Warehouse

Warehouse, c.1884, at 11-13 Cheapside, Liverpool

This is a four-storey warehouse with a jigger loft and basement, built in mellow red brick with polychrome brick facades. The walls are laid in English Garden Wall Bond, and the shallow pitched roof is concealed from all sides by a parapet. The building was constructed to fireproof standards.

The exterior comprises three bays. Windows diminish in size at each floor level, with the smallest at the top. Cast-iron lintels, window and door frames, and glazing bars throughout. Sandstone sills.

The front elevation features yellow brick with blue and red brick dressings. The raised ground floor is in blue brick. A central loading bay, set within a full-height recess, contains tiered sheet-iron loading doors that survive, including one to the basement. An original pulley and hoist beam with a semi-circular cast-iron head displays relief numerals reading '1884'. The left bay has a recessed arched entrance to ground floor with a studded sheet-iron door. Above this are arched stair windows to the upper floors with 2-over-2 fixed-panes and segmental arched heads in red brick, with slightly projecting sandstone keystones. The right bay has larger square windows with chamfered sides, all 2-over-2 fixed-panes, the top-right lights being top-hung casements. Two short chimney stacks rise from the roof on the right side elevation.

The rear elevation is similar in style. It is constructed in white brick with a raised ground floor in blue brick. The outer bays have square-headed windows (those to the left bay are larger with 3-over-3 lights). A doorway to ground floor right matches the style of that on the front.

The interior contains an enclosed stone stair to the front left, leading from basement to jigger loft. Sheet-iron doors in cast-iron frames open off to the right at every floor level into large open-plan warehouse spaces. Internal windows in the rear of the stair have sheet-iron shutters. The storage areas have heavy softwood timber floors supported by cast-iron columns. The basement has a transverse brick-vaulted ceiling and a cobblestone floor. Original internal sheet-iron shutters survive to some windows. A chimneybreast and plain fireplace are located in a small room to the ground floor front right. The jigger loft retains original hoist machinery and timber king post roof trusses.

The building was constructed in 1884, when a series of Building Acts from the early-to-mid 19th century had introduced requirements for structural fireproofing features in warehouse design. However, unlike in textile mills, fireproof construction in warehouses was not enforced by law, and many continued to be built with limited or no fireproof provision throughout the 19th century. This warehouse was constructed with such provisions, including cast-iron columns on the ground floor, an enclosed stair bay, and timbers of specified thickness.

Street directories from 1890 to 1906 record the building as occupied by provisions dealers, merchants, and wholesale grocers. Earlier buildings on the site included one used by a veterinary surgeon and cowkeeper. In the 1920s, the warehouse was used by Richard Johnson, Clapham & Morris Ltd for their nearby metal manufacturing business at 23-27 Cheapside. The building was later used as workshops, and during the late 20th and early 21st centuries was used for manufacturing kitchens. The top floor has also been used by a leather goods manufacturer.