# St George’s Hall, Liverpool, UK.



## Timeshifter (Sep 19, 2020)

St George’s Hall, Liverpool.

I originally posted this on the old forum in 2019, there were some excellent replies, hopefully we can gain some more discussion on this bizarre out of place monstrosity! 










I have long had my doubts about the official history of the great Hall. Even before I became interested in our stolen history, something about this building did not ring true.

It sits atop a hill and is referred to locally as* “St Georges Plateu”*…. Perhaps that is of some significance?

Here is the official history of the hall;

‘During the Seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries, Liverpool developed rapidly.

Civic pride grew as the city prospered and as a consequence, a venue was needed to host impressive music festivals. In tandem, there was a pressing need for crown courts and civic courts of various sizes. The council decided to combine both projects and so the concept of St George’s Hall was born.

The Hall was the vision of Harvey Lonsdale Elmes, and, although young, produced a magical concept to add spice to the design with the addition of the incredible 500 seat Concert room.’

source

If you look around Liverpool in this period, I am pretty sure you won’t find the majority of the city described as “prosperous’ REF

‘Opened in 1854, it is a building in Neoclassical style which contains concert halls and law courts, and is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building’

I decided to do a little research on the history of this place, to see if I could spot anything out of place. It did not take me long to discover the usual historical pathway.

“The site of the hall was formerly occupied by the first Liverpool Infirmary from 1749 to 1824’

Source

This source above, is extremely week in my opinion and poorly researched.

Ok, evidence of this infirmary?

No amount of online searching would give me much evidence, except for some old maps which do point to an infirmary around the spot up to 1839;

Maps

Here is one of the area from 1836






Every other source that I found simply repeats the above statement, without any evidence.

I found this image on pinterest which claims to be 1800s, does this look like a new building to you?









and again, a new building? 1854/5...which is it? Source​

So let us assume that there was a building of some sort on or around the site.

So, why do we need this hall to begin with?

‘The idea for the hall came from Liverpool citizens who were concerned about the lack of a place for the triennial music festivals. To fund it a subscription list was set up with shares available at £25 each and by January 1837 £23,350 had been raised.
However as usual, when building work commenced it went over budget.

At the same time a venue was being sought for the Civil and Crown Courts and fortuitously the same architect was employed to design both buildings so it was decided that one building would serve all needs’

Does this make any dense to you? Music festivals in the middle of the 19th Century? Citizens asking for a concert hall, amongst hard times, poverty etc?

Who is going to build it and how are we going to fund it?

According to all sources I have found, in 1838 the foundation stone was laid to commemorate the coronation of Queen Victoria. Yet I have been unable to find any other written or visual evidence to prove this. Surely, such an historical event would leave a trace in writing of in the form of a painting.

So the foundation stone is laid before the building has even been design let alone commissioned? Building did not begin until 4 years later in 1842. Is this normal practice?

Source

By the way, here is how much credence you can place on Wikipedia, all of the references for the St Georges Hall wiki page, are taken from quotes like these here on the bbc website, which in turn cites absolutely zero sources for the information. Make of that what you will.

Let us have a look at the selection of architect and construction process.

A competition announced on 5th March 1839 via an advertisement in the The Times to design the hall, first prize was 250 guineas, second prize 150 guineas. By July more than eighty entries had been received, and was won by *Harvey Lonsdale Elmes,* a London architect aged *25 years,* the second prize went to George Alexander of London. (Those young architects eh?)

The requirement was:

"*there is to be accommodation in the main hall for 3000 persons* (I thought this was a concert hall; and there is also to be a concert room, capable of accommodating 1000 persons, applicable to other purposes such as lectures and smaller meetings....the cost of the building will be £35,000"

There was a need for assize courts in the city and a competition to design these with first prize £300 and second prize £200, there were eighty six entries and was also won by Elmes.

The original plan was to have separate buildings but in 1840 Elmes suggested that both functions could be combined in one building on a scale which would surpass most of the other public buildings in the country at the time. Construction started in *1841 (When was it 41 or 42)* and the building opened in 1854 (with the small concert room opening two years later).

*TS Note:* Many of the references for info on the hall pertain to a book written by the now deceased Lorraine Knowles, who it seem worked in a Heritage position and possibly has access to info we do not on the Hall. It is also entirely possible she was merely repeating what she had been told by others.

Her blog: ‘as Curator of the Merseyside Museum of Labour History, a subject that remained close to her heart throughout her career; as Project Officer for St George’s Hall in Liverpool where she eventually became a trustee; as Head of the Museum of Liverpool Life and then as project officer for NMGM into the Future’

Blog

I have however decided to treat any evidence provided by Knowles with a pinch of salt. (I am going to get a copy of her book to peruse at some point however)

*The Architect: Harvey Lonsdale Elmes. Waki*

Only 25 when he ‘won’ the gig to do the Hall, with only 1 referenced prior design I could find, some small ish house in Westminster. Does this seem logical? We do seem to have a lot of massive builds and project being given to relatively unknown and young people in the 1800s! Apparently, he died 5 or 6 years into the build, depending on which version of events we use, and was replaces by 3 further people to complete the build.

This is a poor narrative by anyone’s standard. His wiki page contradicts the narrative on the Halls wiki page, by the way.

*Let us build:*

So, the finance is in, the design is in (and revisions) let us build,

This building of absolute gargantuan proportions and relevance to the city, returns zero, none, nil images, books, texts or references to its construction. Considering its importance, and it straddling 2 decades of increased advancements of photography, no images.

All I could find, were some schematics of the supposed ventilation design, but absolutely zero evidence of its construction. here

Is this another building left over which they could not figure out how to operate?

There is the Steble fountain just across the road, which they could not figure out how to operate either. either. Steble






Evidence of the build: No images of the land or area immediately prior to its existence. No stone paintings, photos, zip.

No written evidence of its construction, except of the builders name, no numbers of stone, workforce, actual cost, problems, nothing.

In 1839 it is not there, then in 1854 it is there. So was it actually built? Perhaps the photos and evidence are hidden like this place? Cathederals

Interestingly, when you enter from the side, you are met with this 'Victorian Tunnels;' where have we seen these before?..... Williamson's Tunnels Will T






*Once inside?
*
We only had access to the main hall, with the Organ: Some images I took on a recent visit.








The Hall is the home to a massive and I mean massive organ. This probably needs a thread of its own, but here’s a little info;

‘THE organ was built by Henry Willis and completed in 1855 with 100 speaking stops across four manual divisions. In 1931 it was reconstructed by Henry Willis III when the number of stops was increased to 120 and electro-pneumatic action introduced for the combination systems and some of the key action. Its power source was still the Rockingham electric blowing plant which had replaced the two steam engines (one of 1855 and a second which had been added in about 1877 to run the increased pressure required since 1867 for some reed stops. In the interim this higher pressure had been hand blown!) The 1924 electric blowers remained in use until 2000 when the present new low and high pressure blowers were fitted by David Wells. With 7,737 pipes, it was the largest organ in the country until a larger one was built at the Royal Albert Hall in 1871, after which an organ even larger than the one at the Royal Albert Hall was constructed at Liverpool Anglican Cathedral, using over 10,000 pipes’
*
No real evidence as to how long this actually took to make and install.

How St George’s Hall Took Its Place As One Of Britain’s Finest Buildings | Good News Liverpool

The Minton tile floor.*

Whilst there recently, my wife and I decided to pay the 5 bucks each and take a look at the Minton Tile floor. Apparently, it’s so worthy of saving that it has only been opened to the public 8 times in the last 12 years… It is built up in the media to be something awe-inspiring. I have to say it was an entirely underwhelming experience. I have no idea what I was expecting, but it simply felt like some tile floor that was covered up, to be uncovered every few years to allow them to charge 5 bucks each to see it. The floor however, looked a lot older and warn than few hundred years, but what do I know. In addition, the marble statues around the place felt like plaster to my touch…*
*
*


*​ 
*





 *​*
this statue felt like plaster of Paris.​ 


*
​*
TS: Summary*

This whole building seems to have popped up out of nowhere, and then had a back story invented. Although it does not appear on any maps I could find prior to 1854, that does not mean it hasn’t been removed from the maps. Everything about it feels off. Also within a few years of the building appearing, it was surrounded by further similar buildings, The World Museum, Central Library etc.

From this, to this in 34 years. Some leap in technology and know how.*
*
*

*​
Would love to hear forum members thoughts on this building.


----------

