Hargreaves Building is a former bank in

Chapel Street Chapel Street is a street in Melbourne, Victoria, running along the inner suburbs of South Yarra, Prahran, Windsor, St Kilda and St Kilda East. Route Chapel Street is essentially straight and runs for over 4.14 kilometres along an approximat ...

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 Merseyside ( ) is a metropolitan county, metropolitan and ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North West England, with a population of List of ceremonial counties of England, 1.38 million. It encompasses both banks of the Merse ...

, 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 governing body for the city of Liverpool in Merseyside, England. It consists of 90 councillors, three for each of the city's 30 wards. The council is currently controlled by the Labour Party and is led by Mayor ...

. 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 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 ...

, with a

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) 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 cools and solidifies undergro ...

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 rock. ...

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

Venetian Venetian often means from or related to: * Venice, a city in Italy * Veneto, a region of Italy * Republic of Venice (697–1797), a historical nation in that area Venetian and the like may also refer to: * Venetian language, a Romance language s ...

palazzo A palace is a grand residence, especially a royal residence, or the home of a head of state or some other high-ranking dignitary, such as a bishop or archbishop. The word is derived from the Latin name palātium, for Palatine Hill in Rome which ...

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

Palazzo Barberini The Palazzo Barberini ( en, Barberini Palace) 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 T ...

, 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, circular bay with a narr ...

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 * lij, Cristoffa C(or)ombo * es, link=no, Cristóbal Colón * pt, Cristóvão Colombo * ca, Cristòfor (or ) * la, Christophorus Columbus. (; born between 25 August and 31 October 1451, died 20 May 1506) was a ...

, 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, Ayiti or Quisqueya to the Taínos (the Spaniar ...

of Cuba, and

Francisco Pizarro Francisco Pizarro González, Marquess of the Atabillos (; ; – 26 June 1541) was a Spanish conquistador, best known for his expeditions that led to the Spanish conquest of Peru. Born in Trujillo, Spain to a poor family, Pizarro chose ...

. 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. Colonettes 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 Roman ce ...

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

pilaster In classical architecture Classical architecture usually denotes architecture which is more or less consciously derived from the principles of Greek and Roman architecture of classical antiquity, or sometimes even more specifically, from the ...

s. Along the top of the building is a

frieze In architecture, the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Paterae are also usually used to decorate friezes. Even when neither columns nor ...

and a

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

. 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, an ...

as a Grade II

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 ...

, 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