Nos 183 And 185 Including The White House Public House

The buildings at Nos 183 and 185, including the former White House public house, are a pair of former dwellings and attached public house, later converted to commercial use. They were likely built around 1800, with alterations in the 19th and 20th centuries. The buildings are constructed of red brick with a stucco finish on the street elevations, topped by ridge and gable chimneys and slate roof coverings.

The buildings occupy an elongated plot at the corner of Duke Street and Berry Street, incorporating rear yards separated by narrow service wings. The Duke Street elevation is a stepped three-storey range of eight bays, with cellars, comprising Nos 183 and 185 to the left and the former Whitehouse public house to the right. Nos 183 and 185 each feature three tall, semi-circular arch-headed openings (now boarded over), with moulded surrounds. The right-hand opening serves as a doorway. Above a first-floor band course, pairs of sash windows are positioned to the right-hand side of each three-bay frontage. Some windows have 6 over 6 pane sashes to the first floor and 3 over 3 pane sashes to the upper floor. This pattern is repeated in the slightly taller public house section to the right, where three upper-floor openings are now blocked. First-floor openings have sash frames without glazing bars, set below shallow bracketed hoods. The ground floor displays a public house frontage with door and window openings defined by decorative timber pilasters, set above a deep stall riser and below a moulded display fascia. The main doorway is on the left-hand side, approached by a flight of four steps, with double doors and an overlight. To the right, there are two display windows, followed by a second doorway, now blocked, and a third window. Beyond this, an angled doorway is located at the street junction, with the fascia forming a shallow canopy above. Both sections retain moulded eaves cornices. A two-bay return fronting Berry Street has a canted display frontage, and window openings above that are detailed similarly to the Duke Street elevation.

The interior retains the main compartments of the original plan, although a rear wall has collapsed in No. 183. Public house fittings have been removed, but primary and secondary stairs remain.

The buildings are documented on Horwood's large-scale map of Liverpool from 1803, which shows developed frontages onto Duke Street, but limited development on Berry Street. The shape of the building plots on the street corner site closely matches the present footprint.

Nos 183-5 and the attached former Whitehouse public house have group value as one of the few remaining early 19th-century buildings along Duke Street, an important early access route to the port of Liverpool. Originally a residential area for merchants, it demonstrates the transformation of housing associated with the port as the area around Steer’s Dock was converted into commercial premises.