36, Slater Street

36 Slater Street is a terrace house of late 18th or early 19th century date, built in brick with stone dressings and a slate roof. It is three storeys high with a basement, two bays wide, and incorporates a rear service wing.

The house is built in Flemish bond and features a round-headed recessed doorway set to the extreme left side, with a six-panelled fielded door raised on four stone steps and set within a classical door-case with a semi-circular overlight. To the right are two large sash windows set off-centre, with basement windows below. The first floor has two centrally-placed sash windows of matching height to the ground floor, with half-height windows above on the second floor. All windows are fitted with stone wedge lintels and stone sills (except the basement windows, which are boarded over). The current sash frames are replacements with one-over-one panes. A simple moulded stone eaves cornice runs along the roofline, with a gable stack to either side of the ridge.

The interior plan follows a double-depth, two-room layout with the staircase positioned against the left party wall beyond the entrance passage. Fireplaces are set against the right party wall. The entrance passage connects to a front room with a deep cavetto cornice (the dividing wall between them has been removed). A later angled entrance lobby incorporates late 19th century stained-glass flower panels. Beyond is a doorway through to the stair hall, which retains its original architrave and semi-circular overlight. The rear ground-floor room, now subdivided, has a moulded cornice and a replacement bay window frame with French doors. The service wing contains two ground-floor rooms accessed from the rear of the stair hall.

The timber staircase is an open-well, open-string design rising from the ground floor to the second floor with quarter landings. It features a turned newel, swept mahogany handrail, and two stick balusters to each tread with unadorned tread ends. A round-headed doorway (now blocked) on the first quarter landing originally led through to the first floor of the service wing. Its door-case has panelled pilasters similar to those flanking an adjacent stair window. A later inserted doorway with steps now provides access.

The first-floor front room retains its moulded cornice, original window architraves, panelled splayed shutter boxes, and a reeded mantelpiece with corner roundels. The rear room has a bow window with original architrave and panelled splayed sash boxes, tripartite panelling beneath, and a later 19th century window frame with stained-glass upper lights. Built-in cupboards and drawers stand to the right of the chimneybreast, respected by the cornice.

On the second floor, both rooms have moulded cornices and fireplaces with moulded mantelpieces. The front room's fireplace retains its grate, whilst the rear room's is boarded over. To the right of the rear chimneybreast is a cupboard and drawers set in an architrave. Modern toilets have been inserted in the first floor of the service wing and passageway, which leads through to a later 19th century mews building to the rear. The service wing contains two further rooms on its second floor. A large basement with several rooms lies beneath the house.

This property is one of a terrace of four houses built on the west side of Slater Street. Straight joints demonstrate that the houses were built individually, though the entire block appears on R. Horwood's map of 1803, indicating construction in the late 18th or very early 19th century. The neighbourhood developed between the mid-18th and early 19th centuries on the east side of Canning Place, the site of Liverpool's first enclosed dock. A mixture of building types were constructed during this period, with affluent housing standing alongside port-related industries including ropewalks, timber yards, cooperages, and foundries. No. 36 represents a modest merchant's house of this era, retaining its original internal arrangements, contemporary rear service wing, and full-height rear bay window. It survives as an important component of the diverse domestic and industrial character that defined this early urban neighbourhood, shaped by the trade of the adjacent enclosed dock.