The Royal Liver Building is located on Canada Boulevard at Pier Head overlooking the River Mersey in Liverpool.
The Grade I listed building forms one of the 'Three Graces' along with the Port of Liverpool Building and the Cunard Building.
The Grade I description given by Historic England reads as follows;
"SJ 3390 GEORGES PIER HEAD L3
27/503 Royal Liver Building Iron railings and stone piers surrounding 12.7.66 Royal Liver Building. (formerly listed under G.V. I Pier Head)
Office building. 1908-10. Aubrey Thomas. Concrete frame with granite cladding. 8 storeys, and 2 storeys of attics. 9 bays, 13-bay returns. Front has 4 giant buttress/projections each of 1 bay width, the middle 2 framing a semi-circular portico of Ionic columns with balustraded parapet; a smaller semi-circular projecting window above with shield of arms and Ionic columns. Ground and 1st floors rusticated. Ground floor has round-arched windows. Upper floors to 2nd, 3rd, 7th and 8th bays recessed behind parapet and scrolls. Windows with mullions and transoms of 3 lights. Those to projecting bays with transom only. Those to 5th and 6th floors in round headed recesses with balconies. Top floor recessed behind Doric colonnade. Frieze and bracketed cornice. Receding attics with parapets. Roof piled up with turrets and domes in receding stages. Clock towers with copper liver birds on top. Iron railings and stone piers all round at base. One of the 1st multi-storey concrete framed buildings in the world.
Listing NGR: SJ3388090329" SOURCE: (
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"The Royal Liver Building was the purpose-built home of the Royal Liver Assurance group, which had been set up in the city in 1850 to provide locals with assistance related to losing a wage-earning relative.
It was designed by Walter Aubrey Thomas, the foundation stone was laid on 11th May 1908 and the building was officially opened by Lord Sheffield 3 years later, on 19th July 1911.
It was one of the first buildings in the world to be built using reinforced concrete.
The building stands at 98.2 m (322 ft) tall to the top of the spires, 103.7 metres (340feet) to the top of the birds and 50.9 m (167 ft) to the main roof.
The Royal Liver Building is one of the most recognisable landmarks in the city of Liverpool with its two fabled Liver Birds which watch over the city and the sea. Legend has it that if these two birds were to fly away, the city would cease to exist.
The Liver Birds are 5.5 metres,18 feet high. Their added height gives the Royal Liver Building an overall height of 103.7 metres, 340 feet.
The building of skyscraper proportion has 13 floors and was once one of the tallest buildings in the country, and is currently the 4th tallest building in Liverpool."
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