Fruit Exchange

Former Fruit Exchange

A sandstone building in Flemish Renaissance style, built around 1888 as a railway goods depot for the London & North Western Railway and converted into a fruit exchange in 1923 by James B Hutchins. It is located on Victoria Street with associated warehouses in the Mathew Street area behind.

The building has an irregular J-shaped plan with a front block containing offices, a rear block containing exchange halls and offices, and a single-storey connecting link between them. All sections have an additional lower ground floor. The front elevation has 13 bays and rises 3½ storeys, whilst the rear block is 3 storeys. The hipped slate roof is mostly concealed behind a parapet wall incorporating pedimented dormer windows, with substantial chimney stacks to the ridge and left end.

The front elevation is richly detailed. Projecting stringcourses run between floor levels. The tall ground floor features large arched doorways to bays 2 and 12 with pediments above, that to bay 12 having a carved surround. Two large arched openings at the centre, formerly goods carriage entrances, are now glazed and flanked by short pilaster strips with 5-light windows to their right, topped with carved keystones. Later shopfronts occupy the right end with original 3 and 4-light windows above. All transoms to ground floor windows are in the style of plain classical columns. The central bays to the first and second floors contain paired 1-over-1 sash windows, whilst the three outer bays at each end have mullion and transom windows. Large oriel windows with curved sides occupy the first floor of bays 2 and 12, surmounted by carved segmental pediments. Dormers within the parapet have pedimented surrounds with keystones and 2-over-2 sashes. The larger dormers to bays 2 and 12 feature wide arched 3-light windows with geometric glazing bars and carved surrounds incorporating garland designs, with flanking dormers displaying carved shields within their pediments. The rear elevation includes leaded light windows with stained glass depictions of garlands and fruit.

The interior, though in generally poor condition to the upper floors, retains numerous original features. The basement now serves as a beer cellar and storage, whilst the modernised lower ground floor has been converted into public houses and shops. The original stone main stairs feature decorative metal balustrades incorporating pierced roundel detailing. Ceramic tiled walls in public areas use grey and white tiles in geometric patterns, with grey tiles bearing relief decoration including Greek key designs.

The entrance hall to the main exchange hall survives at the centre of the building on the upper ground floor, linking the front and rear blocks. It contains partly fluted Ionic supporting columns, remains of a decorative coffered ceiling, and an aperture that formerly held a circular skylight, with large double doors having mahogany surrounds and glazed roundels mirroring the pierced balustrade decoration leading into the main exchange hall.

The main exchange hall occupies the rear block in an unusual irregular heptagon shape, rising through the upper ground and first floors. It features steeply tiered seating, timber panelled walls (some sections removed), pilaster decoration, and a coffered ceiling. Leaded light windows, some containing stained glass depicting swags of fruit, light the space. Tiered timber benches with fixed backs and end arm rests curve round to face a carved timber podium at the front. The ceiling has a flat central area with a large domed skylight and four smaller skylights at the corners. A similarly styled smaller quadrant-shaped exchange hall is positioned to the right of the main hall, also rising through two floors and containing a goods hoist in front of its podium.

The upper floors of the front block and the second floor of the rear block above the smaller exchange hall contain former offices surrounding the dome of the main hall on three sides. Those to the upper ground floor have narrow barrel-vaulted ceilings and are subdivided by timber and glass partitions that survive reasonably well. Elsewhere, survival is less good with many original features removed, though some cast-iron and timber windows remain.

The building was originally constructed around 1888 to serve Exchange Station on Tithebarn Street, the first version of which was built in 1850 with a larger replacement constructed from 1886 to 1888, eventually closing in 1950. After its conversion to a fruit exchange in 1923, it became the main trading point for fruit produce within the city, handling the majority of fruit imports arriving in Liverpool. The warehouses in the Mathew Street area behind were used to store fruit sold at the exchange. In the late 20th century, the lower ground floor was converted into separate public houses.

The building has group value with the adjacent grade II listed Produce Exchange Building and represents the growth and development of trade within Liverpool during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when Victoria Street emerged as the regional centre of the fruit and provision trades.