How old is this building?

[stevelord65]

Slightly off the main topic, but here is a photo from 1919 (from the Liverpool Echo). It used to be a larger building: looks like half of it has now been demolished...

[Andy J2022]

Thanks, Steve. It's your thread so I think you are permitted to go off topic if you want!

The photo certainly confirms my suggestion in reply 18 that the missing right hand side probably mirrored the present day left hand side, but it also shoots down my suggestion that the bricking up of the window might have been done post WW2. Although it's worth noting that in the 1919 photo two windows are bricked up, whereas today the lower window has been opened up.

The backwards hand writing appears to refer to Roof? damage August 1919.

If nothing else, collectively we have come up with a pretty good history of this building from its origins in the 1800 Blind School to the present.

[Ray T]

My ipad charge is just about to run out. Is this any use - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Insurance_Plan_of_the_City_of_Liverpool_Vol._IV;_sheet_82_(BL_149484).tiff

The building looks typically “Regency” to me.

[Andy J2022]

Yet another useful piece of the jigsaw. It indicates that mantles were being sold at numbers 30 and 32 in August 1894. Presumably the occupiers of the premises were the same company, Dodgson and Smith, who were there in 1919. The layout of the buildings of the Tramway Company offices and stables is very similar to that of the Blind School back in 1850.

While I agree that the architectural style might be described as Regency, numbers 26-32 London Road were built after the end to the Regency period itself.

[AlanBoyd]

With reference to the possible annotation of roof damage on the photo, could this be the explanation?  Apparently the police went on strike in Liverpool in August 1919. The military were called in and the battleship HMS Valiant arrived in the Mersey to help secure the docks. There was rioting and looting.

[Andy J2022]

Good find, Alan. Several of the shop windows on the street have been boarded up.

[Ray T]

Yet another useful piece of the jigsaw. It indicates that mantles were being sold at numbers 30 and 32 in August 1894. Presumably the occupiers of the premises were the same company, Dodgson and Smith, who were there in 1919. The layout of the buildings of the Tramway Company offices and stables is very similar to that of the Blind School back in 1850.

While I agree that the architectural style might be described as Regency, numbers 26-32 London Road were built after the end to the Regency period itself.

Of course, architecturally, “Regency” extended well beyond the George III/IV Regency period.

[AlanBoyd]

Genuine question, I’m a learner, what features of the building might be classified as Regency?

[Ray T]

Genuine question, I’m a learner, what features of the building might be classified as Regency?

Typically, “golden section” (Georgian shaped) windows and plain rendered walls.