Liverpool’s oldest hotel at the centre of its first gay district – Liverpool Echo
The Stork Hotel lasted for nearly a century before being demolished in the 1970s to make way for a new bus terminus
The mere mention of the Stork Hotel’s name is enough to bring on misty-eyed reminiscences from those old enough to remember it.
Liverpool’s oldest hotel occupied a prominent city centre site which faced out onto both Queen Square and Williamson Square. It had originally been a mansion house belonging to John Roe, who gave his name to Roe Street, and opposite it in the middle of the square was Liverpool’s open air wholesale fruit and flower market.
The Stork later became a popular watering hole with actors from the Royal Court theatre and later, the Liverpool Playhouse. It was also in the centre of Liverpool’s first “gay district” which had sprung up around Queen Square by the early 1960s, with its Aintree Bar a particularly popular resort for gay men at a time when homosexuality was still officially illegal.
READ MORE:
This was the hotel’s underground reputation. To the outside world, the Stork still presented a face of the utmost respectability, as revealed by these pictures – some of which have only just been unearthed.
In the early 1960s the gay-friendly barmaid from the Aintree Bar in the Stork Hotel moved to the Magic Clock pub nearby. Many of the customers followed her, turning the Magic Clock almost overnight into a gay bar.
The building of the new St John’s Centre in the mid-1960s marked the beginning of the end for the area. Redevelopment of the city centre led to the demolition of much of the old “gay quarter” by Queen Square in the 1970s. By the end of 1976 the Stork Hotel had also been demolished to make way for a new bus terminus.
Join our Liverpool memories and history Facebook group here.