London Buildings West End Liberty & Co.Liberty & Co.
Liberty & Co. is a department store with a global reputation situated in Great Marlborough Street, Central London; within the West End shopping district. Though its address is actually Regent Street.
Liberty & Co. was founded by Arthur Lasenby Liberty in 1875 to sell ornaments, fabrics (for which it became famous) and miscellaneous objets d'art from Japan and the Far East. Liberty & Co. first catered for an eclectic mix of popular styles, but then went on to develop a fundamentally different style closely linked to Art Nouveau and the Aesthetic Movement of the 1890s. The company became synonymous with this new style, to the extent that in Italy, Art Nouveau became known as the Stile Liberty, after the London shop. Liberty still maintains a distinctive edge and continues to produce its own fabrics, though in smaller numbers.
Its building fronts Great Marlborough Street and is one of the most prominent Tudor-revival Arts and Crafts buildings in London. So it's not as old as it looks - Staple Inn in the City is genuine Tudor if you want to see a surviving example, but it's very rare as most Tudor stock was destroyed in the Great Fire of London. The Liberty Store is a Grade II listed building. The timbers used in the construction of the building (built in 1924 by architects Edwin T. Hall and his son Edwin S. Hall) were taken from two British naval ships, HMS Impregnable and HMS Hindustan. They were somewhat long-in-the-tooth - which you can infer by the fact that they offered up timber in the recycling process. Iron and steel ships had been the norm for some time.
Unlike a typical large department store, the shop has resisted the trend for suspended ceilings and corporate display fittings. It retains the original Tudor Revival detailing (with some typical 1930s touches) inside as well as out. The interior is split into a series of relatively small rooms, arranged around windowless atria, which are lit by glazed roofs, with wooden balconies at each level. There are stairs and decorative lifts instead of escalators.
If you do visit - you could try the pub next door, which used to belong to the store and is also an 'Inside Guide to London' selection - The Clachan - It serves decent food at a good price and is just out of eyesight for the passing herd. A good place to recharge during shopping trips.
Liberty Store, Regent Street, London W1B 5AH.
Oxford Circus or Piccadilly Circus Tube
