Plenty of time to sort out pictures these days, so here’s an old Liverpool venture.
There are four large Victorian warehouses remaining in the city.
Three of these, Wapping, Albert Dock and Waterloo, have been completely redeveloped and the Stanley Dock Tobacco warehouses are still in the process of being converted.
There are also three smaller, but still pretty large ones left - a block on Parliament street which has been converted, Heap’s Rice Mill/warehouse which is derelict, and the Bonded Tea warehouse on Great Howard Street which is still in use.
I was interested in this last, also called the Clarence Warehouse(s), because it’s still operating as a warehouse so it seemed possible that some of the original machinery might be left.
It was also an opportunity to document the inside - there are actually rather few interior pictures of these old buildings in anything like their original state, and this includes the two remaining (converted) grain warehouses over the Mersey in Birkenhead.
History. According to 'Storehouses of Empire’ the bible of Liverpool warehousing:
“In the course of construction in 1844 (and therefore almost exactly contemporary with the Albert Dock warehouses), this block was of conventional plan and form but entirely fireproof in construction, with brick-arched floors and a roof of cast and wrought iron.
It appears to have been built in phases and was probably designed to provide multiple units that might be let separately.
Its earliest recorded use is indicated by the Ordnance Survey map of 1848, which shows it as a corn store….The scale and construction of the building together set it apart from all other surviving private warehouses of the period.”
As shown below, the building(s) apparently occupied a whole block in 1906, but by 1923 the seaward end had changed.
A further couple of sections have since been demolished and the space left is used as a loading area.
As a warehouse it has probably stored lots of things, originally corn, evidently tea at some point, and now is used mainly as a bonded store for alcohol.
I couldn’t find out if there was any machinery left - it’s not mentioned in the listing for example - but counting the number of haulage channels up the sides of the building there could be up to 18 hoists, as shown below
(red crosses, the side view was taken from the tobacco warehouse next door).
Since this is a commercial business, I rang the bell and asked if I could have a look round, and did they know if there were any hoists in the attics?
The building manager said he had worked there for 30+ years and wasn’t sure, but nevertheless kindly agreed to give me a quick tour.
On opening up the first ‘jigger loft’ where these hoists live there indeed one was - the guy was sufficiently interested to clamber up himself and take a few pictures on his phone.
Not wanting to detain him too long I then asked if I could come back and wander round the upper floors by myself and he said fine.
So this turned out to be the ideal sort of permission visit - a tour with some interesting info on the place and the time to have a look round on my own.
The lower floors mostly seem to be storing rum, whiskey and wines.
Anyone who has been round a distillery will be familiar with the sights and smells here, with different types of barrels used at different stages of ageing etc.
The top of the building is split into two sections, a southern ‘range’ and a northern one which is slightly higher with an extra floor.
The top floor of the southern range is still used for storage, with the jigger lofts (red boxes on stilts) arranged in pairs, with one box being larger than the other.
Inside the boxes, which are full of pigeons, the hoists are electrically powered - I found 16 hoists, the other two were probably there but the lofts were not accessible.
These little bottles are Lieuvain’s needle lubricators for the bearings.
Each pair of hoists is powered by a motor in the larger of the two lofts, with a shaft across the roof to the other one, although most of the shafts have gone.
The parapets in the valleys are to stop fire spreading between sections.
The roofs themselves are lightweight affairs, with metal sheeting attached directly to an iron framework - no thought of insulation in those days, just enough to keep out the rain.
The top floor of the northern range is empty and looks as if it hasn’t been used to store anything for decades. The jigger lofts are again in pairs.
Some more of the rather derelict spaces on this side.
I had hoped that the hoist machinery would be hydraulically powered, since the pressurised water main ran down the street outside, but there was no sign of this.
Instead it seems that the original hoists, which would have been hand powered, were replaced wholesale by electric ones, maybe in the early 1900s.
The only clue I could find about the source of the electricity was a sign on a metal door in one of the attics.
From this it seems the warehouse could have been generating its own electricity from gas, despite the fact that Liverpool was ahead of other cities by about a decade in electrification.
Henry Wilson and Co. made all sorts of engineering equipment and an ad for electrically driven cargo winches (1920s) is mentioned in Graces Guide.
There are also a number of old electrically driven lifts such as this one.
To finish, a view north of the tobacco warehouses as they were in 2018 - not a great deal has changed externally since then although apartments are now being advertised for sale.
South towards the centre of town.
And some pictures I found on the internet of well known 60s musicians in front of the warehouse.
Quite an interesting place this - there can’t be many early Victorian warehouses doing what they’ve always done pretty much unchanged.
On the downside I ended up with fleas, not for the first time whilst exploring Liverpool warehouses, but a few applications of the stuff you spray on carpets gets rid of them.
I was told that the Bonded Tea warehouse is owned by a development company so when the lease runs out it will inevitably be converted like all the others.
There are four large Victorian warehouses remaining in the city.
Three of these, Wapping, Albert Dock and Waterloo, have been completely redeveloped and the Stanley Dock Tobacco warehouses are still in the process of being converted.
There are also three smaller, but still pretty large ones left - a block on Parliament street which has been converted, Heap’s Rice Mill/warehouse which is derelict, and the Bonded Tea warehouse on Great Howard Street which is still in use.
I was interested in this last, also called the Clarence Warehouse(s), because it’s still operating as a warehouse so it seemed possible that some of the original machinery might be left.
It was also an opportunity to document the inside - there are actually rather few interior pictures of these old buildings in anything like their original state, and this includes the two remaining (converted) grain warehouses over the Mersey in Birkenhead.
History. According to 'Storehouses of Empire’ the bible of Liverpool warehousing:
“In the course of construction in 1844 (and therefore almost exactly contemporary with the Albert Dock warehouses), this block was of conventional plan and form but entirely fireproof in construction, with brick-arched floors and a roof of cast and wrought iron.
It appears to have been built in phases and was probably designed to provide multiple units that might be let separately.
Its earliest recorded use is indicated by the Ordnance Survey map of 1848, which shows it as a corn store….The scale and construction of the building together set it apart from all other surviving private warehouses of the period.”
As shown below, the building(s) apparently occupied a whole block in 1906, but by 1923 the seaward end had changed.
A further couple of sections have since been demolished and the space left is used as a loading area.
As a warehouse it has probably stored lots of things, originally corn, evidently tea at some point, and now is used mainly as a bonded store for alcohol.
I couldn’t find out if there was any machinery left - it’s not mentioned in the listing for example - but counting the number of haulage channels up the sides of the building there could be up to 18 hoists, as shown below
(red crosses, the side view was taken from the tobacco warehouse next door).
Since this is a commercial business, I rang the bell and asked if I could have a look round, and did they know if there were any hoists in the attics?
The building manager said he had worked there for 30+ years and wasn’t sure, but nevertheless kindly agreed to give me a quick tour.
On opening up the first ‘jigger loft’ where these hoists live there indeed one was - the guy was sufficiently interested to clamber up himself and take a few pictures on his phone.
Not wanting to detain him too long I then asked if I could come back and wander round the upper floors by myself and he said fine.
So this turned out to be the ideal sort of permission visit - a tour with some interesting info on the place and the time to have a look round on my own.
The lower floors mostly seem to be storing rum, whiskey and wines.
Anyone who has been round a distillery will be familiar with the sights and smells here, with different types of barrels used at different stages of ageing etc.
The top of the building is split into two sections, a southern ‘range’ and a northern one which is slightly higher with an extra floor.
The top floor of the southern range is still used for storage, with the jigger lofts (red boxes on stilts) arranged in pairs, with one box being larger than the other.
Inside the boxes, which are full of pigeons, the hoists are electrically powered - I found 16 hoists, the other two were probably there but the lofts were not accessible.
These little bottles are Lieuvain’s needle lubricators for the bearings.
Each pair of hoists is powered by a motor in the larger of the two lofts, with a shaft across the roof to the other one, although most of the shafts have gone.
The parapets in the valleys are to stop fire spreading between sections.
The roofs themselves are lightweight affairs, with metal sheeting attached directly to an iron framework - no thought of insulation in those days, just enough to keep out the rain.
The top floor of the northern range is empty and looks as if it hasn’t been used to store anything for decades. The jigger lofts are again in pairs.
Some more of the rather derelict spaces on this side.
I had hoped that the hoist machinery would be hydraulically powered, since the pressurised water main ran down the street outside, but there was no sign of this.
Instead it seems that the original hoists, which would have been hand powered, were replaced wholesale by electric ones, maybe in the early 1900s.
The only clue I could find about the source of the electricity was a sign on a metal door in one of the attics.
From this it seems the warehouse could have been generating its own electricity from gas, despite the fact that Liverpool was ahead of other cities by about a decade in electrification.
Henry Wilson and Co. made all sorts of engineering equipment and an ad for electrically driven cargo winches (1920s) is mentioned in Graces Guide.
There are also a number of old electrically driven lifts such as this one.
To finish, a view north of the tobacco warehouses as they were in 2018 - not a great deal has changed externally since then although apartments are now being advertised for sale.
South towards the centre of town.
And some pictures I found on the internet of well known 60s musicians in front of the warehouse.
Quite an interesting place this - there can’t be many early Victorian warehouses doing what they’ve always done pretty much unchanged.
On the downside I ended up with fleas, not for the first time whilst exploring Liverpool warehouses, but a few applications of the stuff you spray on carpets gets rid of them.
I was told that the Bonded Tea warehouse is owned by a development company so when the lease runs out it will inevitably be converted like all the others.
