Liberty London — Art Nouveau Timber Marvel
Liberty London is a department store in London built in 1924 using over 24,000 cubic feet of oak and teak from two Royal Navy warships. Designed by architects Edwin Thomas Hall and Edwin Stanley Hall, its Great Marlborough Street facade matches the length of HMS Hindustan. The building was so influential that Italy named its Art Nouveau movement Stile Liberty after the store.
London · from the walk “Canvas & Cobblestones” · audio ~3 min · Generated
Liberty London, Great Marlborough Street, London W1B 5AH
- Architects Edwin Thomas Hall and Edwin Stanley Hall constructed Liberty London in 1924 from decommissioned naval ships.
- HMS Impregnable was a 121-gun warship built from more than 3,000 century-old oaks felled in the New Forest.
- Twenty master craftsmen spent 18 months hand-carving the unique interior timber decorations for Liberty London.
- Founder Arthur Lasenby Liberty died in 1917, seven years before the building was completed on Great Marlborough Street.
Which Royal Navy warships were used to construct Liberty London?
Look at this building in front of you. It Looks like it was plucked straight from Tudor England... but it's barely a hundred years old. And here's the truly extraordinary part. What if I told you that every dark timber beam you see was Once part of a Royal Navy warship?......... In nineteen twenty-four, architects Edwin Thomas Hall and his son Edwin Stanley Hall constructed this marvel from the bones of two decommissioned battleships... Hms Impregnable and Hms Hindustan. More than twenty-four thousand cubic feet of oak and teak were salvaged from those vessels. The very floors you walk on inside? Those are the old ships' decks.......... Now, Hms Impregnable has a fascinating backstory of her own. She was originally christened Hms Howe... a hundred and twenty-one gun, three-decker ship of the line, built from over three thousand century-old oaks felled in the New Forest. She was one of the last great wooden warships ever built for the Royal Navy... yet she Never saw a single day of active combat. Made obsolete by ironclad battleships before she could ever fire in anger, she spent her entire career as a training ship for boys at Devonport.......... And the building's frontage along Great Marlborough Street? It stretches the exact same length as Hms Hindustan herself... as if the ship truly docked right here in the middle of London. That was precisely the dream of founder Arthur Lasenby Liberty... to metaphorically dock a ship laden with treasures in the city streets. Tragically, Arthur died in nineteen seventeen... seven years before his vision was realized.......... Inside, twenty master craftsmen from Liberty's own Highgate workshop spent eighteen months hand-carving every oak panel, every pillar, every ornament... and each one is unique. Look up if you go inside... you'll find hidden wooden animals. A cheeky monkey. A frog on the stair. A hungry bear. Legend has it that when the last light goes out at night... the carved animals awaken to cause mischief.......... One more secret. This store became SO influential in design that in Italy, the entire Art Nouveau movement became known simply as... "Stile Liberty." Named after this very shop. Glance up at the rooftop before you move on... you'll spot a gilded copper Mayflower weathervane, over four feet tall, spinning among the chimney stacks. A golden ship, perched atop a ship... hiding in plain sight on a busy London street.