Liverpool Cotton Exchange Building
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Liverpool Cotton Exchange Building is an office block in Old Hall Street,
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 populat ...
,
Merseyside Merseyside ( ) is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in North West England, with a population of 1.38 million. It encompasses both banks of the Mersey Estuary and comprises five metropolitan boroughs: Knowsley, St Helens, Sefton, Wi ...
, England. The commercial building, which originally had a Neoclassical façade, replaced the 19th-century cotton exchange in
Exchange Flags Exchange Flags is a Grade II listed building in Liverpool, England. It is laid out in a 'U' shape, with Walker House situated on the west side and Horton House on the east side. Walker House (formerly known as Derby House) was adapted during it ...
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 at its junction with Dale Street, Castle Street, and Water Street in Liverpool, Merseyside, England. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed build ...
. The first Cotton Exchange Building was built in 1808 adjacent to the flags. The present building in Old Hall Street was erected in 1905–06 to a design by Matear and Simon. The building 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 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.


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 more than 2%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloy constituents affect its color when fractured: white cast iron has carbide impur ...
panels decorated with wreaths, made by Macfarlane's of Glasgow. The back of the building, on Bixteth Street, is faced with Portland stone, 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 cur ...
formerly surrounding the trading floor is still present. The columns are
monoliths A monolith is a geological feature consisting of a single massive stone or rock, such as some mountains. For instance, Savandurga mountain is a monolith mountain in India. Erosion usually exposes the geological formations, which are often ma ...
of
larvikite Larvikite is an igneous rock, specifically a variety of monzonite, notable for the presence of thumbnail-sized crystals of feldspar. These feldspars are known as ''ternary'' because they contain significant components of all three endmember f ...
, 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, a ...
as a designated 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 ...
. Some of the statues formerly on the façade are now located nearby; these include personifications of Navigation and Commerce.


See also

Architecture of Liverpool The architecture of Liverpool is rooted in the city's development into a major port of the British Empire.Hughes (1999), p10 It encompasses a variety of architectural styles of the past 300 years, while next to nothing remains of its medieval ...


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