St George's Hall

St George's Hall

Public hall and law courts, built between 1841 and 1856. Designed by the engineer Henry Llewellyn Elmes and Sir Robert Rawlinson, and completed by Charles Robert Cockerell.

The building approximates the form of a Classical temple of the Corinthian order, raised on a platform and approached by flights of steps. The overall composition is planned as a series of aligned compartments, each clothed with four different porticos, with the blind hamper of the central hall rising over the continuous entablature.

The east facade features a projecting central Corinthian colonnade of sixteen fluted columns, flanked by six-bay loggias with unfluted Corinthian antae. The lower parts of the loggias are filled with relief scenes of allegorical figures with a Greek key band above. End bays are flanked by angle pilasters with fielded panels. The central entrance is set within an architrave with frieze and consoled cornice, while side entrances have architraves. Two four-light mullioned windows light the facade, with an entablature and parapet above. The central hamper is detailed with rusticated quoins and entablature.

The north facade has a nine-bay semi-circular projection with an attached colonnade on a basement. Three entrances in architraves pierce the basement, with cornices that break through the top of the basement line. The entrances are flanked by mermaids and tritons carrying cornucopia-lamps. Windows have battered architraves and casements. Flanking bays match the east facade treatment.

The west facade rises three storeys with a basement, a fifteen-bay projecting centre that includes round windows to the basement and sashed windows above, most retaining glazing bars. A colonnade of unfluted antae has windows with battered shouldered architraves between its lower parts. An upper loggia with blind end bays, open to the sky, contains large architraved windows with casements behind. Seven bays to each side have three storeys of sashed windows in architraves; those on the second floor feature consoled cornices and a panelled sill course. End bays are treated as before.

The south facade displays an octastyle pedimented portico with two rows of columns, behind which stands a large entrance in architrave with consoled cornice, flanked by triton lamps. End bays match the other facades. The sculptures on the pediment have been removed.

The interior is arranged with a central hall flanked by balconies over corridors, with courts at each end. North and south entrance halls serve the building; that to the north contains a concert hall above, while that to the south houses twentieth-century court room fittings. The interior is of unrivalled splendour, largely due to Cockerell's decoration, particularly evident in the Concert Hall. Six cast-iron lamp standards with three dolphins twined round their bases stand under the colonnade, and two under the portico. The building is counted among the great buildings of its era in Europe.

Historic Note: The Hall became the scene of a significant protest by the local branch of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), the militant suffrage group formed by Emmeline Pankhurst in 1903. In May 1909, when Earl Crewe and Augustine Birrell MP were awarded honorary degrees by the University of Liverpool in a ceremony at St George's Hall, local WSPU organiser Mary Phillips entered the building the night before and concealed herself in the organ loft and under the stage. After twenty-four hours without sleep, she interrupted Birrell's speech to protest against the imprisonment of local suffragette Patricia Woodlock, and several minutes passed before she was found and removed. St George's Plateau, outside the Hall, was used for large local demonstrations, including a significant 1908 demonstration organised by the local Men's League for Women's Suffrage, one of the earliest provincial branches of this organisation.