15, Argyle Street

This is a mid-19th century warehouse, disused at the time of inspection in 1996. It is constructed of dark brown brick with a Welsh slated roof and gable copings. The building’s rectangular plan is skewed at an angle behind its gable frontage, which faces the street.

The front gable is tall and narrow, rising six storeys above a basement. It is dominated by pairs of loading doors on each floor, set flush with the wall face at the centre. These doors are vertically boarded and sit above a substantial timber landing beam. A projecting gabled hoist canopy covers the hoist beam and winding mechanism at the gable apex. Stacked window openings with stone cills and shallow segmental arches flank the loading doors. Some ground floor and first-floor openings are blocked; the former were originally barred. Upper floors have sash windows with 2 over 2 panes. A semi-circular arched doorway with a metal sheet-covered door leads to an internal stair tower with a winder stair, providing access to all floors. Small oval lights illuminate the stair tower on floors 2 to 6. A lower doorway opening with a semi-circular arch provides access to a ground floor office.

The interior of the ground and first floors features inserted concrete floor structures. The remaining floors retain timber spine beams supported by timber posts and pads, carrying closely spaced timber joists. Braced king post trusses support the roof, along with an attic platform for the in-situ 19th-century hoist winder.

The warehouse is situated near the site of the world’s first enclosed dock and in the earliest commercially developed area of Liverpool. Argyle Street’s layout was established by 1810, and the area is significant for the development of specialist warehousing, reflecting Liverpool’s importance as a 19th-century international port. This building represents an early to mid-19th-century example of small-scale warehousing and survives in a relatively unaltered state. It lies within the Duke Street conservation area and forms a significant building group with the adjacent Old Police Station.