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 Buildings and structures completed in 1900 Grade I listed pubs in England Hope Street, Liverpool