Tall red brick chimney on Liverpool Waterfront _The 1878 Pump House, Albert Dock, Liverpool, Merseyside, UK
The Dock’s former pumphouse was built in 1870, and has been lovingly restored as a cosy traditional British pub. One of the most distinctive buildings at the Dock, the Pump House’s soaring tower is Grade II listed, and an unmissable landmark. Designed by Jesse Hartley, Surveyor to the Liverpool Dock Trustees from 1824 to 1860, and Philip Hardwick, this distinctive complex contains the largest collection of Grade 1 listed buildings in the whole of the country. The warehouses were completed in 1845, and the dock was formally opened by Prince Albert himself in 1846. Of the buildings, David Lewis writes picturesquely: "They cannot be said to be pretty; they are strong, masculine buildings, sleeves rolled up and muscles bulging, and Liverpool's beloved classical architecture is here stripped down to its essentials of massive Tuscan columns and heavy round arches". Writing more technically, James Stevens Curl explains that "some canal and dockside architecture seemed to point towards a new style where Classical relationships of proportion, solid and void, and integrity of geometry would be paramount, but stripped of all the tyranny of overt use of the Orders, and minus all decorative frippery." The Albert Dock was one of those rare cases, Curl believes, in which this style was achieved: These are the most Sublime of all nineteenth-century examples of commercial and industrial architecture, with their cast-iron unfluted Doric columns, massive undecorated brick walls, repetitive elements, and avoidance of ornament worthy of Ledoux, the French Neoclassical architect and theorist, at his most uncompromising. Consequently, Curl lists the Albert Dock buildings first amongst Liverpool's architectural splendours. Notable structures apart from the warehouses include the towering pumphouse (a later building, 1870), now an inn; and the wonderful Traffic Office (1846, designed by Hardwick, its top storey added by Hartley in 1848.
Size: 3601px × 5401px
Location: Liverpool, Merseyside, UK
Photo credit: © MediaWorldImages / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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