Blackburne House

The house was built in 1788 for John Blackburne, at a time when this was in the countryside outside Liverpool. Blackburne originally came from Warrington. He was a wealthy salt refiner and a supporter of the slave trade. In 1760 he had been Lord Mayor of Liverpool. In 1844 the house was bought from Blackburne by George Holt. Holt was a cotton broker and merchant, and an abolitionist. He was also a supporter of women's rights, and on 5 August 1844 he opened the house as Blackburne House Girls' School with a Latin motto which translates as: "Born not for ourselves alone but for the whole of the world." The document setting up the school says "Existing provision for education shows that the…

Blackburne House is constructed in brick with stone dressings and a slate roof. It has two storeys, a basement and an attic. Its Hope Street front has seven bays. The central bay projects forward and is surmounted by a domical roof with a clock face and an iron railing on its crest. The ground floor contains a rusticated round-headed entrance flanked by paired columns supporting an entablature and a pierced balcony. In the first floor is a three-light window with a tympanum, and rusticated quoins. In the attic floor are three round-headed windows, flat pilasters and a segmental pediment. The second and sixth bays consist of two-storeyed canted bays containing sash windows with architraves.…