The Liverpool Collegiate School was part destroyed by fire in 1985 and remained derelict until redevelopment as a housing scheme in 1998.
The Liverpool Collegiate is an imposing Grade II listed building with a facade of pink sandstone, designed in Tudor Gothic style by the architect Lonsdale Elmes (who had also designed city’s St.George’s Hall). Opened by William Gladstone on 6 January 1843, it was originally as a fee-paying school for boys of middle-class parents and administered as three distinct organisations under a single headmaster. The Upper School became Liverpool College and relocated to Lodge Lane in 1884, whilst the Middle and Lower (or Commercial) Schools occupied the original site and would combine to form the Liverpool Collegiate School in 1908, a grammar school under the management of the Liverpool Corporation.
Over nearly 80 years it changed from offering effectively an austere Victorian style of education to becoming a comprehensive school. The Education Act of 1944 whilst abolishing fee paying imposed selection by the 11 plus examination but by 1963 the Liverpool Education Committee announced its intention to abolish the 11 Plus and become a sixth form entry comprehensive school. By the 1970s the school was smaller with fewer staff and boys (900), and reduced funding. As exam results deteriorated, under investment in the building and numeras acts of vandalism, the future of the school looked uncertain. Asbestos lagging needed to be replaced, leading to an early end to term, and in 1983 the turrets on top of the school were declared unsafe. In 1983 the city announced plans to replace secondary schools with ‘community schools’ and as a result the Collegiate would be closed and its pupils moved to Breckfield Community Comprehensive School.
On Friday 8 March 1985 a fire, apparently due to an electrical fault in the kitchens below the school hall, damaged large parts of the building. All 530 pupils were evacuated and no casualties were reported but all three floors above the dining hall were destroyed. In 1987 the building was closed and left to deteriorate and fall victim to looting and arson until redeveloped into apartments by Urban Splash in 1998.
I visited the school in 1992 with a roll of Ilford HP5 and a battered Canon AE-1. A friendly security guard allowed access. Although the main stairwells were safe and intact, the upper floors were full of water damage and rotting floor timbers from the missing sections of roof above the hall. There was widspread fire damage to doors, roof timbers and floors as you can see from the gallery below.