At the beginning of the 20th
century the Methodist Church commissioned the
building of around 99 "Central Halls" in UK
cities. Dr. Angela Connelly, of the
Manchester Architecture Research Centre, says
that only 18 of these building are still in the
possession of the Methodist church, 27 of them
have been lost to demolition or war damage, the
rest decorate our city centres, although few
passers-by would suspect that they were once
churches. This isn't surprising since the
intention was to provide, " ... something
more modern in an attempt to reach the
religiously indifferent and economically
disadvantaged. They were to be centres of
civic life: not just for worship but for
entertainment, leisure and education capable
of seating up to 2,500 worshipers.
Their design was deliberately different from
conventional church architecture to appeal
to non-churchgoers."
The Grand Central Hall in
Liverpool is a wonderful example. The "Liverpool
Monuments" website says that, "It
was designed as a new kind of church,
looking more like a department store and
the ground floor was always intended to
contain sub-let shops or other businesses.
Pevsner describes the architectural style
as promiscuously mixing 'Classical,
Byzantine, Gothic and Jacobean'. "
Throughout its 108 years it has had a variety
of functions. In 1908, it became one of
Liverpool’s first cinemas called The New
Century Picture Hall. In 1933 the old
Liverpool Philharmonic Hall was destroyed by
fire so the orchestra moved in the Grand
Central Hall for a period of 6 years until
their new concert hall was completed.
The Methodist Church sold the hall in 1990 and
since then it has seen a number of
refurbishments. According to the
Liverpoolvision website, the, "Rawhide
comedy club became resident in the hall
during 2005 and, most recently, it has
been used by Quiggins shopping centre. ...
A new performance space
is set to open in a historic Liverpool
city centre landmark. The
Dome is based in the Grade II listed
Central Hall former Methodist church, in
Renshaw Street. ....
.... The 1,200-seater venue is expected to
host a mixture of live performance from
touring bands to theatre, stand- up comedy
and variety nights," and judging by
the poster above, wrestling!
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