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"He who has not seen the interior of Princes Road Synagogue in Liverpool has not beheld the glory of Israel."

H.A. Meek (1993)

©Leanne Marks 2008

The Synagogue background videos discuss some of the history
with a virtual tour of the building and more information about the building and our tradition.

We do recommend visitors to watch these videos - both before and after their visits.

The history of the Congregation
Entering the Synagogue

The Ark and the Torah

Victorian Liverpool

The development of Princes Boulevard

 

The Body of the Synagogue

The Musical Tradition

Princes Road Synagogue was built in 1874 to the design of W & G Audsley, reflecting the growing influence and status of the highly assimilated Liverpool Old Hebrew Congregation. The Audsleys described the synagogue’s features as being “from both Eastern and Western schools of art, and blended together with enough of the eastern feeling to render it suggestive, and enough of the western severity to make it appropriate for a street building in a western town.”

The interior is magnificent, laid out like a gothic basilica. At the Eastern end sits the Ark at the entrance to the sanctuary, above which sits a most beautiful rose window matching another at the Western end.

The Bimah (readers’ desk) was originally made from wood but was replaced a year after the synagogue’s consecration with one constructed from alabaster and marble, donated by businessman David Lewis as he thought the original one unbefitting such a grand building.

We feature on the English Heritage website and many others, as well as being supported by the Open Churches Trust. The synagogue has also been featured in several films and television programmes.

Visitors have been visiting this most outstandingly beautiful Synagogue described by H. A. Meek as a Hidden Gem, for over a hundred years. 

 

During the Coronavirus pandemic, the group Klezmer-ish issued their online Lockdown SongbookThey used the Synagogue to record most of the tracks which were issued January to June 2021. The video-musical tracks were accompanied by background videos with information about both the group and the synagogue. All the videos and tracks are available on the Klezmer-ish Facebook page.

 

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