Liverpool, Wapping Dock

Stand-out structureNot far from the Albert Dock, whose gatemen’s shelters were featured in my previous post, stands Wapping Dock, and alongside this dock is an even more extraordinary small building. It’s slightly later (c. 1856) than the Albert Dock shelters, and stands by the site of the Wapping Dock’s entrance gates. It’s variously described in James Sharples’ Pevsner City Guide to Liverpool (2004) as a policeman’s lodge and in the listing description online (c. 1975) as a gatemen’s shelter. Given the more recent date of the Pevsner guide, I’m inclined to accept its verdict, reinforced, to my mind, by the extraordinary architecture. The tall, spire-like roof seems to answer the old question, ‘Why can you never find a policeman when you need one?’ with a very visible point of contact. If the tall roof and the unusual oval plan make this building stand out, so does the irregular stonework, laid like very high quality crazy paving, like the cyclopean masonry in my previous post. Other…