24, Hanover Street L1

Warehouse. Built in the early 19th century, with minor alterations in the 20th century. The building is constructed of red/brown brick, with stone dressings, a coped gablet to the centre, and a slate roof. It has a double pile plan with an operational frontage onto Hanover Street.

The front elevation, facing south-west, has four bays and four storeys above a basement. The basement features a wide, off-centre semi-circular arch-headed opening containing pairs of vertically-planked loading doors. Timber landing beams act as lintels to the doorways below. Above the loading bay are window openings on each floor, originally barred, with flat brick-arched heads. Some of the windows retain their original bars, while others have 20th-century frames. Basement windows are barred, and there is a basement doorway to the right of the loading bay, approached by a flight of steps, which provides access to a stair. Small square stair windows illuminate each floor of the stairwell.

Inside, there are substantial wooden storage floors which are supported by eight transverse beams and two rows of timber posts. The basement floor has cast-iron columns to support the ground floor. A single truss connects the front and rear ranges, comprising two king post trusses set on a common tie beam. The truss features side purlins, two to each inner slope, and a single beam on the outer slopes, all bearing on the end walls. The tie beam is supported by intermediate timber posts.

According to Horwood's map of Liverpool from 1803, this warehouse, along with the buildings on either side, remains remarkably complete. It forms part of a notable group of buildings associated with the earliest phase of Liverpool’s development as a major port, centred around Steers Dock, which was developed in the 18th century. Merchants’ houses with attached warehouses were initially built along these streets, which were later replaced or converted into warehouses as the merchant class moved to more distant areas. No. 24 is part of a group including Nos 26-30 Hanover Street, and Nos 1 and 3, Duke Street.

It is an early 19th-century warehouse that forms part of the most significant surviving group of buildings near the site of Liverpool's first enclosed dock. Its distinctive architectural form and prominent siting give the building group considerable townscape significance within the historic port landscape.