Unfortunately not an 'urbex' par se. Me and Frank did try when we found out that this lot still existed. A restaurant and hair salon, originally from the 1950s but modified during the 70s and finally closing in the early 80s. These facilities are located in the top of a huge building, home to Liverpool's once-mighty Lewis's department store (I can only imagine what Christmas must've been like in the 50s for a young boy visiting the store - imagine all the locally produced Mecanno!). For over 20 years it's remained virtually as it was, apart from a lot of the tables, fittings, etc being removed. The lower three floors of the building remain in use today.
Soon after our failed recce/attempt at finding a way from the active department store into the closed-off floors a newspaper article mentioned it, and the 'mystery' was taken away a bit. Since then Lewis's agreed to allow access to those interested this week and last, and I managed to get up there last week. A member of staff was there to explain what things were, but thankfully I was allowed to spend a good half an hour having a nosey round on my own.
The decor was fantastic - a lot of the tile work dated from decades ago, and was made by the famous Poole Pottery. In the salon most of the old driers remained. Also up there were some old archive books of adverts - apparently the store had it's own drawing office to prepare them, with young apprentices being trained as illustrators! Back when everything was done in-house.
Lewis's was recently saved from closure - the future of the unused 5th floor features remains undecided.
Soon after our failed recce/attempt at finding a way from the active department store into the closed-off floors a newspaper article mentioned it, and the 'mystery' was taken away a bit. Since then Lewis's agreed to allow access to those interested this week and last, and I managed to get up there last week. A member of staff was there to explain what things were, but thankfully I was allowed to spend a good half an hour having a nosey round on my own.
The decor was fantastic - a lot of the tile work dated from decades ago, and was made by the famous Poole Pottery. In the salon most of the old driers remained. Also up there were some old archive books of adverts - apparently the store had it's own drawing office to prepare them, with young apprentices being trained as illustrators! Back when everything was done in-house.
Lewis's was recently saved from closure - the future of the unused 5th floor features remains undecided.