28 and 30, Argyle Street

This warehouse complex, situated on Argyle Street, dates from the mid-19th century, with one section specifically dated 1884, and has undergone minor alterations in the 20th century. It is constructed of dark brown brick with stone dressings, featuring a coped gable and Welsh slate roof. The complex comprises two warehouses arranged in a linear range, both providing street-level access for deliveries.

The western warehouse is six storeys high and three bays wide, with a gable facing the street. The central bay features double doors of equal height on each floor. Entry platforms to these doors have heavy wooden deck beams, and the top floor doorway has a cast-iron lintel beam supporting a gabled metal hoist canopy dated 1884. Stacked window openings flank the loading bay; the ground floor windows are taller and, along with those on the first floor, are bricked up. Shuttered windows are present on the floors above. A semi-circular headed doorway on the ground floor right side leads to an internal staircase, with small circular windows lighting the various floor levels.

The eastern warehouse is four storeys high and five bays wide, with a plain parapet above a moulded cornice. A deep, semi-circular arched recess extends to the third floor on the right-hand end, enclosing double doorways with wooden deck beams. A hoist mechanism was likely housed in a blind bay on the upper floor, above the archway. A small first-floor window to the right of the arch likely illuminates the staircase. The remaining bays have stacked window openings, diminishing in height to the upper floor, with stone sills. The upper two floors have simple barred casements. A semi-circular headed doorway with a metal-covered door is situated on the left side. The interiors were not inspected.

Argyle Street lies near the site of the first inland port of Liverpool, an area that saw the initial commercial development associated with the port. The street’s layout had fully developed by 1810, characterized by warehousing and merchants' houses. This warehouse complex is part of a significant group of surviving warehouses, demonstrating different design and planning approaches on adjacent plots, and illustrates a notable example of purpose-built warehousing in the context of Liverpool’s international 19th-century port. It is historically linked to numbers 17, 21, and 23 Argyle Street.