The Humyak House

The Humyak Building is on Duke Street and is a Listed Building with English Heritage. It has massive stacked doors that extend nearly the height of the building. While it was built in 1864 and appears to not be used, it has a satellite dish attached to it!

Humyak is a German family name.

Rumour is that the building was named after a ship from which reclaimed timbers were used in its construction. Large and very worn upright timbers at the bottom look from a ship.

It may have been built by local family named Humyak, as there was lots of Germans, Dutch (this looks Dutch) and Scandinavians in the city.

The building was erected in 1864. Most of the older buildings around there date from the 1700s. Many were demolished over the past 40 years. It is surprising such a warehouse was built in 1864 in Duke St. A warehouse is for the transient storage of goods only. The Old Dock had been built over by then. The Old Dock was in Canning Place, now Liverpool One, and the streets radiated off this dock: Paradise Street, Duke Street, Park Lane, Hanover Street, etc, and many buildings were warehouses being adjacent to the dock. When the Old Dock was filled in these warehouse were then too far away from the Dock areas, as the docks were being built into the river. Many of these now out of the way warehouses found other uses rather than transient storage.

Duke Street was always an industrial street with the odd residential merchants house amongst the warehouses. The merchant's houses were residential and industrial.