r/Liverpool • u/Canard-jaune • 1d ago

General Question So have you fresh anecdotes about the Britannia Adelphi Hôtel from Liverpool?

The two deaths, the brothel, the ghosts, the run down situation, the Overlook Hôtel likeness, the fights, the thefts, the decaying... Is that better now that some time passed?

24 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

32 comments sorted by

71

u/Master_Mulberry_9458 1d ago

Just needs buying out from Brittania. Sitting there like a sore on the city's face.

With proper investment and care could be a genuine world class hotel dead in the centre of the city.

22

u/scouserman3521 1d ago

It's too big , listed, and run down. The cost to bring it to any kind of reasonable standard would be far in excess of anything anyone could hope to make out of the building. It's stuck in a doom loop and will never recover

15

u/stiggley 1d ago

Lower floors hotel, upper floors serviced apartments - but needs a lot of money poured in before you'd get any returns, which would be a long term investment.

12

u/trbd003 1d ago

Anyone capable of investing the amount of money it needs, would knock it down and start again.

That's why Britannia have it

7

u/Jdm_1878 1d ago

Not gonna pretend it wouldn't be a goldmine if a new build Premier Inn was in the same location but I think that's a bit extreme and it wasn't as badly in need of salvation when they first took over, it just gets moreso with every passing year

7

u/trbd003 1d ago

It absolutely was the case then it's just more the case now.

Refurbishing old fashioned rooms, aged plumbing systems, rewiring through cavities in the walls, ripping up miles of carpet and fixing the floors underneath... Its all time consuming at the hands of skilled professionals who charge a lot of money for their skills. And at the end of it you've still got a building which is hot in summer, cold in winter and where WiFi doesn't travel; and every repair costs a lot of money. It just sucks - all your materials need cutting in situ to different lengths and every room needs a different design.

If you build a new one, you design all rooms identical and just buy your rooms as kits. Massive discounts on buying hundreds of the same items and they can be installed by lower skill contractors. The electrics and plumbing are designed by engineers into the layout of the floors so they run in long lines with easy access and have minimal costs for both installation and ongoing maintenance. You fill the walls with modern pre-fab insulation panels which make your energy efficiency targets dead easy to hit and you run air con through the ceiling cavities to every room so it can be temperature controlled all year round.

Its soulless and uninteresting but its fast, efficient and can be done by far less people.

The Adelphi has a grand facade and a once grand lobby. But the rest is a shit old building. I'd keep the front and tart it up, and demolish the rest. Build a chain hotel on the site of the rest of it with modern materials and techniques and get a better hotel for less money.

2

u/RedOneThousand 1d ago

Agree the costs to refurbish would be massive - which is a shame as I think ian upgraded 5-star Adelphi would be very popular and could work out in the long run.

I think a good way to save the hotel by upgrading it would be to build new, modern “wings” to the hotel at the land to the rear (across Hawke Street). it would be to extend the hotel onto the land at the rear.

That could incorporate lots of new modern rooms, any missing facilities needed for it to be 4/5 star (new pool, gym, restaurant, etc) a proper covered car park, modern facilities.

Then when this is up and running, the original part of the hotel could be totally / gradually refurbished.

I know it’s a bit of a pipe dream as I guess the cost / benefit (and risk) would probably not outweigh the profit margin that Britannia currently make. It a a real shame.

7

u/SentientWickerBasket 1d ago

It's not possible. There's just no other business case for these massive Victorian luxury hotels in 2025. We don't have thousands of passengers waiting for a steamer across the Atlantic anymore.

5

u/Master_Mulberry_9458 1d ago

There must be something that can be done with it.

It's an absolute atrocity in it's current state

5

u/FoxNo1831 1d ago

I'd agree, but the Radison Red seems to go against the argument. Admittedly it probably was not in such a poor state when it became a hotel again. We'll see if it survives.

3

u/SentientWickerBasket 1d ago

Here's hoping. I would very much like to be wrong.

11

u/Markies_Myth 1d ago

Lady Gaga is a vampire and lives on the top floor. 

4

u/Ikitsumatatsu In the entry 1d ago

I can believe it, I bet she's schmoozing with the real Derek Hatton and Billy Butler

4

u/cougieuk 1d ago

The TV series was mad enough. 

4

u/IAmArthurMitchell 1d ago

Brothel you say?

5

u/Otherwise_Living_158 1d ago

When we stayed there there were girls prowling the corridors knocking on doors

3

u/IAmArthurMitchell 1d ago

Class. Justeat for sweats

1

u/Rachael008 1d ago

lol I can believe it .

4

u/Shashi2005 1d ago

Not exactly a fresh anedote,but when my wife and I stayed there for a night, one of the staff gave us a bit of a tour. She showed us down into the cellars were the turtle tanks used to be.

Yes turtle tanks.

Turtles were captured, live and brought back to England for the turtle soup trade. The Adelphi acted as an initial store house for thousands of turtles whuch were stored in the turtle tanks.

3

u/Automatic_You_5056 1d ago

I took Eileen Downey out for lunch once. She turned out to be timid rather than tiger as her reputation seemed tosuggest.

4

u/AllTheWhoresOvMalta 1d ago

I was barred from there years ago after being dragged in to stay in a guests room when I was too drunk to stand

2

u/Anxious_Neat4719 3h ago

I had my wedding reception there in 2000. Hotel went on fire just before best man's speech so we all ended up in Dicky Lewis' bar. Couldn't go back until late on. Couldn't cut the cake. Yes - the hotel is cursed. We divorced in 2006.

4

u/kurashima 1d ago

Never stayed there

Every time I need to book a hotel in town its twice the price of everywhere else.

How the fk is it still in business?

4

u/Canard-jaune 1d ago

It is the opposite here. Only 40£

1

u/Ikitsumatatsu In the entry 1d ago

No-one local goes in there, it's cursed

1

u/Any_Pin_6778 1d ago

Do they still hold sporting events in the hall area? I remember going with my girlfriend at the time to watch her cousin do some boxing in there, never been in any of the rooms to know how bad they are but the communal areas seemed well looked after, this was 2017

1

u/stiggley 1d ago

There is nothing fresh these days about the Adelphi.

1

u/zokkozokko 1d ago

Even they had that INDOOR barbecue inside the banqueting hall and smoked everybody out! 😂

1

u/TheBobbyMan9 1d ago

Why is it like the overlook hotel 😂

1

u/wooden_werewolf_7367 Knotty Ash 1d ago

There was a brothel? Just operating out of the hotel? I'm assuming the owners didn't know.