History

In 1715 the Corporation of Liverpool opened the world's first commercial wet dock, and new merchant housing and dockside industries rapidly developed around it including Seel House – as the building was then known - which was opened as a Brewery. Many of the area's long straight streets were laid out as ropewalks, used to spin and twist the vast quantity of rope required to serve the shipping industry.

The present day building as we see it was built in the 1850s for T. & T. Vickers & Co, a rather prestigious engineers and iron founder. From the late 19th century to the mid-20th, the building housed a great variety of small businesses including everything from cork importers to beeswax traders. 

Following that era of extremes the building hit a glory period between the 1960s and the late 1970s, when it became the home to Seel House Press. It was here that Liverpool Football Club's 'Anfield Press' was printed. Programmes from that time would have covered five league-winning seasons and the club's league and UEFA cup doubles.

The building then lay derelict from the late 1970s until 2008 when an entrepreneur – encouraged by his recent successes in London - saw its potential as a conceptually innovative hotel..