Market Hall And All Ground Floor Shops

The building comprises a market hall with integral ground-floor shops, dating from 1854. It was designed by G.T. Robinson. The structure is ashlar faced, incorporating a cast-iron internal structure and a glazed roof over the market hall, with slate roofing to the shops.

The main front, facing Knowsley Street, is symmetrically planned around a central entrance block, flanked by two-storey, nine-window arcaded ranges, and advanced corner pavilions of three lights. A portico to the entrance features four giant composite columns and square-section piers supporting a pediment. The central arch of the entrance contains a renewed leaded and stained-glass oriel window above the doors. The entablature of the doorway displays the town’s coat of arms, and the central keystone of the arch features city emblems and scrollwork. Flanking round-arched windows are present on each floor within the portico. Single shop units are located on either side of the entrance block, with their shop fronts and pedimented upper windows set within full-height arches. The flanking ranges contain three shops each, with three arcaded windows to the first floor, their enriched timberwork set between fluted stone pilasters. Scrolled pedimented heads are present over the recessed shop doors (some now lost), with leaded upper lights to the shop windows. Brackets carry a modillion fascia over the shop fronts. The corner pavilions feature chamfered angles, with similar shop fronts below and arcaded upper windows in stone. A subsidiary entrance to the market hall is located in the chamfered angle to the left.

The Corporation Street elevation also has a central entrance block with a Tuscan pediment, flanked by sixteen-window ranges terminating in a subsidiary entrance, followed by a three-window return of an advanced pavilion to the left, and a chamfered angle with an entrance in the advanced pavilion to the right. Similar arcaded windows and shop fronts are present, with lozenge overlights to the recessed entrances. An oriel window to the first floor is located in the right-hand range, where there has been some alteration, renewal of shop fronts, and the insertion of a mezzanine floor. The return to Rushton Street exhibits six blind arcaded bays with lunettes over, to each side of the central entrance.

The interior of the market hall is laid out on a cruciform aisled plan, featuring two aisles on each side of a central east-west axis. Ornate cast-iron columns support the roof structure, with pierced cast-iron spandrels and upper arcading. Pierced cast-iron spandrels spring from the central ‘crossing’ columns to form a central octagonal space. The market building represents an early example of large-scale municipal market development.