Bluecoat Chambers

392/53/1102

LIVERPOOL SCHOOL LANE BLUECOAT CHAMBERS

(Formerly listed as Old Bluecoat School)

28-JUN-52

GV I School, now art gallery and offices. 1717, restored in 1951. Brick with stone dressings, slate roof. 2-storey, 5-bay centre with 3 storeys and basement to 11-bay return ranges. Stone plinth rusticated quoins, flat bands and cornices with brick parapet. 3 bays of centre break forward with pediment over. Windows to ground and 1st floors are round headed with architraves and keystones in round-arched reveals also with architraves and cherub keystones. 1st floor windows on fielded panels. All windows sashed with glazing bars. Round-headed entrance in Ionic aedicule with pulvinated frieze and broken segmental pediment containing cartouche of arms of Liverpool. Frieze with Latin inscription, clock in tympanum. Each return has bull's eye basement and 2nd floor windows, those to 2nd floor with wooded casements. Other windows have brick flat arches and cherub keystones. 3 entrances with steps, the central one with architrave, cherub keystone, pulvinated frieze and broken pediment containing Liver Bird. Ends of return ranges as centre range. All windows sashed with glazing bars, those to returns of 24 panes. Central octagonal cupola with round-arched openings, attached Ionic columns and ogival copper cap with finial. Iron overthrow with lantern to central door. Iron handrails to 2 entrances on return walls.

HISTORY: The building was damaged by bombing in 1941 and restored in 1951 to designs by Shepheard and Bower. The subsequent uses of various parts of the building complex have included gallery, cafe, offices and shops, and, most notably, a studio for the renowned Liverpool sculptor Herbert Tyson Smith, whose relief sculptures of Bluecoat pupils flank the tablet commemorating the restoration located in the front courtyard.

Listing NGR: SJ3468590149