Alfred Waterhouse (19 July 1830 – 22 August 1905) was an English architect, particularly associated with Gothic Revival architecture, although he designed using other architectural styles as well. He is perhaps best known for his designs for Manchester Town Hall and the Natural History Museum in London. He designed other town halls, the Manchester Assize buildings—bombed in World War II—and the adjacent Strangeways Prison. He also designed several hospitals, the most architecturally interesting being the Royal Infirmary Liverpool and University College Hospital London. He was particularly active in designing buildings for universities, including both Oxford and Cambridge but also what became Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds universities. He designed many country houses, the most important being Eaton Hall in Cheshire. He designed several bank buildings and offices for insurance companies, most notably the Prudential Assurance Company. Although not a major church designer he produced several notable churches and chapels.

Financially speaking, Waterhouse was probably the most successful of all Victorian architects. He designed some of the most expensive buildings of the Victorian age. The three most costly were Manchester Town Hall, Eaton Hall and the Natural History Museum; they were also among the largest buildings of their type built during the period. Waterhouse had a reputation for being able to plan logically laid out buildings, often on awkward or cramped sites. He built soundly constructed buildings, having built up a well structured and organised architectural office, and used reliable sub-contractors and suppliers. His versatility in stylistic matters also attracted clients. Though expert within Neo-Gothic, Renaissance Revival and Romanesque Revival styles, Waterhouse never limited himself to a single architectural style. He often used eclecticism in his buildings. Styles that he used occasionally include Tudor revival, Jacobethan, Italianate, and some only once or twice, such as Scottish baronial architecture, Baroque Revival, Queen Anne style architecture and Neoclassical architecture.

As with the architectural styles he used when designing his buildings, the materials and decoration also show the use of diverse materials. Waterhouse is known for the use of terracotta on the exterior of his buildings, most famously at the Natural History Museum. He also used faience, once its mass production was possible, on the interiors of his buildings. But he also used brick, often a combination of different colours, or with other materials such as terracotta and stone. This was especially the case with his buildings for the Prudential Assurance Company, educational, hospital and domestic buildings. In his Manchester Assize Courts, he used different coloured stones externally to decorate it. At Manchester Town Hall and Eaton Hall the exterior walls are almost entirely of a single type of stone. His interiors ranged from the most elaborate at Eaton Hall and Manchester Town Hall, respectively for Britain's richest man and northern England's richest city cottonopolis, to the simplest in buildings like the Royal Liverpool Infirmary, where utility and hygiene dictated the interior design, and the even starker Strangeways Prison.

Early life and education (1830–1854)

His father was Alfred Waterhouse Senior (1798–1873), a cotton broker, and his mother was Mary Waterhouse, née Bevan (1805–1880), of Tottenham, both Quakers. Alfred, first of their eight children, was born on 19 July 1830 when the family was living at Stone Hill, Liverpool. Shortly after his birth, the family moved to Oakfield, a Tudor-style villa in Aigburth, Liverpool, Lancashire. His brothers were accountant Edwin Waterhouse (1841–1917), co-founder of the Price Waterhouse partnership, which now forms part of PriceWaterhouseCoopers, and solicitor Theodore Waterhouse (1838–1891), who founded the law firm Waterhouse & Co, now part of Field Fisher Waterhouse LLP in the City of London. Alfred Waterhouse was educated at the Quaker Grove House School in Tottenham, later to become Leighton Park School.

He began his architectural studies in 1848 under Richard Lane in Manchester. He was taught to produce architectural drawings with crisp lines and pale tints, very different from the style he would develop later. He was taught theory by copying extracts from books, including Henry William Inwood's Of the Resources of Design in the Architecture of Greece, Egypt, and other Countries, obtained by the Studies of the Architects of those Countries from Nature (1834) and William Chamber's A treatise on civil architecture (1759). He also traced the designs in Frederick Apthorp Paley's Manual of Gothic Mouldings (1845). The scrapbook he used survives in which he sets out Chambers and Paley's opposing views. He is also known to have read during this period John Ruskin's The Stones of Venice (1849) and Augustus Pugin's Contrasts (1836) and The True Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture (1841). He joined a sketching club, where he met Frederic Shields and Alfred Darbyshire.

In May 1853 he set out to tour Europe with school friend Thomas Hodgkin who stated that Waterhouse "was entirely under the influence of Ruskin, and communicated his own admiration for Gothic art and a perfect detestation of that beastly Renaissance". The trip lasted nine months. Sailing to Dieppe, passing through Rouen, then Paris, taking a steamer from Dijon down the Saône to Lyon, then on to Nîmes, Arles and Orange. Staying the night at the Grande Chartreuse, passing into Piedmont to Susa and Turin, they walked over the Great St Bernard Pass in a snowstorm into Switzerland. In Basel Waterhouse parted company with Hodgkin and returned to Italy in the company of a Manchester acquaintance George Rooke. Waterhouse's sketchbook from the trip survives and is titled Scraps from France, Switzerland, and Italy. Every notebook sketch is dated and labelled so his itinerary can be followed. In Italy he visited Isola Bella, Certosa di Pavia, Milan, Bergamo, Monza and Venice where he remained for two weeks in August. Here he sketched the Doge's Palace and St Mark's Basilica. The tour continued in Padua, Vicenza and Verona. By the end of September he arrived in Florence, where he stayed a week, sketching Giotto's Campanile, amongst other buildings. He continued via Siena, Fiesole, Lucca and Pisa to Naples, where he stayed around three weeks and toured surrounding towns. In November he arrived in Rome and stayed into the new year. Returning to northern Italy

he revisited several cities before passing through Turin on the way to Basel and Strasbourg.

Much later in life, Waterhouse in his 1890 presidential address at the RIBA had this to say about sketching by architectural students:

On his return to Britain, Alfred set up in 1854 his own architectural practice based in Cross Street Chambers, Manchester.

Manchester practice (1854–1865)

thumb|right|Darlington Market and clock tower (1861-64) Waterhouse's first public building outside Manchester, the market hall was Waterhouse's only [[Cast-iron architecture|cast-iron building]]

Waterhouse continued to practice in Manchester for 11 years, until moving his practice to London in 1865. At this stage of his career most of his commissions were either in the north-west or north-east of England. His earliest commissions were mainly for domestic buildings. Among Waterhouse's first commissions in 1854 were for his family: a set of stables at Sneyd Park, for his father, who had moved to Bristol, and alterations to the home of his uncle Roger Waterhouse at Mossley Bank in Liverpool. In executing the commission for the cemetery buildings at Warrington Road, Ince in Makerfield (1855–56), he began his move towards designing public buildings in his developing Neo-Gothic style, building a lodge for the registrar, and two chapels, one Church of England in Gothic style, and one for Roman Catholic and Non-conformists in Norman style. His first commission for a commercial building was for the now demolished Binyon & Fryer warehouse and sugar refinery in Chester Street, Manchester (1855). The building was of two floors made of brick with stone dressings and Italianate in style. The intended upper floors based on the Doge's Palace remained unbuilt. Also he designed the Droylesden Institute (1858, demolished) in the Manchester suburb of Droylsden. It contained a reading room and other educational facilities and had some Gothic details. A similar building was the Bingley Mechanics' Institute built (1862–65), located in Bingley, with a hall and reading room in a Gothic style.

His first large new country house design was Hinderton Hall (1856–57), Cheshire, for Liverpool merchant Christopher Bushell, built of red sandstone, slate roofs, stables, gardener's cottage and boundary walls. Hinderton, Gothic in style, is very restrained and plain compared with his more mature works. Waterhouse's first completely new parish church was the Anglican St John the Divine (1863), Brooklands Road, Sale, Cheshire. It is Gothic, built of Hollington stone, with aisles and transepts, patterned brickwork inside, with external stonework of a single colour. The design of the roof is also restrained compared with Waterhouse's later designs. Other early chapels included three for the Congregational church, Ancoats (1861–65, demolished), Rusholme (1863, demolished) and the Besses o' th' Barn (1863) now United Reform church, all were Gothic in style.

Waterhouse had connections with wealthy Quaker industrialists through schooling, marriage and religious affiliations, many of whom commissioned him to design and build country houses, especially near Darlington. Several were built for members of the Backhouse family, founders of Backhouse's Bank, a forerunner of Barclays Bank. In Darlington Backhouse's Bank is of 1864-67. For Alfred Backhouse, Waterhouse built Pilmore Hall (1863), now known as Rockliffe Hall, in Hurworth-on-Tees. Waterhouse designed for Joseph Pease Hutton Hall in Yorkshire (1864–71), a large house Gothic of red brick with stone dressings and a slate roof. The commission included the gardens; the billiard room and conservatory were added in (1871–74) and there were further alterations and new stables added in 1875. Hutton Hall also had a feature unique in a Waterhouse house: Victorian Turkish baths. The first of his significant public buildings outside Manchester was Darlington town clock and covered market hall (1861–64) in Gothic style, with the market built from cast iron, divided into five sections. The main building contractor was R. Stapp; chimneypieces were provided by Joseph Bonehill; the iron work was by F.A. Skidmore and J.W. Russell & Son and the clerk of works was S. Harrison. The building cost £9,851, with an extension and repairs (1865–66) costing £2,615. The clock tower was paid for by Joseph Pease. His success as a designer of public buildings was assured when he won the competition. The building, constructed 1859–65 (now demolished) not only showed his ability to plan a complicated building on a large scale, but also marked him out as a champion of the Gothic cause. The building cost £120,000 (approx £14,500,000 in 2019) to build. The Gothic style of the building was influenced by John Ruskin and his views on Venetian Gothic architecture. Designer John Gregory Crace carried out the elaborate decoration in the Grand Jury Room and the elaborate carving in the central hall was by O'Shea and Whelan. The exterior also had elaborate decoration in contrasting coloured stonework with sculpture and carvings. The foundations were dug by H. Southern & Co.; the building's superstructure was erected by Samuel Bramall; heating and ventilation was the responsibility of G.N. Haden as well as O'Shea and Whelan. Stone carving was also done by Thomas Woolner and Farmer & Brindley; ceramic tiles were provided by Thomas Oakenden; stained glass was by R.B Edmundson, Lavers & Barraud, George Shaw and Heaton, Butler & Bayne; furniture and furnishings were provided by Doveston, Bird & Hull, James Lamb, Kendal & Co., J. Beaumont, Minton & Co. and Marsh & Jones Co.; iron work was by F.A. Skidmore & R. Jones; chimneypieces were by J. Bonehill, W. Wilson and H. Patterson; plaster ceiling roses were by J.W. Hindshaw. The clerk of works were John Shaw, G.O. Roberts and Henry Littler. This building was Waterhouse's first exercise in High Victorian Gothic.

John Ruskin, writing to his father in 1863:

The Times edition of 11 February 1867, in an article entitled The New Courts of Law, declared that the Manchester Assize Courts were "the best courts of law in the world.

Writing in 1872 in his book History of the Gothic Revival, Charles Eastlake had this to say about the building:

Eastlake went on to describe the interior:

The Builder in 1859 described the buildings style:

The Ecclesiologist in 1861 described it as:

The salaries Waterhouse paid ranged from 5 shillings per week (about £30 in 2019) for an office lad to £3 per week (about £363 in 2019) for senior draughtsman like C.H. Scott who worked for Waterhouse from 1859 to 1875 and chief clerk John Willey worked for Waterhouse from 1859 to 1865.

Under the supervision of one of the seniors a team would be assembled for each job, for example forty draughtsmen were involved at Manchester Town Hall, although it was usually below twenty at any given time. The drawings from 1858 were consistent in style throughout Waterhouse's career, it was a crisp style with strong lines with colour coding, buff red for brick, yellow for stone, brown for timber, blue for metal. Blueprints were introduced into the office in c.1890.

Waterhouse also employed his own quantity surveyor, from 1860 to 1875 this was Michael Robinson, though of the one hundred jobs he was involved in most were in the north. Waterhouse also sought reliable clerk of works, for example J. Battye, he worked on the Manchester Assize Courts, Yorkshire College and the Victoria Building University of Liverpool. Building contractors were vital in ensuring Waterhouse's designs were both soundly built and faithful to the design, he favoured firms like Parnell's of Rugby who built 16 of his buildings or Holland and Hannen who built 13 buildings. He often chose locally based building contractors like Stephens & Bastow of Reading for his buildings in the area.

Artists, suppliers and sub-contractors

Also of importance to the success of Waterhouse's architectural practice were good quality subcontractors, for example for stained-glass in his early career he favoured Lavers, Barraud and Westlake, whereas the more famous Clayton and Bell only received two orders from Waterhouse, later he preferred Heaton, Butler and Bayne. Frederic Shields designed the sixteen stained-glass windows in the Chapel at Eaton Hall as well as the accompanying mosaic decoration. Hardman & Co. was used occasionally for metalwork.

Many of Waterhouse's buildings include carving and sculpture, Thomas Earp was commissioned on about a dozen occasions most notably Harris's Bank Leighton Buzzard and St Elizabeth's Reddish. Farmer & Brindley were favoured for sculpture, working on nearly one hundred of Waterhouse's buildings, including a tombstone in West Norwood Cemetery, the pulpit in Stanmore Church and the extensive carving on Eaton Hall, plus all the models for the terracotta decoration on the Prudential Assurance buildings. The most famous artworks to adorn one of Waterhouse's buildings are The Manchester Murals, painted by Ford Madox Brown in the Great Hall at Manchester Town Hall.

The Waterhouse drawings collection

thumb|350px|left|Waterhouse's watercolour perspective of the Natural History Museum London 1876, in the collection of the V&A Museum. Note the side facadesthe east one is just visible on the rightwere never built.

The Royal Institute of British Architects Drawings Collection housed in the dedicated study room at Victoria and Albert Museum contains over 9,000 of the drawings from Waterhouse's practice. The collection covers pages from note-books up to metre square drawings, rough onsite sketches to highly finished watercolours perspectives of complete buildings. The drawings span Waterhouse's full career from the 1850s to 1901. Each finished drawing has two numbers normally in the top left corner: the first of upper number is the 'office number' that related to a now lost register in which the draughtsmen's time was recorded; the second number is the 'job number', records the sequence of drawings for an individual commission, against which charges for the client were calculated. Each of the completed drawings is also dated, some surviving sheets are either unnumbered or damaged. A smaller commission may have needed as few as fifty drawings. Most of the drawings are anonymous and thanks to the uniform style of production it is not possible to distinguish individuals, though some of the seniors in the office like G.T. Redmayne were allowed to initial drawings. In the very early years of his practice the lettering used on the drawings was Gothic, but this was abandoned by the mid-1860s for a plain script. Waterhouse was known for his ability to paint watercolour perspectives, sometimes they were produced for architectural competitions such as the entry for The Royal Courts of Justice competition and Manchester Town Hall, but based on their dates sometimes they were produced towards the end of the building process, most likely for publication. Some of the drawings were produced onsite with annotations by the clerk of works alerting the office staff to problems in the design, in a few cases the replies to these have survived. Some drawings were annotated by the client for example The Duke of Westminster queried the design of the screen in the Chapel at Eaton Hall. The collection allows a detailed picture of how the office functioned to be built up, although not unique for the period it is rare. None of the sets of drawings is complete and several of Waterhouse's commissions are no longer represented in the collection.

In addition to the collection at the RIBA, the Natural History Museum holds a significant quantity of drawings by Waterhouse relating to the design of the terracotta sculpture on the building. The 136 pages of drawings are bound together in two volumes and cover the period 1874 to 1878. The subject matter is not just flora, insects, fish, lizards, snakes and animals, some of extinct species, but ornament as well. Extinct species decorated the eastern side of the building internally and externally, living species likewise decorated the western half of the building as well as the North Hall and Main Hall.

The designs are for the sculpture on the top of the facade, gargoyles, column capitals, friezes, relief panels, lunettes, spandrels and other architectural features of the building, both external and internal. These drawings would be turned into the finished terracotta by Gibbs and Canning, who employed Brindley and Farmer and their employee a Frenchman M. Dujardin to do so.

Other institutions have holdings of Waterhouse drawings: the Public Record Office have drawings for the Natural History Museum; the Victoria and Albert Museum holds several of his perspective drawings; Manchester School of Architecture have drawings and perspectives of Manchester Town Hall and some of his other buildings; Balliol College, Oxford, drawings for his work at the College; The Waterhouse family still own some of his drawings, sketches and watercolours.

<gallery>

File:Manchester Town Hall Cross Section Drawing.jpg|Cross section through Manchester Town Hall for 1866 entry in the competition, note the use of colour coding, much faded with age

File:Manchester Town Hall working drawings.jpg|Working drawing for a Gothic oriel window on Manchester Town Hall c.1868, located on the first floor on the corner of Princess Street and Albert Square, it lights the Banqueting Room, judging by the damage this was almost certainly used on the building site

File:Waterhouse plan 3.jpg|Cross section of the tower of the Victoria Building University of Liverpool c.1887

File:Waterhouse Blackmoor church.jpg|Watercolour of the design for Blackmoor Parish Church 1870

File:Rochdale Clock Tower plan.jpg|The design for the Clock Tower at Rochdale Town Hall c.1885

File:Liverpool Royal Infirmary aerial view (14466134107).jpg|Aerial view of the design for Liverpool Royal Infirmary c.1886, the administration building is top left, the three blocks of medical wards on the right, visible are the two round structures containing the surgical wards, all are linked by the spine corridor

File:Girton College Water Colour.jpg|Watercolour Perspective of Girton College, painted by Waterhouse in 1887, at this date the buildings on the right with the gate-tower were under construction

</gallery>

Waterhouse as a planner of buildings

thumb|right|Plan of the Natural History Museum London 1881, showing the layout of the galleries on the main floor

Waterhouse has a lasting reputation as a planner of efficient buildings, he was adept at using awkward sites to advantage, and with his public buildings combining large and small rooms and circulation spaces in a coherent manner.

Part of Waterhouse's presidential address at the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1890 addresses the subject of planning buildings:

Building materials and service technology

thumb|left|Terracotta Gothic niche and statue of [[Prudence, Holborn Bars, above the main entrance arch on High Holborn c.1901, the statue is almost classical in style it was sculpted by F.M. Pomeroy]]

Waterhouse is well known for his use of terracotta and faience as a building material, one of the driving factors being its resistance to air pollution, an increasing problem as the industrial age advanced. He relied on Gibbs and Canning to supply the terracotta for the Natural History Museum, who he worked with to improve the quality of the material. He used Gibbs and Canning for Holborn Bars, though for the regional Prudential buildings terracotta from Ruabon was used. Waterhouse liked terracotta because of its versatility giving him control over the texture of his buildings. Waterhouse had this to say about irregularity in colouring found in terracotta:

He used terracotta in buildings of all styles from the Romanesque of the Natural History Museum, the Early English Gothic at Girton College, or the Perpendicular Gothic at St Paul's School Hammersmith, even neoclassical at the Parrot House Eaton Hall. When Burmantofts Pottery developed their process to produce faience in 1879 Waterhouse started using it for his interiors. Most notably at The Victoria Building, University of Liverpool; the Chapel, Royal Liverpool Infirmary; Yorkshire College; the National Liberal Club and the final phase of Holborn Bars. He especially liked to clad columns in faience, but walls and fireplaces as well. He also made much use of glazed tiles and terracotta within buildings, for example in the corridors at Manchester Town Hall.

He was fairly cautious in the use of cast iron, a result of a problem with the market building at Darlington, his only known building failure. On the opening day the floor gave way, pitching two prize bulls and a spectator into the basement. The problem was traced to a faulty casting and Waterhouse was exonerated of any blame. This left him distrustful of the material, though he did use it in his designs. When using the material he used either Andrew Handyside and Company or J.S. Bergheim, both of whom supplied the iron for Manchester Town Hall. He was more at home using decorative wrought iron, especially for balustrades, iron screens and gates, finials and other decorative uses of the material.

Waterhouse was a great enthusiast for the use of brick, especially as the abolition of the Brick tax in 1850 had lowered the price of the material. Until the early 1870s much of Waterhouse's brickwork was polychrome in nature using decoration such as diapering, later he preferred plain brick often with dressings of contrasting material. His sketchbooks are full of details of brickwork on the continent. He never used coloured tiles on his roofs but occasionally designed patterned slate roofs, as on Manchester Town Hall. He also enjoyed using stone, he delivered a lecture on the subject at the Royal Academy of Art in 1885. He used polychromatic stonework at Manchester Assize Courts. His timber work is characterised by its solidity and large size of the members.

Generally he provided open fires to heat his buildings, in Manchester Town Hall he used a Plenum space heating system, distributing hot air up the stairwells. From the 1880s he increasingly used electric light instead of gas lighting he used in his earlier buildings, he also introduced lifts and Plenum heating and ventilation. Buildings that have Waterhouse designed furniture include Manchester Town Hall, both the grand rooms and the office areas; classroom desks at Reading Grammar School; office furniture for the Prudential Assurance offices and the National Liberal Club. He preferred simple sturdy designs for his furniture.

For eighteen of his buildings including Manchester Town Hall, he used the contractor Robert Pollitt to execute the painted decoration. Extensive correspondence survives between Waterhouse and Minton's and Maw's about patterns and colours that their tiles came in, both for floors and walls.

When it came to fireplaces Waterhouse usually designed them in timber, but in his grander buildings like Manchester Town Hall and Eaton Hall he used stone and marble. The most important have elaborate carved decoration. He also often designed fireplace mantels. Often there is a hierarchy of design, in his Refuge Assurance Building in Manchester, for instance, polished stone and timber in the boardroom, faience in the public offices and simpler designs for the managers and clerks offices. The Manchester Town Hall fireplaces contain tiling in the fireplace, some with medieval designs, others classical designs, Turkish designs and Japanese in the Mayor's Suite.

Staircase balustrades in his domestic work were usually either timber or iron often with elaborate designs, he preferred iron, faience or stone in his public buildings. He also designed light fittings such as the large gasoliers in the Great Hall at Manchester Town Hall. He designed grilles and screens such as those on his staircase at Balliol College, Oxford. Floors of terrazzo or mosaic are common in circulation spaces of his public buildings. His early ceiling designs tended to have ceiling roses by J.W. Hindshaw, usually of bold geometric design. Later he tended to pattern the whole ceiling with simple ribs. Rarely did he design painted ceilings, Manchester Town Hall, Eaton Hall and the Main and North halls at the Natural History Museum, being exceptions. Waterhouse had this to say in his 1891 Presidential address at the RIBA about stained glass:

In domestic and public buildings he preferred glass in muted greys and pinks of simple geometric patterns, he rarely uses heraldic or narrative designs, Eaton Hall was an exception with the Arthurian Scenes. When he used figured glass he would turn to designers like Heaton, Butler and Bayne, or his friend Frederic Shield, who designed windows at Eaton Hall Chapel, for the restoration of St Ann's Church, Manchester, the chapel at Coodham in Scotland and St Elizabeth's Reddish. Waterhouse took interior design seriously, liking to control the overall look, this is why he liked using faience, in his 1890 presidential address at the RIBA he had this to say:

At Gonville and Caius, out of deference to the Renaissance treatment of the older parts of the college, this Gothic element was intentionally mingled with classic detail, the steep roofs are reminiscent of French Renaissance buildings. He returned to Gonville and Caius in 1883 to add a new lecture theatre block. In (1868–70) Waterhouse added to Jesus College, Cambridge a new three-storey range of undergraduate rooms, in red brick with stone dressings in style matching the existing Tudor buildings. He also restored the Master's Lodge and added a new gateway. At Trinity Hall, Cambridge (1870–73) he added the East range of the South Court, housing sets of rooms over four floors. At Pembroke College, Cambridge, with a generous budget of £70,000 (over £8,000,000 in 2019) he added the new Master's Lodge (1871–73) and South Range known as the Red Buildings (1871–72), he used a French Gothic style for the buildings. They are of red brick with stone dressings. He went on to design the new Hall in (1875–79), fellows' sets and a new library (1877–78), with its bold clock tower. In (1878–80) the Oxford Union commissioned an extension from Waterhouse, consisting of a new debating hall.

A year later she wrote again to Richardson:

Waterhouse revised the design, working on the main elevation and tower throughout 1868 and 1869, as late as July 1875 well into the construction of the building Waterhouse revised the main tower design to add an extra 16 feet to its height. In the Town Hall Waterhouse showed a firmer and more original handling of the Gothic style. Built 1868-77, the building would cost £521,357 (over £60,000,000 in 2019) but with the purchase cost of land, furnishings and fees the total cost was £859,000 (over £99,000,000 in 2019) making it Waterhouse's most expensive building. The building was opened on 13 September 1877, overseen by the Mayor of Manchester Abel Heywood, who was the driving force behind the building of the new Town Hall.

The main facade to Albert Square is 328 feet long, the tower is 285 feet high. The building is an irregular quadrilateral in plan, the Princess Street facade is 388 feet wide, the Cooper Street facade is 94 feet wide, the facade on Lloyd street, is 350 feet wide. The main entrance is in the centre of the Albert Square facade below the tower, a low vestibule leads to the main staircases with two branches sweeping up to the landing outside the Great Hall. The main rooms are along the first floor overlooking Albert Square, these are the Banqueting Room, Reception Room, Lobby below the tower, Mayor's Parlour, Ante-Room and Council Chamber. The site of the building is essential a triangle with a truncated tip, the Public Hall sits in the middle of the site surrounded by three small courtyards, with a corridor running along all three sides, with the offices and main rooms facing the outside streets. Where each corridor meets is a circular staircase linking all floors, two further staircases are placed one each in the middle of the two long corridors running behind the offices on the Princess Street and Lloyd Street fronts. The ground floor originally included a police station with cells, fire station and post office, accessed from Lloyd Street.

In the 17 October 1874 issue of the Builder was the following review of the building, described as:

Writing in the book published in 1878 to celebrate the opening of Manchester Town Hall, An Architectural and General Description of the Town Hall Manchester edited by E.A. Axon, the following description of the building's style is given:

The building is faced in Spinkwell stone chosen for its ability to resist damage from pollution, though the core and inner part of the walls are built of yellow brick, the roof is of slate. Hopton Wood stone is used internally for example for chimneypieces. Numerous contractors, craftsmen and artists were involved in the construction of the building. Those contractors involved in the physical structure of the building were: the foundations were dug by firm of Thomas Clay; the superstructure was built by the building firm of George Smith; fireproof construction was the responsibility of Dennett & Co.; structural steelwork was provided by J.S. Bergheim and Andrew Handyside and Company; the heating and ventilation of the building was the responsibility of Dennett & Company. Certain features of the building were designed by specialists: the clock in the main tower was designed by Gillett & Bland and the bells in the tower were cast by John Taylor & Co. The organ in the Great Hall was built by Aristide Cavaillé-Coll. The Hydraulic hoists were designed and installed by Edward T. Bellhouse & Co. When it came to the decoration and furnishing of the building, multiple firms, designers and artists were involved. Gibbs and Canning provided terracotta used internally as wall cladding. Ceramic tiling for walls and floors were by Craven Dunnill & Co, W. Godwin and W.B. Simpson. The stone carving internally and externally was by Farmer and Brindley. Mosaic flooring was laid by J.Rust. Marble flooring was installed W.H. Burke and company. The painted decoration, mainly ceilings, including the great hall, vestibule and corridors was painted by Heaton, Butler & Bayne, R. Pollitt and Best & Lea. The simple stained glass used throughout the building was created by F.T. Odell. The decorative iron work was produced by Francis Skidmore, R. Jones, and Hart, Son, Peard and Co. The chimneypieces were made by the Hopton Wood Stone Co.. Furniture & wooden fittings were made by Doveston, Bird & Hull and H. Capel. The curtains in the main rooms were designed by R.E. Holding and made by the Royal School of Needlework. The Murals in the Great Hall were painted by Ford Madox Brown. The large number of contractors involved show the sheer complexity involved in coordinating the project, the clerk of works who was in charge of the building site was K.J. Osbourne. However a change of government meant plans were put on hold for eighteen months, in March 1868 Waterhouse submitted a new design, but the government changed again and the new First Commissioner Austen Henry Layard wanted the museum to be built in a new location on the Thames Embankment, but another change of First Commissioner Acton Smee Ayrton, switched the site back to the original site on Cromwell Road, he also cut the budget from £500,000 to £330,000 (about £39,000,000 in 2019). As late as 1911-13 plans were produced to complete the east and west facades, but the outbreak of World War I prevented its execution.

Finally in spring 1873 work began on the building, the contractors who worked on the building were for the general construction of the building G. Baker & G. Shaw and Mowlem, with the structural iron work being manufactured by J.S. Bergheim, all the terracotta used was manufactured by the firm of Gibbs and Canning. The Museum opened to the public in April 1881, only two years before the director and driving force behind the museum Richard Owen retired. The design which marks an epoch in the modern use of architectural terracotta and which was to become his best-known work. The eventual cost of the building was £412,000 (roughly £47,000,000 in 2019). But by the time the costs of the fittings were added the total cost was £549,045 (approx £63,000,000 in 2019) with additional expenditure of £7,200 in 1882 when the Spirit Room (where animal specimens were preserved in spirit) was built as a separate building, it has been demolished, and £2,500 in 1884 for two entrance lodges to the grounds. The style of the building is Romanesque Revival architecture, and is especially influenced by German buildings, notably The Liebfrauen Kirche, Andernach and Worms Cathedral. The main facade is 750 feet in length. The Magazine of Art, vol 4, 1881 p36 described the style of the Museum:

The distinctive features of the building's facade are the end pavilions with their octagonal attic towers supporting steep roofs, and the twin towers 190 feet high flanking the arched main entrances. Entering through the main doors, these are reached via an exterior staircase. The visitor passes from the Entrance Hall beneath the arch supporting the main staircase from the 1st to the 2nd floor, ahead on the end wall of the main hall, lies the main staircase imperial in form, rising from the ground to the first floor. The Main Hall has a gallery at first floor level running down both its flanks, that links the two parts of the main staircases. Immediately north of the Main Hall is the North Hall. Although Romanesque in style, the drama is more akin to Baroque architecture. The front part of the building has three floors of public galleries. Flanking the Main Hall on each side are three large top lit galleries, the large galleries are separated from each other by narrower galleries. The roofs of these single floor galleries is the same form as the Main and North Halls, the lower half of the slope is glass the upper solid. All the ground floor galleries open to the south off an east-west corridor that links them to the Main Hall. Leading off the corridors are links to the ground floor galleries along the Museum's main facade.

The interior and exterior also has much decorative and sculptural terracotta. The Museum's Director Richard Owen provided advice on animals living and extinct that Waterhouse could use in the decoration. The Waterhouse drawings for all the terracotta decoration in and on the building were converted to three dimensional clay models by a Frenchman by the name of M. Du Jardin, who worked as a foreman for Farmer and Brindley, who also carved and installed the marble window sills in the Museum. These clay models were then used to make moulds from Plaster-of-Paris, these moulds were then used to create the actual terracotta sculptures by Gibbs and Canning, the same sculpture is often used multiple times to decorate the Museum. The east wing of the museum has terracotta sculptures of extinct creatures, the central block and west wing of living species. The ceilings of the Main Hall and of the North Hall are decorated with paintings of plants. It is likely that the Museum's Keeper of Botany William Carruthers provided guidance and plant specimens for Waterhouse to base his designs on. The plants that decorate the Main Hall are from right across the Globe, the North Hall is decorated with paintings of native British plants. The Waterhouse drawings were converted into full size paintings by the Manchester firm of Best & Lea. The decorative ceramic tile-work was manufactured by W.B. Simpson & Sons Ltd. The simple stained glass was executed by F.T. Odell, designed by Waterhouse in his preferred light colours. It is either geometrical or based on a botanical theme. The decorative ironwork, for example the cresting on the roofs and the railings around the Museum, was executed by Hart, Son, Peard and Co.

Eaton Hall

thumb|300px|left|Eaton Hall (1869-83), Entrance front in 1907, demolished 1961-63 apart from the chapel, on the right is the Library wing with its own squatter tower with pyramidal roof, just visible in the middle is the [[porte-cochère and the elaborate French-style steeply pitched roofs with tourelles of the main building]]

thumb|300px|left|Eaton Hall, Garden front c.1880, demolished apart from the chapel and stable court, the main rooms with bedrooms above on the left, in the centre is the servants wing with chapel rising above, on the right the private wing, the surviving stable court is out of view behind and to the right of the private wing

The most important domestic building of Waterhouse's career was Eaton Hall in Cheshire, built for the richest man in Britain Hugh Grosvenor, 1st Duke of Westminster. He was commissioned in 1869 and work was completed in 1883. This Gothic mansion was the most expensive domestic commission of the Victorian age by 1883 £740,550 (approx £85,100,000 in 2019). There was later expenditure on the buildings, in 1884-91 of £3,725 and in 1898-99 of £1,120 (in total approx £600,000 in 2019).

Waterhouse had to completely remodel and extended the current house. Work began with the new library wing to the south of the building, the library was 90 by 30 feet, followed by a new billiard room and wing containing bedrooms for bachelor guests to the north-west, new bedrooms were added above the existing state rooms, and a separate private wing built to the north-east, the stable yard behind the Chapel was built between 1877 and 1879. The large new Chapel with its 185-foot tall clock tower that also contains a carillon, is along with the stable court the only part of the building surviving. The house contained 190 rooms. The servants' wing contained a double-height kitchen that was 55 by 25 feet. Running through the building from the Library at the southern end to the chapel at the northern was a corridor 330 feet in length, at its southern end rose the Grand Staircase. Built from stone lined with granite columns and stone arches. The balustrade unusually for a staircase in a Waterhouse house, was also of stone. The corridor then opened out into the entrance hall and saloon, both rooms were heighten to two floors. Passing on through the new service wing, until it met the corridor linking the Chapel to the large new private wing. At roughly 100 feet square, this in itself was as large as a country house. The building incorporated the latest in Victorian technology. Although all the main rooms had fireplaces there is a central heating and ventilation system that was installed by G.N. Haden. There were goods lifts, thirty-three toilets and eight bathrooms. Initially gas was used for lighting and cooking, but electric light was installed in 1887. A narrow-gauge railway was laid in 1896 to link the Hall with the Great Western Railway sidings at Balderton, Cheshire.

Attached to the house to the north of the Chapel are the surviving stables, stretching over three hundred feet in length. These are formed around two courtyards, the larger with the stables proper and in its centre is a bronze statue of a rearing horse being restrained by a man, sculpted by Joseph Edgar Boehm. The stables have heated stalls. The arch in the north range, flanked by octagonal towers with conical roofs, leads into the second smaller courtyard. This is surrounded by the Carriage houses of red brick, plainer in style than the stables. The courtyard is roofed with a cast-iron and glass roof. There is also a riding hall. The buildings are of red brick with and half-timbered, a mixture of French gothic and Tudor style. Even the latches and hinges of the doors are of polished brass, these are some of the largest and most richly appointed country house stables of the Victorian period.

thumb|left|The Gothic Chapel, Eaton Hall, plain solid [[buttressed walls, with its steeply pitched roof of plain slates, the window tracery is simple in design, this contrasts with the elaborately decorated termination to the tower, the clock face and the stage above it have stripes of red stone running in bands around them ]]

The interiors were all remodelled using sumptuous and costly materials and furnishings, much use being made of various coloured marbles and alabaster in carved fireplaces, columns and other features, rich marble mosaic work on the floors, in the Library there was walnut panelling inlaid with boxwood and mother of pearl. The decoration of the interiors was the responsibility of many craftspeople: Heaton, Butler and Bayne designed both armorial stained-glass and six illustrating Alfred, Lord Tennyson's Idylls of the King; Gertrude Jekyll designed the tapestry panels on the staircase, woven at the Royal School of Needlework; Henry Stacy Marks painted murals of the Pilgrims from The Canterbury Tales on the walls of the Saloon; decorative ceramic tiles were by William De Morgan; Farmer & Brindley were responsible for the extensive carving inside and out in the building. Although the furniture in the house was largely that used in the previous building additional furniture and furnishings were provided by the firm of Best & Lea. Alabaster is used in the font, the low screen separating the chancel from the nave, the reredos and pulpit. The pews with seating for about one hundred people and the choir stalls are carved from walnut. The reredos was designed by William Morris and installed in 1893. Housed above the vestry that connects the Chapel to the clock tower, is the organ of 1881, designed by Charles Whiteley & Co. The clock in the tower was by Messrs Gillett & Co. the four faces being nine feet eight inches in diameter, the accompanying twenty-eight bells and carillon were by Van Aerschodt, the largest bell weighing fifty hundredweight. John Stainer composed tunes for the carillon. Building News magazine reviewed the water-colour perspective for the chapel in their May 1875 edition:

Waterhouse designed several of the buildings and lodges on the Eaton Hall estate, the rare for Waterhouse, use of the Neoclassical style in the Parrot House (1881–83), circular in plan, built of bright yellow terracotta supplied by J.C. Edwards (Ruabon) Ltd, the interior also of terracotta is decorated with griffins and caryatids, although heated it was never actually used as was intended to house parrots. Also in a classical style is the Temple (c.1880), of three arches flanked by Ionic columns, built to house an ancient Roman altar. He adapted the Golden Gates by the Davies brothers of Bersham, having Skidmores extend them at the sides and designed the two lodges (1880) flanking the gates, this used to face the main entrance to the Waterhouse mansion. The North Lodge (1881) to the Eaton Hall Estate was also Waterhouse's, it is a four-storey round tower with a conical roof, in the style of late medieval French chateau.

<gallery>

File:Stables 2.jpg|Stables, Eaton Hall, is directly north of the Chapel, in red brick, showing French late Gothic influence and the use of Tudor style half-timbering in the upper storey in the flanking ranges

File:Parrot House 1.jpg|Parrot House, in the grounds of Eaton Hall, a very rare example of Waterhouse designing a neo-classical building, also the use of bright yellow terracotta is atypical

</gallery>

National Liberal Club

thumb|right|Entrance front, National Liberal Club, London (1884-87) note the doorway with its Italian renaissance design, the thin tower just visible on the left contains the secondary staircase

thumb|right|The National liberal Club, the tower houses the secondary staircase, to the left is the terrace with the billiard room beneath, to the right the lowest row of windows lights the original Smoking Room, above is the former Writing Room (now the Smoking Room), the next level is the Gladstone Library, these are double height spaces, the upper four floors are bedrooms

One of the Waterhouse's significant public buildings in London is the National Liberal Club (1884–87) a Gentlemen's club, it is a study in Renaissance composition. He himself belonged to the Liberal Party and his brother Theodore was solicitor to the club. It was built on a key site overlooking Whitehall Gardens and Victoria Embankment. The budget was a generous £200,000 (about £23,000,000 in 2019) of which £169,950 was spent on the building. The club members had decided they wanted the building in an Italian Classic style. The Builder magazine trying to describe in issue xlvii of 1885 the style of the building had this to say:

The site was on an awkward corner, being trapezoidal in shape. The design had to incorporate both several large rooms and the largest number of members' bedrooms in any London Club, well over a hundred. The building is clad in Portland stone at the insistence of the Crown Estate, owners of the land. The entrance hall leads to the main staircase, elliptical in plan, originally it was based on the Bramante Staircase in the Vatican, but damaged by bombing in World War II it was rebuilt as a cantilevered stair, though the marble balustrade is close to the original. The main staircase is at the centre of the building and the other rooms are designed around it. The lower flight leads down to the original double height Smoking Room that is entered from the basement, where the extensive wine cellars were. The Smoking Room has faience covered walls, Ionic columns and ceiling, easy to clean nicotine stains off, the ceilings in the rest of the building are plaster. The rest of the entrance level known as the lower ground floor is taken up with a reception lobby, cloak rooms, billiard room and other ancillary spaces. The next floor up, the upper ground floor, contains the Grill Room overlooking Whitehall Place, the main dining room overlooking the Embankment, the Writing Room that overlooks Northumberland Avenue, these are all double height rooms. The terrace outside the dining room runs the full length of the building and is above the former billiards room on the lower floor, this contained six full sized billiard tables. The main staircase rise to the first floor where it ends, this floor contains more public rooms, including the Reading Room overlooking the Embankment, with the Gladstone Library next door that overlooks Northumberland Avenue, the walls are lined by two levels of book cases the upper reached from a gallery running around the room, with an iron work balustrade. There used to be 35,000 books on the shelves, these were sold to the University of Bristol in 1975 and have been replaced by fake book spines.

The roof of the building is influenced by French Renaissance buildings such as Château de Chambord. The building also incorporated other advanced features, the use of electric lighting, the provision of hydraulic lifts, and sewage disposal systems, the use of dropped ceilings in the main rooms allowed space for the ventilation system, the air for which was cleansed by high pressure water jets before being circulated through the rooms. Additionally the building had a large number of bathrooms and toilets. Much decorative use is made internally of faience of varying colours to clad columns and other features. The major rooms are all lined by rows of columns along their walls, each room having a slightly different style of column and colour of faience cladding. The original main staircase used a variety of different types of marbles for the balustrade and Tuscan columns that use to support it. Waterhouse also designed most of the furniture and furnishings.

Several contractors were involved in the building's construction, the foundations were dug and laid by Henry Lovatt; general construction of the buildings superstructure was by William Southern; structural steel-work was installed by W.H. Lindsay; the fireproofing was installed by Dennett & Ingle; the heating and ventilation system was designed and installed by W.W. Phipson and electric lighting was installed by the Edison and Swan Electric Light Company. When it came to the decoration and furnishing, the contractors involved were, the stone carving mainly on the exterior of the building was by Farmer and Brindley, and C. Smith; the faience decoration, used extensively internally, was manufactured by Wilcock & Co.; the interior tiling was provided by Carter Johnson & Co.; mosaic flooring was installed by J.F. Ebner & Son; chimney-pieces were manufactured by the Hopton Wood Stone Co, with fire grates provided by D.O. Boyd; the decorative ironwork was forged by Hart, Son, Peard and Co.; the ornamental plaster-work was the work of G. Jackson; furniture and furnishings were manufactured by Morris & Norton, W. James & Co., Maple & Co., who also provided the carpets for the building. The clerk of works for the building was Thomas Warburton. Since 1985 the Club has only used the Upper Ground Floor the rest of the building is now part of The Royal Horseguards Hotel.

Prudential Assurance Company

thumb|left|Holborn Bars, High Holborn, London (1897–1901), Waterhouse's largest and most expensive commercial building, Gothic, using the standard design grey granite lower walls, red brick with red terracotta decoration

thumb|left|Prudential Assurance, Newcastle (1891-97) grey granite base with brick and stone walls

The Prudential Assurance Company founded in 1848, was growing rapidly by the 1870s, and adopted a policy of constructing custom-built offices with speculative office development Waterhouse's first commission for the company were the headquarters building the first phase of Holborn Bars (1876–79) on the corner of Brooke Street (this phase was replaced in 1932) built on the site of Furnival's Inn, initially the capacity was for 500 clerks. The building would expand in three more phases up to 1901 by which time it filled the entire block. Phase 2 (1885–88) extensions on Brooke Street and Greville Street, phase 3 (1895) the north range of the main courtyard, phase 4 (1897–1901) was the main entrance block along High Holburn, this contains the grand interiors that use Burmantoft's faience the elaborate Directors' Staircase has mosaic and terrazzo floors, it leads to the first floor board room with elaborate wood panelling. This final phase resulted in a building with a footprint of 2.5 acres, and used 1,500 tons of steel framing provided by Handyside. The steel columns allowed open interiors. The columns were clad in faience. The most opulent of the offices were the Cashiers Office and Public Office located on the ground floor behind the main facade.

thumb|left|Prudential Assurance, Nottingham (1893–98) grey granite base, red brick and terracotta walls, the decoration is more elaborate than normal

The cost of the phases were: phase 1 £144,940, phase 2 £20,455 plus £6,765 for alterations to the existing building; phases 3 & 4 £150,155, (in total approx £37,000,000 in 2019). The contractors for the building work were Holland & Hannen; structural steel work by J.S. Bergheim; heating and ventilation by W.W. Phipson & D.O. Boyd; the terracotta was manufactured by Gibbs & Canning; granite stonework was laid by Farmer & Brindley, who in conjunction with F. W. Pomeroy, also provided the models for the terracotta decoration, namely the frieze of cherubs that runs around the building below the first floor windows and the decoration and statue over the entrance arch; ceramic tiles by W.B. Simpson; the decorative faience tiles were by Burmantofts, used in the entrance halls, on the main staircase and in the offices used by members of the public; the chimney-pieces were provided by W.H. Burks; internal decoration was by L. Liberty & Co.; furniture and fittings were manufactured by H, Capel, Glouster Wagon Company, and Maple & Co.; decorative ironwork was manufactured by Hart Son Peard & Co. The Building News of 8 April 1878 described the new building:

thumb|left|Prudential Assurance, Edinburgh (1895–99) this is the design he used only in Scotland, grey granite base with sandstone walls

Between 1876 and 1901 he would go onto design buildings for the Prudential not just their headquarters but a further twenty-one offices at towns and cities throughout Britain, Paul Waterhouse would design further buildings for the company after his father retired. The buildings were built to a standard form, with polished grey granite base, most are built from hard red terracotta and brick, Newcastle and Glasgow use stone and brick. while Edinburgh and Dundee use stone. Leeds used light coloured terracotta and red brick. All the buildings had elaborate roofs with gables and many have towers or turrets. The interiors have typical faience clad walls and columns in the public offices and managers offices. The statue of Prudence above the main entrance to the Nottingham building was modelled by F.W. Pomeroy. The bright red terracotta used on many of the regional buildings was manufactured by J.C. Edwards of Ruabon.

This is a chronological list of Prudential Offices outside London designed by Waterhouse:

  • Liverpool, Dale Street, (1885–88) cost £15,360, was extended in 1904-06 by Paul Waterhouse
  • Manchester, King Street, (1886–89, the gables and roof have been removed and replaced by a plain parapet and a recessed top floor) cost £8,230
  • Portsmouth, Guildhall Walk. (1886–93) cost £20,356
  • Glasgow, corner of Renfield Street and West Regent Street, (1888–93) cost £30,040
  • Birmingham (1889–92, demolished) alterations (1895–96), cost £16,390 and £625
  • Bolton, corner of Nelson Square and Bradshawgate, (1889), cost unknown (the ground floor has been redesigned to serve as a shop, and the roofline has been simplified)
  • Leeds, Park Row, (1890–94) alterations (1895), cost £44,785 and £790
  • Cardiff, Saint Mary Street, (1891–94) alterations (1895), cost £8,375 and £100 (the ground floor has been completely redesigned to serve as a shop)
  • Newcastle, Mosley Street, (1891–97) alterations (1898–1900) cost £37,155 and £1,090
  • Leicester (1892–96, demolished), cost unknown
  • Bradford, Ivegate, (1893–96) cost £19,070
  • Nottingham, junction of Queen Street and King Street (1893–98) cost £28,730
  • Dundee, Meadowside, (1895–98) cost £15,475
  • Edinburgh, Saint Andrew's Square, (1895–99) cost £31,155
  • Sheffield, Pinstone Street, (1895–98) cost £20,820
  • Oldham, Union Street, (1898) cost £20,225
  • Bristol, Clare Street, (1899–1901) cost £15,000
  • Huddersfield, corner of New Street and Ramsden Street, (1899–1901) £7,995 (the ground floor has been completely redesigned to serve as a shop)
  • Plymouth (1899–1903, demolished during post-war rebuilding of the city centre) cost £7,500
  • Hull, Queen Victoria Street, (1901–03, destroyed in World War II) cost £24,525
  • Southampton, Above Bar Street, (1901–04) cost £21,815.

In 1901 Waterhouse designed Staple Inn Buildings on High Holburn, for the Prudential, it is nearly opposite Holburn Bars. Built as extra chambers for the Company. Waterhouse wanted to use buff terracotta as more sympathetic to Staple Inn next door, but the Company insisted that he stick with the house style of red brick and terracotta. The roof is of slate. Its five floors high, plus rooms in the attic. Built by Holland & Hannen at a cost of £29,305.

After Waterhouse announced his retirement, the board of the Prudential wrote to Paul Waterhouse to say: