Florence Institute

FLORENCE INSTITUTE

A boys' club of 1889, probably designed by Herbert W Keef, built on Mill Street, Liverpool. This is a two-storey building with basement, constructed in pressed brick and terracotta with a slate roof. It is one of the earliest purpose-built boys' clubs in the country, erected by Sir Bernard Hall, a West Indies merchant and former Mayor of Liverpool, in memory of his daughter Florence.

The main south-west facing frontage is nine bays long and features mullion and transom windows with six bays of two-storey canted bay windows between buttresses with ball finials (now removed and stored inside). Flanking bays project forward with arcaded parapets. The western bay contains the main entrance, which has a decorative scrolled pediment with roundel, entablature and paired pilasters. Above this, an inscribed relief reads "FLORENCE INSTITUTE FOR BOYS". A secondary entrance is located in the far east bay. The terracotta friezes above the canted bays incorporate nautical imagery, cherubs and foliage designs. A polygonal corner tower stands at the junction of Mill Street and Wellington Road. The dome top has been removed, but the tower retains narrow windows with two round-headed lights and roundels to the top, a Lombard frieze and cornice, and cross tie-bars.

The west side elevation displays three Dutch Gables. The first two bays have ten-light mullion and transomed windows, with the ground floor windows now boarded over. A frieze runs between, and the end bay contains a full-height window with cusped lights lighting the main stair, with inset blind panels depicting a "Green Man". The east side elevation is of plain brick with a Dutch Gable. The rear features a single-storey gymnasium with a corrugated iron roof added in the 1970s.

Internally, a central spine corridor runs through the building with a blocked opening, former library and kitchen to the front and gymnasium to the rear. The first floor contains the main hall and classrooms. The main hall has scissor-braced roof and a proscenium arch to a former stage. The gymnasium retains a cast-iron hammer-beam roof. The main open-well stair has Doric style newel posts and bobbin balusters. Two secondary stairs are located at the east end, one dog-leg and one open-well. Some panelled doors survive, as do remnants of cornicing to classrooms. An inserted intermediate floor to the gymnasium and a late twentieth-century brick security booth in the main entrance are later additions of no architectural interest.

The Institute opened in 1889 providing a main hall, penny savings bank, library, teaching rooms, gymnasium and excursions for members. Subscriptions and membership declined following the Second World War, and facing increasing maintenance costs, the Institute closed in 1988. The building underwent internal alteration between the 1960s and 1980s and suffered extensive fire damage in 1999. Despite these alterations and the fire, the external architectural detailing remains virtually intact along with the original internal floor plan and notable features including the main and secondary stairs and original door furniture.