State Insurance Building, Liverpool

The building was constructed in 1906 The building continues to be used as offices, with a restaurant on the ground floor. In the 1920s the downstairs of the building was used as a popular dance hall and venue. After the second World War it was closed and later reopened as a Debenhams department store. In the 1980s it transformed again into a popular night club and rave hot spot, using the open plan hall downstairs to set up a stage for live music, but later closed down again. It is now utilised only four times a year as a special event night club and rave venue which still holds the original marbled walls and gold painted ceiling.

Inside the building is a central courtyard with a glazed barrel vault. Around this are galleries with wooden balustrades. The ground floor rooms have ceilings decorated with plasterwork and supported by metal columns. Between the columns is blind arcading decorated with multi-coloured marble. The arcades contain panels with circular plaster reliefs by Alfred R. Martin. The reliefs depict themes from traditional stories. In the former entrance hall are more reliefs, these depicting castles. The building is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II listed building.

Two big 80's things were filmed in The State when it was a club: The video for Frankie Goes To Hollywood's Relax plus the club scenes when the girls meet the boys in Letter to Brezhnev - the 1985 film starring Alexandra Pigg and Margie Clarke.