104-106 London Road, Liverpool 3. Photo taken in 2018.
This building (one of my favourites in Liverpool) was a bank for over 90 years, but it wasn't built as a bank.
The building is dated 1899 and was built for the Liverpool Furnishing Company, who opened it in May 1900, their ghost sign survives on the other side.
www.flickr.com/photos/44435674@N00/3613211287/in/album-72...
The architects were W. Hesketh. & Co., of Dale Street, Liverpool.
The clock is 70 feet high, by Lord Grimthorpe, who designed the Great Clock at Westminster, commonly known as Big Ben, along with the bell which IS Big Ben.
The Liverpool Furnishing Company seems to have closed by 1910, as it's not listed in the 1911 street directory.
www.turretclock.force9.co.uk/LordGrimthorpe.html
The Weisker Brothers (film renter pioneers) moved into the building (which they called Kinema House) on 1 November 1911 and regular adverts in the trade journal "The Bioscope" appeared until 1924. A preview theatre (cinema) was in the building, capable of seating 100.
As a bank it opened sometime between 1915 and 1920, as the United Counties Bank, and was later taken over by Barclays.
National Westminster Bank had moved here by 1975 and it closed as NatWest in July 2013, and five years later it still seemed to be unoccupied.
Update:
It is a Listed Building (from 2023, better late than never, although one wonders where they got all their dates from?)
104-106 London Road, Liverpool 3. Photo taken in 2018.
This building (one of my favourites in Liverpool) was a bank for over 90 years, but it wasn't built as a bank.
The building is dated 1899 and was built for the Liverpool Furnishing Company, who opened it in May 1900, their ghost sign survives on the other side.
www.flickr.com/photos/44435674@N00/3613211287/in/album-72...
The architects were W. Hesketh. & Co., of Dale Street, Liverpool.
The clock is 70 feet high, by Lord Grimthorpe, who designed the Great Clock at Westminster, commonly known as Big Ben, along with the bell which IS Big Ben.
The Liverpool Furnishing Company seems to have closed by 1910, as it's not listed in the 1911 street directory.
www.turretclock.force9.co.uk/LordGrimthorpe.html
The Weisker Brothers (film renter pioneers) moved into the building (which they called Kinema House) on 1 November 1911 and regular adverts in the trade journal "The Bioscope" appeared until 1924. A preview theatre (cinema) was in the building, capable of seating 100.
As a bank it opened sometime between 1915 and 1920, as the United Counties Bank, and was later taken over by Barclays.
National Westminster Bank had moved here by 1975 and it closed as NatWest in July 2013, and five years later it still seemed to be unoccupied.
Update:
It is a Listed Building (from 2023, better late than never, although one wonders where they got all their dates from?)