1 And 3, Duke Street L1

Offices and shops, originally offices and a warehouse, dating from the early 19th century with significant remodelling by 1849, and further alterations in the mid-to-late 20th century. The building is constructed of stuccoed red/brown brick laid in a Flemish bond, with a slate roof. It occupies a corner site with a curved facade onto Duke Street, behind which is a double pile twin-pitch roof.

The front elevation has a curved facade of seven bays and five storeys. Giant Tuscan pilasters delineate the bays on the upper storeys, and are emphasized on the uppermost floor above an intermediate cornice. The ground floor originally contained wide shop fronts, now blocked. The first and second floor windows are grouped within semi-circular arched, moulded frames and feature sash windows with glazing bars. A wide frieze and cornice sits above, followed by an upper storey with rectangular sash windows below a shallow parapet. The rear elevation is brick and features randomly placed two and three-light windows to the upper levels, some with bars.

The interior retains radial roof trusses designed to follow the curve of the building's frontage, supporting a complex arrangement of purlins. The polygonal interior spaces, resulting from adapting from an angled to a curved facade, retain single rows of columns or posts to each floor, likely remnants of the building’s former warehouse function.

The building appears on Horwood’s map of Liverpool in 1803 with an angled corner at the junction of Duke Street and Hanover Street, and is shown similarly on the Gage map of 1835. The Ordnance Survey map of 1849 depicts the building in its present curved form.

It is part of a group that includes No. 24 Hanover Street and Nos. 26-30 Hanover Street. The building is an early 19th century commercial building, adapted and remodelled around 1840. It forms part of a significant group of buildings close to the site of Liverpool’s first enclosed dock, and is associated with the early development of Liverpool as an internationally important seaport. The group possesses considerable historic and strategic significance as a townscape element.