The Adelphi Hotel Liverpool is Stuck in Time
Just as the city of Liverpool itself was once the centre of European trade, so too was the Adelphi Hotel somewhere that everyone wanted to stay, being the envy of the rest of the city’s hotel trade.
Yet, whereas Liverpool has been able to reinvent itself to become a true metropolitan location, vibrant and filled with bars and restaurants that people are keen to spend time in, the Adelphi has barely changed.
Instead, it is a reminder of the city’s glorious past and how it fell away for a time, the hotel remaining stuck in a bygone era that longs for an upgrade. From the outside, it remains a vision, so can the inside ever be revived?
The Hotel’s Past
The first hotel built on the site upon which the modern-day Adelphi sits was built in 1826, when the hotelier James Radley oversaw the combination of two 18th-century townhouses into one. Prior to that, it was the Ranelagh Gardens, Liverpool’s first ever open space for recreation use.
In 1876, Radley’s hotel was replaced by another, which was itself purchased by the Midland Railway in 1892 and renamed to become the Midlands Adelphi. One of the features of that hotel was a set of heated tanks in the basement for live turtles, which were then turned into turtle soup, which was sent to be part of banquets around the country.
Adelphi Hotel reception area, 1912 and 2025
Not sure on date, it could be later but looks like several others that were taken when hotel building was new…
— Liverpool: Then and Now (@keithjones84.bsky.social) Jun 7, 2025 at 19:51
The present building was built by Midland Railway between 1911 and 1914, with Frank Atkinson as the designer. It was considered to be the ‘most luxurious hotel outside London’ when it opened, serving as the hotel that was used by the most wealthy passengers in the city before they embarked on their trans-Atlantic voyage to the United States of America.
Although the RMS Titanic never visited Liverpool, it was registered to the city and the Sefton Suite is thought to be a replica of the Smoking Lounge that First Class customers could use on the ill-fated ship. The hotel became part of British Transport Hotels on the 1st of January 1948.
The Move Towards the Modern Day
During the hotel’s heyday, guests included the likes of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Frank Sinatra and Judy Garland. When the Conservative Party won the election in 1979, they ordered British Rail to get rid of what were thought of as ‘unnecessary assets’, so the hotel was sold to Britannia Hotels four years later.
By that point, the once great hotel was already on the slide, but things picked up apace from there. In 1997, the hotel was the feature of an eight-part documentary called Hotel, which aired on the BBC and, through a fly-on-the-wall style, laid bare the issues with the Adelphi in all of their glory.
@randomdigitalvideo BBC One 1997 – Hotel Adelphi following the goings on in the Liverpool hotel. #bbc #bbcone #liverpool #adelphi #hotel ♬ original sound – randomdigital
In 2006, the BBC investigated the hotel over issues around hygiene and a series of thefts, which hadn’t improved four years later when Liverpool City Council issued it with a hygiene rating of zero. When the same inspection was carried out in 2016, the hotel was given its fourth consecutive zero rating.
Ten years prior to that, the lifeguard at the Adelphi’s pool left his post and a 25-year-old man drowned, having been dead for 30 minutes by the time he was found. In 2022, a wardrobe in the hotel fell on a 21-year-old woman and crushed her to death, which led to an investigation by Liverpool City Council and is just one of the reasons it’s considered to be a ‘blight’ on the city.
What the Hotel Offers
In spite of the countless problems with the Adelphi as a hotel, it is still worth a visit if you find yourself in the city and wondering what to do with your time. Constructed in Portland stone, there are seven floors in the hotel, with many of the public rooms containing marble panelling and French doors.
The Central Court is an impressive location, whilst Hypostyle Hall contained Empire-style decoration as you walk through to Fountain Court. Although you would be hard-pushed to recommend that someone eats anything cooked in the hotel, it is absolutely worth spending some time in if you want to get a real sense of what Liverpool was like in the past.
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It also has a prime location, sitting proudly in the middle of the city and just a stone’s throw from Liverpool Lime Street Train Station. The Edwardian-style hotel can be booked for weddings and parties, whilst it has also been used in the past for filming of various TV shows.
As you might imagine, you can sometimes get good deals to stay there, although it is worth bearing in mind that it is the definition of ‘you get what you pay for’. There are a couple of bars on offer, including the American Bar, which is a late-night bar for hotel residents to use. The swimming pool and leisure facilities have been closed indefinitely, though.
