For the past 18 months the University of Liverpool’s Guild building has lain seemingly asleep. Its shell under wraps in much the same way as the Everyman Theatre just a short walk down the road had been before its grand reopening earlier in the year. These two monuments to creativity and ingenuity, to freedom of expression and the desire for change, whether through anger or gentle reasoned discourse, share the same reasons for being, to protect, serve and nurture.
The University’s Student Guild may have been under cover, prying eyes have not been able to see through the steady progression of work that has gone on, behind the scenes great and astounding change was under way and as it opened its doors again for former officers of The Guild, past Presidents and friends of the historic meeting place and hub of student activity, that change was breathtaking.
Photograph by Ian D. Hall.
For any student entering the University of Liverpool for the first time this year, The Guild is surely the place to call home. Any visitor cannot help but be impressed by the renovation work that has, in truth needed to be done for a long time but which is startling in its final reveal. The Guild, which for many years was a fun place to be, was creaking under the strain of architecture that was outdated and when compared to the original part of the University which still has the measure of imposition thrusting out boldly and with compelling ceremony from underneath its red brick exterior, The Guild had been seriously underfunded and in some cases unloved.
As the visitors and guests were shown round on guided tours the building opened out and the beauty was exposed. A building that once housed the first President of any University Guild in the country, the first black president, a Guild which has nurtured the talents of many that have found their way through the doors, from poets, to writers, to musicians, to activists, from the shy who blossomed and the many hundreds who have worked, played and debated within its walls, finally has a Guild in which the 21st Century will struggle to tame. This is a Guild for the future but its great nods to the past can be felt with absolute love.
Photograph by Ian D. Hall
From the new radio studio on the ground floor to the basement cinema room with its wonderful archive posters, film equipment and various states of video development through the plush new courtyard and the Mountford Hall in which bands and artists such as Feeder, Professor Green and Marillion, who gave the venue one of the most blistering and beautiful nights of music in the hall in the last ten years, have played in the past and for whom any band now would be privileged to add to their list of venues performed in.
The evening also served as an occasion in which to wish three very successful members of the Guild a fond farewell and huge thanks as they came to the end of their time in their elected positions. For Leigh-Angel Bevan, Tom Bee and President Sam Butler it has been a truly inspiring time under difficult conditions, however alongside James Coe who remains as a representative of the Guild for another year, this quartet have more than proved their worth and alongside former officers and Presidents of The Guild have shown the way forward to the incoming team headed by Harry Anderson.
For Sam Butler this has been an incredible two years as President of the Guild and he rightly takes his place alongside those who went before him.
For students making their way to Liverpool this September, especially those away from home for the first time and for whom life is going to be an exciting challenge, this new Guild, its warm wooden interior, knowledgeable staff and abundance of societies in which to join, is a place in which to savour, it is a true retreat from the lecture room and the book. The University Guild has been in place for 125 years, it has the building now to take it forward well into the future and just like the Everyman Theatre is part of forward thinking embrace to the future of Liverpool.
Ian D. Hall