Description
Liverpool in the years around 1900 was one of the world's most prosperous cities, and its wealth was reflected in the many opulent houses spread across its outer fringes. Merchants and other rich businessmen lived away from the noisy, crowded city centre where they made their money, in luxurious private villa estates such as Fulwood Park and in the leafy drives around Sefton Park. Improved rail links made it possible to commute from greater distances, and some of the grandest residences of all were built across the Mersey on the Wirral. These houses vividly expressed the lives and social aspirations of their owners. Lavishly decorated drawing rooms and dining rooms were used for entertaining business associates, spacious entrance halls were designed to impress, and music rooms and picture galleries showed an enthusiasm for culture and ambitious art collecting.
Harry Bedford Lemere was the leading architectural photographer of the day. Although based in London, he worked all over the country photographing the homes of the wealthy, and his many commissions in Liverpool give a fascinating insight into the private world of the city's elite.
A century of change now separates us from these remarkable photographs. The sumptuous furnishings have long gone, and many of the houses too, but Bedford Lemere's extraordinary pictures survive to document this vanished world of privilege.
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