Steble Fountain
The Steble Fountain stands on William Brown Street in Liverpool, just west of Wellington's Column. It is a Grade II* listed building.
In 1877, former Liverpool mayor Richard Fell Steble donated £1,000 to help build the fountain on a vacant plot beside the column. The fountain was designed by Michel Joseph Napoléon Liénard and unveiled in 1879. The casting was originally made for the Paris Exposition of 1867 and the same design has been used for other fountains around the world, such as Boston’s Brewer Fountain and Quebec City’s Tournoy fountain.
At the opening, the water display was weak and the steam pump in the basement of St George’s Hall caused noise. The steam pump was later replaced by an electric pump. For many years, the fountain needed repairs and did not always function, especially in the 2010s and 2020s.
It was restored in 1992 in time for the Tall Ships’ Race.
Construction and design: the fountain is made of cast iron with some bronze fittings. A circular base of 30 feet (about 9.1 meters) in diameter supports an octagonal stem on a cruciform base, with statues of a marine god at each corner—Neptune, Amphitrite, Acis, and Galatea. Above this is a shallow octagonal bowl about 12 feet 6 inches (3.8 meters) across with 16 overflow outlets decorated with shells, Lancastrian roses, and marine grotesques. A central second bowl, about 8 feet (2.4 meters) across, rises and is topped by a mermaid holding a cornucopia. The whole fountain reaches a height of about 23 feet (7 meters).
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 00:51 (CET).