History
It was built by Bryan Blundell, a sea captain, and Reverend Robert Styth, rector of Liverpool, as a residential charity school, Liverpool Blue Coat School. Construction began in 1716 and the building, though still incomplete, soon opened as a school in 1718. By the following year it had 50 children, with room for 100 more, and construction was finally completed in 1725. Originally, the rear of the school resembled the front but in 1821 it was rebuilt giving it a convex-shaped elevation. The school moved to a new site in Wavertree in 1906. The building was threatened with demolition but it was saved by the soapmaker William Lever and Charles Reilly, the head of the Liverpool School of Architecture. This school used part of the building and in 1907 the Sandon Studios Society, an arts club, occupied other parts. The School of Architecture moved out in 1925 and a charitable trust, the Bluecoat Society of Arts, was set up to run the building.
On 3 May 1941, during the Liverpool blitz, the concert hall and adjoining rooms were severely damaged by an incendiary bomb and during the following night the rear wing was destroyed by a bomb blast. After the war the building was restored, the restoration being completed in 1951. The Bluecoat Display Centre, a contemporary craft gallery, opened in the rear courtyard in 1959 and the Bluecoat Art Gallery was formally established in 1968.
Read more about this topic: Bluecoat Chambers
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