Former Royal Insurance Building Sundial - Liverpool, Merseyside, UK
N 53° 24.450 W 002° 59.369
30U E 500699 N 5917603
The sundial is located on the former Royal Insurance Building, now the Aloft Hotel, on North John Street in Liverpool city centre.
Waymark Code: WM13P35
Location: North West England, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 01/20/2021
Views: 1
The sundial is located on the former Royal Insurance Building, now the Aloft Hotel, onthe corner of Dale Street and North John Street in Liverpool city centre.
Royal Insurance Building, now the Aloft Hotel, is a Grade II* historic listed building. It was designed by James Francis Doyle and built between 1896 and 1903 as the head office of the Royal Insurance company.
The Grade II* listed description given by Historic England can be seen at the following link: (
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The design was the result of a competition won by James Francis Doyle in 1895. The assessor for the competition was Norman Shaw, who was retained as an advisory architect for the project.
The building of Portland stone is constructed around a steel frame and is one of the earliest examples of this type of construction in the United Kingdom.
The sundial is mounted on the wall of the building above the entrance bay on the first stage of a three stage campanile, below the octagonal cupola with a gilded dome.
It is rectangular with a raised stone border and gold face with black markers and roman numerals down the right hand side and across the bottom. The decorative metal gnomon is mounted diagonally pointing to the bottom right hand corner. The A.D. 1903, the date the building was completed, is inscribed in black at the bottom of the dial.
By the late 1980s, the building was no longer being used and its condition deteriorated so much that it was placed on the Buildings at Risk Register of English Heritage.
In 2013 the freehold of the building was bought by Liverpool City Council, and it was converted it into a hotel.
It opened on 29th October 2014 as the Aloft Liverpool Hotel.
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