Showing posts with label India Buildings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label India Buildings. Show all posts

Sunday 27 May 2018

Is India Buildings About To Be Butchered by The HMRC.

UPDATE NOV 2022

At the time of updating November 2022 The building is closed and all the HMRC staff had been told not to come into work due to a massive leak. Which will have done great damage to the structure. This is what happens when greedy people who are only interested in money are in charge.

All the care and attention that was given to the building. The Architect of this historic structure Herbert Rowse will be definitely turning in his grave. What a complete and utter mess.

INDIA BUILDINGS HAS BEEN BUTCHERED BY LEGAL AND GENERAL (THE DEVELOPMENT ARM OF THE FAMOUS INSURERS).
THEY PURCHASED THE BUILDING FOR AROUND £120,000,000 FROM MARWEES LTD. A BRITISH VIRGIN ISLAND OFFSHORE BASED COMPANY WHO PURCHASED IT FOR £17,000,000. MAKING A MASSIVE PROFIT.......THAT THE TAXPAYER WILL ULTIMATELY PAY FOR! 
As soon as they purchased the building MARWEES set about evicting all the tenants in a disgraceful act of greed. 
People who had run businesses there were evicted as if they were dirt. Read More Here.
MARWEES  employed a pair of Henchmen. Father and son duo Brian and Mark Rabanowitz of Shelborn Asset Management.
They subsequently slid around, behaving like gangsters, ruining the lives of many of the tenants.......for the HMRC. Read More Here

 Despite there appearing to be some level of secrecy, I can confirm that the beautiful travertine marble arcade is to be butchered with holes whacked in it all over show. Maybe four of them.
There is a big risk to the architectural integrity Holts Arcade.
 Liverpool's famous architect, of repute, Herbert Rowse must be turning in his grave.
15 years ago I was so proud. I had found a bronze plaque, the original, with detailing that reflected India Buildings class. It was cast to commemorate the sacrifice of those that lost their lives in the Great War. That worked for Alfred Holt and Company. After lots of consternation and a word with the owners of India Buildings at the time the pedantic building manager agreed to erect it in the arcade.  Though it had originally been outside Holts Offices it now seemed the fitting place. And it was set on the marble.
I would cry every year at 11 o'clock on the 11th November when the old Holts Line and Blue Funnel employees would gather and it would become a focal point. Not just to remember Holts employees but all those who fell so we could be free, so we could speak our mind. Be free.
They are now going to twat a hole right through where it hangs. There is no other way to say it. The HMRC, I overheard don't want it there. They want it lost, again. 
Unbelievable.
There is something magical about this arcade. The dimensions are just right. Its Classical perfection. 
It is as perfect as you can get.
Some years ago I asked the c20 Society if they would put their weight behind upgrading its listing status.
 Gavin Stamp one of the countries leading heritage fighters, who Liverpool will sadly miss, backed me.
He was a past Chairman of C20society and put his weight behind it. After a lot of work by Clare at C20society  English Heritage upgraded it from Grade II to Grade II*.
That seemed to be a protection jacket wrapped around it. To save its integrity for future generations.
Yet it now seems this wont stop it escaping the grubby paws of this current crop of unsophisticated developers and the HMRC.
You know it makes me sick to my back teeth when we do all that work to put it beyond ruination and then the place will still get wrecked
In many of my heritage battles I have often thought myself akin to David fighting Goliath and this bunch really are Philistines.
They say they have employed heritage experts. http://www.classicartdeco.co.uk/india-buildings.php 
Well they cant be that clever or experts if they are in on this grubby little deal. Some people don't have the integrity to call themselves experts if they don't understand what heritage means.
 They take the coin to do what they are paid for, not what should be done. 
And the architects are Falconer Chester Hall. It couldn't be worse. Well it could Stiles and Wood got the contract....after they put in the lowest price.
They were talking at one time about polishing all the bronze shopfronts.
To make them look like brass. Lose all the patina.
Money, money, money that's all this new lot seem to be interested in.
There are some things that just need to be left alone. One is Holts Arcade.
I fought the last lot, Green Property, (see Private Eye 1229 above) and their ideas to close part of the arcade.
But to no avail they had all the power and did nothing to make lettings happen. India Buildings went into further decline, they were letting the tenants leave the building with regular abandon.
They needed to empty it out. Mike Tapp of Green Property advised me that they see the future as a whole letting. Open offices and a call centre. That where the money was. John Lee from CBRE had told them so. 
So we watched its decline.
Like being strangled slowly every day they would let another tenant leave.
The building, they said was 75% let when they took it over after it was repossessed by the banks and the biggest fraudster in British history Achileas Kalakis did time.
So I was about to close up and a new lot bought the buildings. Things looked up. We would see a couple of people walking round and clung on a bit longer. Lawrence Kenwright was in the running for India Buildings and I have to say I did not think he had the skill to restore it. It was bought by a British Virgin Islands offshore company. Then the HMRC were interested. 
 Or was there a bit more to it than that? Then they began threatening me. bullying everyone, and they offered me a relocation terms and it was time to move.
Then they behaved like type and shafted everyone around me and I knew it was the wrong thing to do.
I could not have held on any longer, the centre of gravity of the business district had changed.
Then the Philistines shafted me.
But this now gives me a chance to go back. To carry out some unfinished business, because I always regretted not doing more to alert the public to the vandalism that was about to begin. 
I have to be honest I thought I had been abandoned by the public. 
My business is personal to me and I take all things personal. Its my life its not a business.
If I had of been doing it for money I would have gone back into property. I had packed that business in a long time ago, but was afraid I would end up, well like the Philistines that then owned me.
 I am ashamed I let them take me for a ride.
Come back Lawrence Kenwight all is forgiven.
This lot have now closed the beautiful arcade to the public and the Arcade will never open again, which is Grade II* listed in its own right, and the shops are to be offices.
And Liverpool City Council are complicit. Sort of partners in slime really.
The dodgy building manager used to go past shouting out, “All these are going to be offices” he would say and I just got angry inside.
But now its time to say it loud.
I am ashamed of myself that I did not put up more of a fight up.
I am also ashamed that I did not make more of arguing against it.
The local press had changed it seems all about twitter now and to be honest even though I was critical of the last lot of journalists they now seem great intelectuals compared to these new kids on the twitter feed block.
It was always easy to persuade Peter Elson as to the merits of history and heritage because he felt it too.
The city council planners have been given delegated planning powers over India Buildings.
A Grade II* listed building.
This means they can do virtually what they want.
The owners and there is now another company involved India Buildings Development Ltd, with a liability of £100. Check them out at Companies House. Theres a few characters there. That the HMRC are doing business with.  https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/10844377
It stinks. So after they have shafted me I am now free to shout it from the 8th Floor.
 This is the worst thing that could have happened to India Buildings.
I admit it I was wrong and I should have done something about it.

But where were all the people to help. To complain about the right of way being stubbed out, like The Ramblers. I phoned them once and this bloke just went on, and on and on, and on, so I put the phone down.
I cant do it alone is there anyone out there that cares about this amazing heritage asset. In the World Heritage Site. (will may lose the WHS status this June, when the UNESCO World Heritage committee meet).
The Friends Of India Buildings.
The HMRC unions are up in arms about this move.
The Bootle Strand will be decimated.
The area of Water Street will be re-invented. But will this be Plastic Town and not Liverpool the city that used to have character. That is until London, investors with no real links to the city were touted by Mr Anderson and smoothed along by the likes of Gary Millar and Nick Small.

It could be the usual David amongst The Philistines, but y'know I have a sling and I am going to have a fight. Better late than never. Its that time.

Please if anyone with genuine interests can help please don't hesitate to contact me.
Its time to fight them on the beaches.


And I Dreamt That I Dwelt In Marble Halls. No More. Holts Arcade Is About To Be Butchered.


Friday 18 August 2017

India Buildings Liverpool Twenty Years Of My Life.

Twenty years in the same place. Twenty Years In India Buildings.
I wouldn't have believed it.
 I thought I had gypsy blood at one time I was travelling so much.
I declared when I became a carpenter all those decades ago that I loved it because there was always a different place to work. New surroundings' new people to meet. 
 And then I fell in love with a perfect piece of architecture. 
When something is so perfect as Holts Arcade where else would you want to be.

 There is nowhere else like Holts Arcade, or Holts Parade as it is always referred to in lease documents and rent demands by the various shysters that have owned the building. 
And there have been a few. Twenty years in quarterly bills, that's more than a few.
I first discovered India Buildings about 1984 when a rather attractive and exotic looking lady that I met in town said she worked there. For the Inland Revenue or was it the VAT office. 
You entered in the back entrance on Brunswick street and went up to the mezzanine level and then if I recall there was an office where she worked. 




My grandmother talked about it when I told her I was moving there she told me it was once the Law courts or a Coroners office. 
She had to visit there when she lost her husband just before I was born. I think my great grandmother had a cleaning job here and other places such as Exchange Flags.


Discounting sleep I probably spent more time there than at home.
I was travelling a lot when I first opened the shop, backwards and forwards to France sometimes twice a month. Looking for swag. 
I loved my job then and roughed it a bit on my travels.
 And this made me appreciate the place when I returned.
I recall an old fashioned song that used to come into my head when I was heading back up the A9 through France, from Montpelier or Avignon through beautiful countryside. 'I dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls'. I don't even know who originally sung it. It was in a film, an old black and white one.
 I will always remember the way the sentiment of the song was used to describe the feelings of the poor girl who was wishing in a fairy tale way, in a Cinderella way to escape to a grand house and live in luxury without the cruel wind of everyday life. Don't know what happened in the end. Maybe she lived happily ever after, with Errol Flynn. 
But it seemed to ask me questions such as why would you need to wish for another place to dwell?
Its why I stayed really because business has not always been brisk.
Though in reality there was always one question to answer. Where is the rent going to come from?
So I stayed watching other antique dealers close all over the place. Chester was decimated. 
The Internet arrived and changed the face of the trade. 
But I could not get away from the fact that this was not just a job to me. Its a way of life. A learning curve. A thirst for knowledge, and it became apparent that I was not doing it for the money. 
Being involved with art and history and the stories that they tell is far more important to me than money. I could always lose myself.
And like the character I used to watch when I was a kid at times I felt like Mr Benn.
I would put my key in the door and turn it and enter into another world.
Like the world of tales of times gone by, of adventures and history.
I love learning and this is the job to unfurl mysteries and peoples stories.
Insights into personalities who owned or made objects fills my inside with a feeling that you would never get making doors or fitting staircases, even though in different places every week. Although I can never stop using my hands and always keep my skills alive recently i have become interesting in clay and love creating works of art. It may be time to put the key in that door soon and walk through into another life.
So I stayed and then stayed a bit longer and people come and went and new friends appeared as others left and I let it all drift me by and I watched the world go by while fighting vociferous heritage battles for Liverpool's skyline, and trying to get various buildings listed before they would be ruined.
http://waynecolquhoun.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/liverpools-world-heritage-site-status.html

I felt the sense of place was being changed all around me. Everywhere was turning into homogenised nothing shops full of stuff you can get anywhere, in any town.
But still India Buildings beautiful arcade stayed the same. Because it always should, its so perfect.
Then they wanted to close me down and I fought hard and got angry. Fighting for the right to survive would always have challenges. The biggest challenge was always the changing times and the regeneration of Liverpool had opened up different aspects of the city that took people in different directions and India buildings drained of offices, and people left.

And now they say the HMRC is going to relocate a regional super call centre here.
I dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls.......maybe no more.

Thursday 29 January 2015

Signature Bespoke Has Opened In India Buildings.

I would like to extend a warm welcome to Signature Bespoke.... now of India Buildings who have just opened here this week.

 They are to bring their own brand of made to measure tailoring to the beautiful Travertine Marble Holts Arcade of  India Buildings.

http://www.signaturebespoke.co.uk/

A UNIQUE TAILORING EXPERIENCE


















Signature Bespoke's Haute couture service offers a unique tailoring experience, which allows you to create the look that expresses your personal style. The care and effort devoted to the tailoring of these hand made suits is what makes our garments so special. All our suits are examined continuously during their production while careful attention is given to each and every detail.
I wish them every success, the shop looks great.

Update; Though I offered them a warm welcome. I quickly found that the owner of the business could not sew a button on. They are what should be called Custom Tailors. Meaning they take the measurements and get the suit made abroad somewhere like China or Greece. 
This is all smoking mirrors. My ex girlfriend was a time served Tailoress with City and Guilds qualifications. This is an insult to word tailoring in my opinion.
 If you want to be fleeced well you had better get down there and see Coco. 
This is the worst sort of bluff. 

Friday 12 December 2014

India Buildings-Holts Arcade. Is This The Best Christmas Decorations In The City?

At the time of updating November 2022 The building with its beautiful arcade, enjoyed by many, is closed to the public and is solely for use by the HMRC

All the HMRC staff had been told not to come into work due to a massive leak. Which will have done great damage to the structure. This is what happens when greedy people who are only interested in money are in charge.

All the care and attention that was given to the building. The Architect of this historic structure Herbert Rowse will be definitely turning in his grave. What a complete and utter mess.

INDIA BUILDINGS HAS BEEN BUTCHERED BY LEGAL AND GENERAL (THE DEVELOPMENT ARM OF THE FAMOUS INSURERS).
THEY PURCHASED THE BUILDING FOR AROUND £120,000,000 FROM MARWEES LTD. A BRITISH VIRGIN ISLAND OFFSHORE BASED COMPANY WHO PURCHASED IT FOR £17,000,000. MAKING A MASSIVE PROFIT.......THAT THE TAXPAYER WILL ULTIMATELY PAY FOR! 
As soon as they purchased the building MARWEES set about evicting all the tenants in a disgraceful act of greed. 
People who had run businesses there were evicted as if they were dirt. Read More Here.
MARWEES  employed a pair of Henchmen. Father and son duo Brian and Mark Rabanowitz of Shelborn Asset Management.
They subsequently slid around, behaving like gangsters, ruining the lives of many of the tenants.......for the HMRC. Read More Here

Update November 2022 And its now closed to the public




Well most people who walk through the magnificent Holts Arcade seem to think so.
You can see their faces light up.
Its tough times out there but the landlords Green Property have kept the Xmas spirit alive with the wonderful festive decorations, through the recession and we can thank them for that.
The Capricio Singers  http://www.capriccio.org.uk/ will be visiting, only for half an hour this year unfortunately.
That will be on the 18th December.
Where they will no doubt fill the barrel vaulted arcade right up to the ornate painted ceiling with lovely Xmas music.
Look forward to seeing them.

Friday 14 February 2014

Big In Japan-My Shop Is Featured........In Japan.


Following the visit of a Japanese film crew late last year the programme Europe;Scenery of Water (yes that was the title) went out  on BS Japan.
Japans Judith Chalmers was doing the travel programme. She even bought something a rather nice vase with which had been painted well with a slightly oriental lady.
 Liverpool looks great the shop is featured at 00:26minutes  into the video and is on for about 10 minutes.
I may be dubbed. I even told a joke that I shouldn't have, when she asked me where I was born.
"Ten minutes from Liverpool F.C's ground in Anfield" I said. "I learnt to know the score from the crowds reaction. Hooray.......one nil. Hoorayyyy.....two nil.....Hoorray .....three nil, although it could be confusing when the meat pies arrived".
 To my amazement and relief, the crew all fell about laughing which is more than I can say happens when I tell it in Liverpool.

 I try to talk up Liverpool pottery and Herculaneum to be precise. Well someone has to do it, as Liverpool museums have given up on it.  http://waynecolquhoun.blogspot.co.uk/2009/06/herculaneum-pottery-held-by-liverpool.html


 Liverpool Vision have put it on their You Tube channel

There you go..........Big in Japan watch it here http://youtu.be/hQ8NEa8h__M

Thursday 3 January 2013

My Shop Gets A Mention In Private Eye

India Building has not been managed too well through the recession and the far reaching tentacles of Private Eye and in particular our friend 'Piloti' in the NOOKS AND CORNERS section does like to keep up to speed with whats happening in Liverpool.
Both myself and other concerned shopkeepers staged a protest to send a clear message to the owners Green Property that this is more than a investment for them they have a responsibility to people of Liverpool who have a huge amount of emotional attachment to the Historic India Buildings.
The shopkeepers in Holts Arcade have suffered from a lack of footfall and it has even had an impact on what I do, thanks to the Internet I have managed to keep sailing through, but I have tried to help my neighbour in the newsagents after he was told they wanted to close access to the public.
The strange coincidence that several bronze architectural fitments were illegally removed by the owners of this Grade II listed (hopefully soon to be upgraded to GradeII*) building.
click on pic to enlarge

This threw the wrath of the local press and especially Peter Elson the Liverpool Echo Shipping Correspondent, upon Green Property and its strange and illegal behaviour.
Allowing a building to deteriorate is not something they should now consider as an option after the people of Liverpool have sent a clear message to them and 1000 names have been collected on a petition to be delivered to the city council.
Holts Arcade was in fact built on Chorley Street and has been a public right of way for over a century.
 It would be really foolish for Green to consider closing it and denying the public access.
Here is a bit of the recent activity.
CBRE Liverpool and in particular John Lee the area manager of CBRE who may I say in my opinion, has ruined the whole ecosystem of a building that was, only, 10 years ago operating with 3500 people, but he saw off so many with such a bad style of management that it is now a building with about 400.
There is no coincidence that this, in my opinion, arrogant man set about bringing in a style that scared more people off.
CBRE and Mr Lee are the last people I would employ to manage a historic building and that is without even mentioning his hopeless lapdog Paul Jolley who was appointed by him to manage, just below him, and was so out of his depth that he had to walk around with a snorkel on.

Here are some recent press reports It made the front page of the Daily Post and pages in nthe Liverpool Echo
http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2012/11/22/future-of-india-buildings-in-doubt-after-liverpool-council-cautions-owners-over-illegal-removing-of-entrance-plaques-99623-32280635/


http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news/2012/11/22/fears-for-future-of-liverpool-s-landmark-india-buildings-100252-32281873/



http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2012/11/22/future-of-india-buildings-in-doubt-after-liverpool-council-cautions-owners-over-illegal-removing-of-entrance-plaques-99623-32280635/

Liverpool Bay TV http://www.baytvliverpool.co.uk/vod/?vid=JBV50b38ff3c9d65

Green then appointed Dougal Paver to try and get them out of the mess
http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news/2012/11/23/u-turn-on-blunder-at-liverpool-s-india-buildings-100252-32290010/ 
But we have heard it all before several years ago John Lee used the building to promote himself.

Recent history has not been good for India Buildings.

http://www.placenorthwest.co.uk/news/archive/2781-aib-funds-green-move-for-india-buildings.html


In 2008 http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news/2008/12/26/india-building-back-to-normal-100252-22552370/the building lurched into disaster and Green p[romised to sort it out.
http://www.placenorthwest.co.uk/news/archive/3148-cbre-advises-green-on-india-buildings-revand.html

Some saw this coming http://condensedthoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/answers-needed-over-india-buildings.html


http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news/2012/12/06/peaceful-protest-over-possible-closure-of-arcade-in-liverpool-s-india-buildings-100252-32371699/
Protest covered by Liverpool Echo

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news/2012/12/04/sit-in-to-save-liverpool-arcade-100252-32355765/
This was taken up as a news item and several featured spots on Radio Merseyside, but it is so important, the plight of one of Liverpools Historic buildings, that it has got to London and the satirical magazine of Private Eye. Well done 'Piloti'

I have just about managed to hold on to my pride in this magnificent structure where I spend a lot of my time and I hope this episode can now be put behind us and we can now work towards a future that respects the history and the past of the beautiful Travertine Marble Holts Arcade within the beautiful majesty of India Buildings.







Wednesday 17 November 2010

The History Of India Buildings, Water Street Liverpool.

Update November 2022

At the time of updating November 2022 The building is closed and all the HMRC staff had been told not to come into work due to a massive leak. Which will have done great damage to the structure. This is what happens when greedy people who are only interested in money are in charge.

All the care and attention that was given to the building. What a complete and utter mess.

HERBERT ROWSE THE ARCHITECT OF INDIA BUILDINGS WILL BE TURNING IN HIS GRAVE.
INDIA BUILDINGS HAS BEEN BUTCHERED BY LEGAL AND GENERAL (THE DEVELOPMENT ARM OF THE FAMOUS INSURERS).
THEY PURCHASED THE BUILDING FOR AROUND £120,000,000 FROM MARWEES LTD. A BRITISH VIRGIN ISLAND OFFSHORE BASED COMPANY WHO PURCHASED IT FOR £17,000,000. MAKING A MASSIVE PROFIT.......THAT THE TAXPAYER WILL ULTIMATELY PAY FOR! 
As soon as they purchased the building MARWEES set about evicting all the tenants in a disgraceful act of greed. 
People who had run businesses there were evicted as if they were dirt. Read More Here.
MARWEES  employed a pair of Henchmen. Father and son duo Brian and Mark Rabanowitz of Shelborn Asset Management.
They subsequently slid around, behaving like gangsters, ruining the lives of many of the tenants.......for the HMRC. Read More Here

INDIA BUILDINGS WAS DESCRIBED BY PEVSNER AS "MAKING BURLINGTON ARCADE LOOK PEDESTRIAN". 
IT IS A TOTALLY UNSUITABLE BUILDING IN WHICH TO SHOEHORN IN A GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENT. NO PARKING FOR STAFF OR CLIENTS.
THIS HAS MEANT THAT THE ARCHITECTS HAVE SMASHED HOLES THROUGH THE WONDERFUL TRAVERTINE MARBLE THAT LINES THE GRADE II LISTED HOLTS ARCADE.

SOME TIME BACK A CAMPAIGN  WAS RUN TO SAVE THE ARCADE FROM CLOSURE. THIS LED TO THE UPGRADE TO GRADE II* FROM GRADE II.
THIS SHOULD HAVE GIVEN IT PROTECTION BUT IN LIVERPOOL, A CITY WHERE THE MAYOR JOE ANDERSON AND HEAD OF REGENERATION NICK KAVANAGH WERE RECENTLY ARRESTED. IT IS HARDLY SURPRISING THAT SUCH AN ACT OF CIVIC VANDALISM WOULD TAKE PLACE. Read More Here
UNFORTUNATELY THE PUBLIC WILL NEVER BE ALLOWED INSIDE AGAIN. 
THE LUFTWAFFE COULDN'T DESTROY IT, BUT MARWEES AND THIER HENCHMEN HAVE.

Of recent dates there has been an large amount of controversy surrounding this majestic structure. Once owned by Britains Poker playing Walter Mitty who was sent down for fraud of which India Buildings was part thereof. Read More Here.
Green Property Group purchased the building for less than the £17,000,000 the paid for India Buildings. Read More Here

INDIA BUILDINGS WAS UPGRADED TO GRADE II * BY ENGLISH HERITAGE. Read More Here

The Site The block of offices known as India Buildings, which was completed early in the year 1931, occupies an island site, facing the main thoroughfare of Water Street and Brunswick Street and with side frontages on to Fenwick Street and Drury Lane, in the heart of the business and banking quarter of Liverpool and within five minutes walk of Princes Landing Stage on the River Mersey.The name is a historic one in Liverpool. Nearly one hundred years before the date of the completion of the new India Buildings, George Holt conceived the idea of erecting a block of light and airy premises to consist entirely of offices, whereas before then the business transactions of merchants and ship owners had been conducted on the ground floors of private dwellings, or more frequently in dark and dingy "counting-houses" partitioned off from warehouses.
In 1833, the foundation stone of old India Buildings was laid and the handsome structure facing on to Water Street and Fenwick Street and built to the designs of Franklin, the Architect, was completed in 1834. Rumor has it that the walls were made exceptionally strong, so that, if the novel idea of a block of offices were not a success, the building could be converted into warehouses.Well designed and well built it certainly was and presented a dignified appearance until its demolition in 1928.
Old India Buildings occupied, however, less than half the area of the new. A narrow lane called Chorley Street crossed the centre of the new site. India Buildings, Fenwick Chambers, Fenwick Court and The Atlantic surrounded a court yard on the upper side of this lane, while Canton and Commercial Buildings, Seaton Buildings, Cereal chambers and other (later and much inferior structures) came between Chorley Street and Drury Lane.In June , 1922, negotiations were commenced with The Liverpool Corporation in regard to the frontage lines of the new Building. It was obviously essential in the interests of the City that Water Street should be widened, less necessary, but still desirable, that Fenwick Street should be increased in width, while it was decided that the Brunswick Street face line should remain unaffected, as any future widening of this potentially important street would have to be on the other side, so as to bring more into line with Cook Street farther up.The agreement eventually reached provided that Chorley Street should be closed and the site built over and that the building line along Water Street was to be set back eighteen feet to compensate for this privilege.Furthermore, Fenwick Street was to be widened to forty-two feet between building lines throughout (involving a set back of twelve feet at the Water Street end) less 4 ft 6 ins for an area and Drury lane was to be widened by eight feet on the India Buildings side.Permission was also obtained to build to a height of 120 feet to cornice level from the pavement at the corner of Water Street and Drury Lane, exclusive of two stores set back at the above cornice level. This gave room for a basement on the street level at Dairy Lane and about ten feet below it along Fenwick Street, a lofty ground floor and eight stores above this.The Associated Architects for the Building were Messrs Briggs and Thornely F.F.R.I.B.A. and Mr Herbert J Rowse F.R_I.B.A.,Mr J. R. Sharman M.Inst C E ., acted as Consulting Engineer for the steel framework and Mr. A. G. Ramsey, AM.Inst.C.E., for the heating and ventilation.The General Contracts were Messrs. Wm. Thornton and Sons. Ltd., of Liverpool. Messrs Borman, Long & Co., Ltd., supplied and erected the steel framework.



Architectural DesignFor the convenience of Messrs Alfred Holt & co., and other tenants of old India Buildings, it was essential that the new building should be constructed in two separate and independent parts, divided roughly by the line of the upper side of Chorley Street, so that old India Buildings might remain intact until the first part of the new building was completed and ready for occupation.
With this condition in view, a principal entrance was planned at the centre of the Water Street and Brunswick Street faces, with lofty Elevator Hall at each entrance and an arcaded corridor running across the building at ground floor level between them. One wall of this corridor and parts of the Elevator Halls had to be omitted from Part I, the gap being temporarily screened by wooden hoardings which somewhat restricted the public space. On the other hand, there was just room to get in the steel stanchions on that side of the corridor and so to complete the staircases, which were carried up from the elevator halls on each inner face of the building, with Part I.Two light courts are formed above first floor level, running across the main axis of the building, with sky-lights which give light to the main corridor and to the lofty portion of the ground floor on each side. On the upper corridors run from elevator lobby completely round the building, serving on each side of them rooms which are adequately lit from either from the light-courts or from the outside of the block.
The site as finally determined is a quadrangle with the following lengths of fronts:Water Street 214 feet and Brunswick Street (opposite) 210 feet Fenwick Street 257 and Drury Lane (opposite ) 243 feet, but no corner is a right angle.The interior columns are, however ranged on lines parallel to main axes at right angles to each other and the two parts of the building are thus symmetrical in every way from the first floor level upwards, except for the depth between the corridors and the outside walls, which varies uniformly from corner to corner.

War Damage During all the many air raids on Merseyside from August 1940 until the enemy made most determined effort to cripple Britain's main war port in the early days of May 1941, India Buildings received only superficial damage. The raids in May, 1941, proved to be the last real attacks on Merseyside. Unfortunately they were disastrous to this building, which at the time fully occupied by firms whose staff numbered three thousand, nearly all engaged in the war effort.In the early hours of Saturday 3rd May, the enemy attacked the business centre of Liverpool with land mines. In the bright moonlight three of these were observed at different times to be drifting towards the building on a strong south-easterly wind. The first two landed short of the property but the third hit the front of the Com Exchange Building, which collapsed and left its debris piled against India Buildings, completely closing Brunswick Street. The blast of the third mine shook India Buildings and smashed nearly all the windows on the main elevations and in both light courts as well as the fanlights in the corridors. Many of the internal walls were displaced and structural damage was extensive throughout the building. All the buildings to the south and west of India Buildings were also damaged in varying degrees.In the evening of the same day the enemy directed a new attack on the business centre with incendiary and flame bombs. The damaged and now unguarded properties to the south of India Buildings were easy victims. In view of the vulnerable state of the building, the strength of the India Buildings fire fighting party on duty that night had been more than doubled and the one incendiary bomb which hit the building was quickly extinguished. One by one the buildings in the neighborhood were set on fire and the strong wind which was still, unfortunately, blowing from the south east fanned the flames and they rapidly engulfed the greater part of the properties extending from James Street to Brunswick Street. Embers of burning wood were carried by the wind into the windowless building and caused a multitude of small fires on all floors above street level. During the first few hours the buildings fire fighters extinguished these fires as fast as they occurred. Meanwhile, the Corn Exchange and other buildings were ablaze from top to bottom and the flames from the roof of the Corn Exchange, driven by the wind and pulled by the natural draught into the shattered and windowless building, formed a complete bower of flame across Brunswick Street. The only possible counter to this new threat was to us the hydrants provided on each floor, but the pressure of the supply became so low that water was no longer available and the fire fighters were rendered helpless. The second floor was soon gutted and the other floors followed quickly. The fires spread from the Brunswick Street frontage along the Fenwick Street side of the building with remarkable rapidity.The wind then changed direction from south east to east and carried the fires along the length of Water Street frontage and into the West side to complete the destruction of the greater part of India Buildings. Burning material from India Buildings was blown into the damaged buildings on the other side of Water Street and into those to the west and they in turn took fire and were burnt out. The strong wind, the draught up the light courts, stairways and lift shafts, and the dryness of the internal fittings and furnishings towards the end of a season of central heating all contributed to the rapid gutting of the upper eight floors of India Buildings The basement shops in Brunswick Street and Drury Lane and the south west section of the ground floor and mezzanine were also for the most part burnt out. The remainder of the building was damaged by blast but the garage in the basement, apart from the loss of the doors by fire, suffered no fire damage and the cars which the proprietors had been advised to keep at the back of the premises away from the doors were intact.On account of the poor pressure of the water, little could be done above street level and attention was directed to the ground floor premises. These had been protected by internal partition walls from the fall effect of blast and the danger from drifting embers. These premises were, however, menaced by burning debris falling down the light courts and through the sky lights into the ground floor. The saving of Lloyds Bank premises and of the other ground floor offices were the only successes that fell to the fire fighters on the night of trial. For the most part their highly meritorious efforts were made in vain. Their failure to save the upper floors was due to the circumstances over which they had no control - the failure of the water supply. In this, fate treated them unkindly. The India Buildings fire fighting organization had commenced its duties three days before war broke out and the members never let up day or night until the disaster of the 4 May.

ReconstructionPrior to the outbreak of war in 1939 India Buildings was practically fully let and became fully occupied during 1940. This satisfactory position continued until the building was to a large extent destroyed by enemy action on the 4th May, 1941.
Although India Buildings was designed prior to the second world war, the building, with its wide corridors and generous circulating spaces, sensible ceiling heights and large windows, was well conceived and the building would undoubtedly still have been regarded as 'modern' but for certain important factors concerning both the fabric and the equipment which would have caused the building to lose its claim to be modem compared with the new Exchange Buildings and other new commercial buildings which were bound to be erected.
These factors concern the lifts, affecting the accessibility of offices on the upper floors, the inefficiency of the wells as lights courts, resulting in very appreciable loss of natural lighting in the inside premises and the impossibility of adjusting the heating in the various sections of the
building to different conditions of temperature and wind.The opportunity was therefore taken to make such alterations in the design, planning and equipment of the building which once again make it a comfortable and up-to-date business centre, cable of competing successfully with the new commercial buildings.Reconstruction of the building was finally completed early in 1953.


A Video of The Construction of India Buildings