Patrick Comerford
Book shops, yes. Coffee shops, yes. Greek or Italian food shops, most times. Wine shops and bread shops, generally. Antique or curio shops, sometimes. But that’s too long a list. Most of the time, I have a strong aversion to shopping. Even when I need to go shopping. Shopping for food, clothes or furniture is a necessity and functional, but seldom if ever a pleasure.
Perhaps I may soon have to admit to exceptions. On the other hand, I admit to particular aversions to big department stores and brand names. So, for example, I have never in my life been inside the doors of Harrods or of Fortnum and Mason, and I don’t think I’m missing out on anything.
I appreciate 19th century arcades, from Paris, Milan and Brussels to London, Birmingham and Norwich. But, while I have visited them to appreciate their architectural beauty, that does not mean I have gone shopping in any one of them.
Some days ago, when we were visiting west London, Charlotte suggested I would enjoy Liberty’s, a well-known luxury department store on Great Marlborough Street, off Regent Street and close to Oxford Street, not to go shopping, but to see its architecture and its interior. And she was right – the experience became an interesting afternoon.
The vast mock-Tudor building spans from Carnaby Street in the east to Kingly Street in the west, where it forms a three-storey archway over the northern entrance to the Kingly Street mall. At the centre of the archway is the Liberty Clock.
Liberty’s is a vast shop known for its close connections to art and culture, artists and designers, and it is celebrated for its print fabrics. The shop sells men’s, women’s and children’s fashion, beauty and homewares from a mix of high-end and emerging brands and labels, and is known for promoting the work young, emerging designers.
Liberty’s has a history of collaborative projects – from William Morris and Dante Gabriel Rossetti in the 19th century to Yves Saint Laurent and Dame Vivienne Westwood in the 20th century.
The business was started 150 years ago in 1875 in by Arthur Lasenby Liberty (1843-1917). He was born in Chesham, Buckinghamshire and began working with Farmer & Rogers in Regent Street in 1862, the year of the International Exhibition. He decided to start his own business in 1874, and with a £2,000 loan from his future father-in-law in 1875, he took a lease of half a shop at 218a Regent Street with three staff members. The shop sold ornaments, fabric and objets d’art, especially from Japan and the Far East. Within 18 months, he had repaid the loan and acquired the second half of 218 Regent Street.
As his business grew, Liberty bought and added neighbouring properties. In 1884, he introduced the costume department, directed by Edward William Godwin (1833-1886), an architect and a founding member of the Costume Society. Together, Godwin and Liberty created in-house apparel to challenge the fashions of Paris.
Liberty acquired 142-144 Regent Street as the Eastern Bazaar in 1885 to sell carpets and furniture, and he named the property Chesham House after his home town. Later that year, Liberty brought 42 villagers from India to stage a living village of Indian artisans.
He encouraged many English designers in the 1890s, including Archibald Knox. Many of these designers worked in the Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau styles and Liberty’s became associated with the Art Nouveau style, to the extent that in Italy Art Nouveau became known as the Stile Liberty.
Liberty’s Tudor revival building on Great Marlborough Street was first built so that Liberty could continue trading continue while his other premises were being renovations.
The shop was designed in 1922 by Edwin Thomas Hall (1851-1923) and his son Edwin Stanley Hall (1881-1940). The father ET Hall is known primarily for his design of Liberty’s, but he also designed the Old Library at Dulwich College (1902-1903) and several hospitals, and the flats designed by his large practice included Sloane Mansions in Sloane Square and Saint Ermin’s Mansions, later Saint Ermin’s Hotel in Westminster.
Hall was a vice-president of the Royal Institute of British Architects and was an active participant in drawing up the institute’s charter in 1887. He was known as ‘Bye law Hall’ because of his incisive legal mind and for the major part he played in drafting and updating the London Building Acts in the 1890s. He also provided the initial concept for the Sunray Gardens Estate. This advanced concept advocated a garden city layout with innovative integral community facilities.
The Halls designed Liberty’s at the height of the 1920s fashion for Tudor revival architecture. Although the landowner, the Crown Estate, required all buildings on Regent Street to be in a classical style, Hall built the black and white timber Elizabethan-style frontage of Liberty’s so that it was facing onto Great Marlborough Street instead.
The mock Tudor style was designed by the Hall around Arthur Liberty’s ideas. Both Liberty and Hall died before the shops were completed: Arthur Liberty died in 1917, Hall died aged 72 on 15 April 1923; and the shops were completed in 1924.
The timber for the outside façade came from two old wooden sailing ships: HMS Impregnable and HMS Hindustan. The frontage on Great Marlborough Street is the same length as the Hindustan.
Three light wells form the main internal focus of the building. Each of these wells was surrounded by smaller rooms to create a homely atmosphere. Many of the rooms had fireplaces and some of these are still in place.
A series of miniature glass paintings in the windows in among the wood-panelling was taken straight from the captain’s quarters. Carved wooden animals are hidden around the store, especially on the third floor central atrium.
The longest chandelier in Europe is best appreciated fully on the back stairs from the fourth floor down or the lower ground floor up.
The gilded copper weathervane represents The Mayflower taking migrants to the New World in 1620 – it is more than 4 ft high and weighs over 112 lb.
The Halls also designed the Liberty Clock, which was completed 100 years ago in 1925 and is almost as well-known as the shop building. It protrudes from the three-storey archway that spans the north end of the Kingly Street mall and is part of the west end of the Liberty department store.
The clock face is round and slightly recessed into the stonework. It is a deep blue in colour and is decorated by concentric gold bands on either side of the numbering that runs around the perimeter of the face. A ion of the radiant sun in gold fills the bulk of the centre of the face. The clock is numbered with golden, radially oriented Roman numerals in an otherwise plain serif typeface. The hands are ornate, coloured gold and feature deep blue insets.
Set into the relief panels on either side of the clock are stone sculptures of birds. The bird on the left panel, representing dawn and daylight, is a cockerel with the sunrise behind it. The right panel represents night and includes the nocturnal owl and the moon. Around the clock face, in each of the four corners, winged heads represent each of the four winds.
Above the clock, in an opening in the stone, is a mechanical depiction of Saint George in combat with the dragon. It is activated every 15 minutes and on the hour the dragon is ‘slain’. Under the clock face in golden upper case lettering are wise words: ‘No minute gone comes ever back again, take heed and see ye nothing do in vain’.
Beneath the inscription, Father Time is carved in relief, holding an hour glass in his hands.
The architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner was very critical of the building's architecture, saying: ‘The scale is wrong, the symmetry is wrong. The proximity to a classical façade put up by the same firm at the same time is wrong, and the goings-on of a store behind such a façade (and below those twisted Tudor chimneys) are wrongest of all.’
Despite its critics, the design was a success with the public, and the shop became a Grade II* listed building in 1972.
Meanwhile, Liberty’s continued its tradition for fashionable and eclectic design during the 1950s, promoting and encouraging new designers, and several shops were opened in other cities.
Later, the influential designer Bernard Nevill became the design director. He reinvigorated Liberty’s textile collections and attracted clients including Yves Saint Laurent, who bought 13 different designs from the winter 1970 collection.
Liberty’s closed the 20 shops outside London in 1996, and in 2006 closed the Regent Street outlet, moving all operations into Hall’s Tudor revival building on Great Marlborough Street.
As for the Liberty clock, the clock and its mechanical display were fully restored in 2010 by Gillett & Johnston. The track unit has been fitted with new electronics and a radio signal monitoring system to ensure the accuracy of time keeping.
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