Lord Street is a street in central

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 ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

that forms part of the city's main

shopping district A shopping street or shopping district is a designated road or quarter of a municipality that is composed of retail establishments (such as stores, boutiques, restaurants, and shopping complexes). Such areas may be pedestrian-oriented, with ...

. The street is less than 300 metres in length. It joins Church Street to the east and James Street alongside

Derby Square Derby Square is in the city centre of Liverpool, England. The square stands on what was the original site for Liverpool Castle. Records differ on when it was built, but it is believed to have been constructed any time from 1208 to 1235. Follow ...

and the Queen Elizabeth II Law Courts to the west. The majority of land to the south of Lord Street is occupied by the

Liverpool One Liverpool ONE is a shopping, residential, and leisure complex in Liverpool, England. The project involved the redevelopment of 42 acres (170,000 m2) of land in Liverpool City Centre, the city centre. It is a retail-led development anchored by ...

complex, whilst the likes of Cavern Walks are located on the north side of the street. In the last quarter of the eighteenth century, the street was known as Lord Molyneux Street and is described as "ill-built and very narrow" with "several good houses, inhabited by respectable families, some tolerably good shops, and several taverns". At this time, the street was a loading point for waggons to

Ormskirk Ormskirk is a market town in the West Lancashire district of Lancashire, England. It is located north of Liverpool, northwest of St Helens, Merseyside, St Helens, southeast of Southport and southwest of Preston, Lancashire, Preston. Ormski ...

and all parts of

The Fylde The Fylde () is a coastal plain in western Lancashire, England. It is roughly a square-shaped peninsula, bounded by Morecambe Bay to the north, the Ribble estuary to the south, the Irish Sea to the west, and the foot of the Bowland hills to ...

. Bates' Hotel was in existence by 1785 and a large room therein was used as a news-room for the reading of newspapers, prior to the opening of the Athenaeum News-Room and Library in 1798. In 1851 while excavating for the gas company, workmen unearthed a stone arch and part of the abutment of a bridge on the corner of Lord Street and Whitechapel. The discovery confirmed an 18th century sighting at the time the foundations of the Bates' Hotel building were laid. In 1799, residents and shopkeepers began laying flagstones along each side of the street for pavements; the middle of the street was laid with large, rough paving-stones — macadamization of the road surface came much later. 81–89 Lord Street is a

Grade II listed 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, H ...

office building from 1901, designed by architect

Walter Aubrey Thomas Walter Aubrey Thomas (1864, Birkenhead, Cheshire – 1934, 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 Liverpool archit ...

. It is of four storeys with attics and constructed of horizontal layers of orange and white stone. The listing comment says "the design recalls

Siena Cathedral Siena Cathedral () is a medieval church in Siena, Italy, dedicated from its earliest days as a Roman Catholic Marian church, and now dedicated to the Assumption of Mary. Since the early 13th-century the Siena Cathedral has been an important pa ...

". Originally running through the centre of the building was a galleried shopping arcade under a glazed, domed roof. In 1935 the ground floor was redesigned for department store retailer

British Home Stores British Home Stores, commonly abbreviated to BHS and latterly legally styled BHS Ltd, is an online store and formerly a British department store chain, primarily selling clothing and household items. In its later years, the company began to exp ...

. One of the early BBC radio relay stations, 6LV, broadcast from a studio above a cafe in Lord Street from 1924 to 1931. The building housing the studio suffered bomb damage in World War II. After destruction by German aerial bombing much of Lord Street was rebuilt in the 1950s; the south side "drearily rebuilt" according to the

Buildings of England The ''Pevsner Architectural Guides'' are four series of guide books to the architecture of the British Isles. ''The Buildings of England'' series was begun in 1945 by the art historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, with its forty-six original volumes pub ...

series covering Liverpool.

References

External links

Photographs of Lord Street, 1941–1989
from the ''

Liverpool Echo The ''Liverpool Echo'' is a newspaper published by Trinity Mirror North West & North Wales – a subsidiary company of Reach plc and is based in St. Paul's Square, Liverpool, England. It is published Monday through Sunday, and is Liverpool's da ...

'' {{Liverpool City Centre Shopping streets in Liverpool