Liverpool Lime Street station is the gateway to
Liverpool city centre. It is the focus of two major development schemes
designed to reveal the Grade II listed structure and provide a new
focus for the city.
History
- The first station at Lime Street, by John Foster Jnr with
a wooden trainshed by John Cunningham and Arthur Holme, was opened 15
August 1836.
- This station was replaced in 1849 by
a new station on Lord Nelson Street by Sir William Tite. It included
the first totally innovative iron segmental-arched vault trainshed by
Richard Turner, built the year after he completed the Palm House at
Kew, which marked the turning point in trainshed design. The rear wall
of the 1849 station still exists along the back edge of platform 1.
- This
original trainshed was replaced, by LNWR, with a new trainshed in 1867
by William Baker. This is the existing north vault of the station.
- The North Western Hotel was opened in 1871.
- The
second trainshed vault, by Francis Stevenson and E. W. Ives, was added
in 1874. This is the current south vault of the station.
- The
concourse was remodelled in 1955 and again in 1984. The 1984
remodelling including the construction of the barrier-line building in
the north vault and glazed artwork screen, by Radford, Ball, Rainey and
Cooper, in the south shed.
- The North Western Hotel was re-opened in 1997 as student residences by Liverpool John Moores University.
- The train sheds were refurbished under Station Regeneration Programme in 1999 to 2000.
- The
SRP Trainshed refurbishment was given the London Underground Award in
the National Railway Heritage Awards 2001 and a Structural Heritage
Commendation in the Institute of Structural Engineers Awards 2002.