St George's Hall is a building on St George's Place, opposite Lime Street railway station in the centre of Liverpool, England. Opened in 1854, it is a Neoclassical building which contains concert halls and law courts, and is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building. On the east side of the hall, between it and the railway station, is St George's Plateau and on the west side are St John's Gardens. The hall is included in the William Brown Street conservation area.
In 1969 the architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner expressed his opinion that it is one of the finest neo-Grecian buildings in the world, although the building is known for its use of Roman sources as well as Greek. In 2004, the hall and its surrounding area were recognised as part of Liverpool's World Heritage Site until its revocation of World Heritage status in 2021. The Liverpool Register Office and Coroner's Court have been based in the hall since 2012.
History
The site of the hall was formerly occupied by the first Liverpool Infirmary from 1749 to 1824. Triennial music festivals were held in the city but there was no suitable hall to accommodate them. Following a public meeting in 1836 a company was formed to raise subscriptions for a hall in Liverpool to be used for the festivals, and for meetings, dinners and concerts. Shares were made available at £25 each and by January 1837 £23,350 () had been raised. In 1838 the foundation stone was laid to commemorate the coronation of Queen Victoria. By July more than eighty entries had been received, and the competition was won by Harvey Lonsdale Elmes, a London architect aged 25 years, the second prize went to George Alexander of London. The requirement was:
:"There is to be accommodation in the main hall for 3000 persons; and there is also to be a concert room, capable of accommodating 1000 persons, applicable to other purposes such as lectures and smaller meetings....the cost of the building will be £35,000" The eventual cost of the building exceeded £300,000 The Crown Court moved to the new Law Courts in Derby Square in 1984.
During the 2000s a major restoration of the hall took place costing £23m and it was officially reopened on 23 April 2007 by Prince Charles.
Structure
Plan
thumb|The northern end of St George's Hall
The Great Hall (also known as the Concert Hall) is the largest room, rectangular in shape, and occupies the centre of the building with an organ on its north wall. Two long corridors flank the east and west walls of the Great Hall. To the north of the Concert Hall is the Civil Court and beyond this is the North Entrance Hall; above this, reached by two staircases, is the elliptical Small Concert Room. To the south of the Great Hall is the Crown Court, beyond this is the South Entrance Hall above which reached by two staircases is the Grand Jury Room. In the middle of the west front is the Law Library, to the north of this is the Vice-Chancellor's Court, to the south of the Law Library is the Sheriff's Court. The floor below consists of a cavernous basement with cells for prisoners along the west wall.
Exterior
The main entrance is in the centre of the east façade and is approached by a wide flight of steps.
The south front has an octastyle portico (eight columns wide), two columns deep, on steps above a rusticated podium. On the south portico entablature is a classical Latin inscription using V where U would now be used, that reads ‘ARTIBVS LEGIBVS CONSILIIS LOCVM MVNICIPES CONSTITVERVNT ANNO DOMINI MDCCCXLI’ (For Arts, Law and Counsel the townspeople built this place in 1841).
The tympanum in the pediment above the south portico once contained sculptures of Britannia enthroned at the centre protecting agriculture and the arts and offering an olive branch to the four quarters of the globe, carved by William Nicholl;
thumb|center|350px|Cockerell's design of the southern sculptured pediment of St George's Hall
The completed sculpture has the following written description: