The Custom House

[dazza]

Thanks Dave, that's interesting, especially the alternative painting on the site entitled Liverpool Custom House & Wapping in which Grimshaw shows the Custom House from an almost identical position to Butts. Grimshaw did not seem to have much luck with the weather...........
Johnny R

Thanks Johnny,

Butts painting is more accurate than Grimshaw's. Grimshaw liked to get all his ducks in a row. In Grimshaw's painting - Wapping, the Custom House, and the Strand, all form a neat, straight, streetline, which was never the case. It looked more like Butts staggered arrangement.


Some more Custom House related images. The group of early warehouses shown here are the subject matter for each painting, but shown from different vantage points, and from different periods. (from the LRO):



Left to right.

1. (left) WG Herdman painting titled "Old Dock Sill" dated 1860, from the Custom House looking at the southside of Canning Place. Mersey Street is just off to the left, but out of view. The bollards represent the middle of the Custom House and would lead through the middle arcade of the building. (LRO: Herdman Col. 111d.)

2. (middle) Same view again by WG Herdman, three years earlier, in 1857. This time the corner of Mersey Street can be seen to the left. The corner of the Custom House railings can also be seen. (LRO: Herdman Col. 500)

3. (right) The same view again, but from the north-east Salthouse Dock transit shed stone gable (demolished - the south east end gable still survives) painted later in 1869. (LRO: Herdman Col. 897)