A Fine Pair # 1304 ~ Liverpool Traditional Cache

A Fine Pair # 1304 - Liverpool

Welcome to Lime Street, Liverpool.  

While standing at GZ here do a 360° turn and just look at the architecture.  Buildings of note in every direction.  Much has been written about all of these edifices, St Johns Beacon, St Georges Hall, through the trees are The World Museum, The Walker Art Gallery and Picton Reading Rooms and Library, to the left of GZ is The Empire Theatre. but today we will concentrate on the building directly behind the phone boxes.  This is the landmark North Western Hall building. Designed by Alfred Waterhouse, the grade II-listed building, with its Renaissance-style spires and turrets, was built in 1871 as the North Western Hotel. It was one of a series of giant railway hotels built around the country, including the Midland in Manchester and the Midland Grand Hotel at St Pancras in London. But it closed as a hotel in 1933 and became Lime Street Chambers for a whlie. It was then empty for years before it was finally converted into student halls by Liverpool John Moores University in 1996. It was announced in 2018 that the building will be restored as a hotel by the Marcus Worthington Group at a cost of £30m. It will reopen as the Radisson RED Liverpool Hotel in 2020. The building is constructed in stone with a slate roof in the Renaissance Revival style resembling a French château. The baroque details are in the Second Empire style, common for this time period. It has five storeys, a basement and an attic. The central entrance is round-arched, and is flanked by Doric columns.