Bluecoat Chambers, School Lane

Opened 1718 
Grade I 

Bluecoat Chambers was originally built as a charity school in 1717 in the Queen Anne style. One of the earliest surviving buildings in the city centre, it was paid for by Bryan Blundell, a Liverpool sea captain and merchant. 

Although the school was dedicated to the 'promotion of Christian Charity and the training of poor boys' according to the inscription below its pediment, Mr Blundell made his wealth in the American trade that included tobacco and slavery.   

The building is of brick and consists of a two-storey, five-bay centre, originally with a hall and chapel, and has two long wings of eleven bays which delineate a three-sided, cobbled courtyard to the front. 

It has a stone plinth with rusticated quoins, with a stone parapet to the centre, and a pediment with clock in the tympanum over the three bays that break forward of the plane. 

The sash windows are round headed with architraves and cherub keystones. The main entrance is round headed with a broken pediment above containing a cartouche of the arms of Liverpool. The three-storey wings have flat headed sash windows to two storeys, with occuli at third storey, and three entrances reached by steps. 

The middle doorways each have broken pediments with Liver Bird icons. To the rear a landscaped garden provides a quiet environment, totally enclosed from the city. The building is topped with a cupola, which is a local landmark in this area.   

The Bluecoat School remained in this building until 1906, when it relocated to much larger premises in Wavertree, aLiverpoolsuburb. In 1909 the first Lord Leverhulme bought the building with the intention of using the building as a centre for the arts. 

Due to the intervention of the First World War, work on the project ceased, and on the death of Lord Leverhulme in 1925, the building was purchased by the Bluecoat Society of Arts. The building is still used for the Arts in Liverpool.