TOP 21 best attractions in Liverpool

British Liv­er­pool is famous not only for the Bea­t­les. Although this leg­endary group is in a sense “city-form­ing”. But do not for­get that the old­est city in Eng­land is also the cul­tur­al cap­i­tal of Europe.

What to do in Liverpool

The sights of Liv­er­pool are, first of all, archi­tec­ture, rep­re­sent­ing a sym­bio­sis of Vic­to­ri­an tra­di­tions, Goth­ic, clas­si­cism and moder­ni­ty. This fusion will appeal to peo­ple who strive for new dis­cov­er­ies.

From frozen forms to a spe­cial atmos­phere. The port city has long and seri­ous­ly claimed the title of the art cap­i­tal of Europe. Gal­leries, muse­ums and small con­cep­tu­al the­aters work here. Aes­thet­ics and those who are tired of triv­ial enter­tain­ment will want to vis­it such places.

And, of course, thou­sands of The Bea­t­les fans come here every year to vis­it the muse­um of the Liv­er­pool Four, see the hous­es of the band mem­bers and go to the leg­endary club where it all began.

Architecture

Royal Liver

The Roy­al Liv­er build­ing was erect­ed for the com­pa­ny of the same name in 1914 on the Pier Head embank­ment. The 13-sto­ry build­ing made of dark brick is crowned with two tow­ers and a giant clock with a diam­e­ter of 7.6 m — so that port work­ers can always know what time it is. In the dark, the dial turns on the back­light.

The top of the dome is dec­o­rat­ed with fig­ures of birds. Sev­er­al leg­ends are asso­ci­at­ed with them. The most pop­u­lar says that the birds pro­tect the Liv­er­pool on land and at sea.

At the begin­ning of the 20th cen­tu­ry, the Roy­al Liv­er was the tallest struc­ture, often com­pared to Amer­i­can sky­scrap­ers.

Oriel Chambers

The first build­ing in the world built on the basis of a met­al frame, com­ple­ment­ed by huge win­dows in hold­er frames. It was with this design that the con­struc­tion of sky­scrap­ers began in Amer­i­ca, and then around the world.

The Art Nou­veau build­ing appeared in 1864, and 90 years lat­er it was mod­ern­ized by adding sev­er­al out­build­ings. Oriel Cham­bers has 5 spa­cious floors. The pro­trud­ing win­dows are framed with met­al frames, the ver­ti­cal sup­ports are dec­o­rat­ed with arrow-shaped tips.

Port building

The baroque build­ing, built in 1907 on the city’s water­front, was the head­quar­ters of the Mersey Docks and Har­bor Board for near­ly 90 years.

The 5‑storey build­ing is crowned with an octag­o­nal domed tow­er. The facade, lined with Port­land stone, is dec­o­rat­ed with columns, por­ti­cos and arched win­dows. At the entrance at the main gate there is a globe sup­port­ed by dol­phins. The inte­ri­ors are rich­ly dec­o­rat­ed with stat­ues and mar­itime-themed paint­ings.

Dur­ing the Sec­ond World War, the build­ing was dam­aged by bomb­ing. More mon­ey was spent on recon­struc­tion than on con­struc­tion. Sev­er­al episodes of the cult TV series The Adven­tures of Sher­lock Holmes were already filmed in the ren­o­vat­ed inte­ri­ors.

Town Hall

Town Hall was built in 1754 for the city hall, and since then it has not left it. The pompous build­ing with columns, por­ti­coes and pilasters has a rec­tan­gu­lar shape. The top of the build­ing is dec­o­rat­ed with a cylin­dri­cal super­struc­ture with a dome.

The inte­ri­or has been pre­served unchanged since the 18th cen­tu­ry. The halls are rich­ly dec­o­rat­ed with mosa­ic pan­els, stuc­co and fres­coes. Huge work­ing fire­places, heavy chan­de­liers, met­al can­dle­sticks and antique fur­ni­ture com­plete the authen­tic set­ting.

Speck Hall

The build­ing was erect­ed in the 16th cen­tu­ry using half-tim­bered tech­nol­o­gy — its white­washed beam walls rest on a stone foun­da­tion. The space between the wood­en frame ele­ments is filled with clay. The facade has remained unchanged since its con­struc­tion, but the inte­ri­or rooms have been mod­i­fied and rebuilt over the course of 150 years.

The house has secret pas­sages and rooms where Catholics hid dur­ing reli­gious con­flicts. Its oth­er fea­ture is the com­plete absence of the ameni­ties famil­iar to mod­ern man.

For near­ly 400 years, the house has been owned by three dif­fer­ent fam­i­lies. In the 19th cen­tu­ry, Speke Hall went to the city due to the lack of heirs. Today it works as a muse­um, where the things of the past own­ers are exhib­it­ed.

victoria building

The build­ing, built for the Uni­ver­si­ty of Liv­er­pool in 1982, has been per­fect­ly pre­served to this day. The red brick façade is a strik­ing exam­ple of Vic­to­ri­an Goth­ic. The point­ed tow­ers, nar­row arched win­dows and the clock on one of the two tow­ers look ele­gant.

Until 2008, the Vic­to­ria Build­ing housed audi­to­ri­ums, a library and a read­ing room. Today there are shops and a restau­rant.

Radio City Tower

The height of the Radio City Tow­er is 138 m. This is the sec­ond largest build­ing in Liv­er­pool. The tow­er was built in 1969 and was then called St. John’s Light­house. Its main attrac­tion was the revolv­ing restau­rant. How­ev­er, it was closed after a few years, and after him the use of the tow­er itself ceased.

The build­ing was lat­er restored to accom­mo­date com­mu­ni­ca­tions equip­ment and renamed the Radio City Tow­er. Today, the tow­er hous­es offices and shops, and an obser­va­tion deck is equipped at the top, from where Liv­er­pool is vis­i­ble at a glance.

Bluecoat Chambers

An inter­est­ing build­ing was built in 1717 for a local school. It has the shape of the let­ter H, built of red brick and dec­o­rat­ed with local light stone. An octag­o­nal tur­ret with a dome ris­es above the cen­tral part. The façade is dec­o­rat­ed with a clock, large arched win­dows let in a lot of nat­ur­al light. In 1906, the school was moved to anoth­er loca­tion, and Blue­coat even­tu­al­ly trans­formed into an art cen­ter.

Religious sites

Catholic cathedral

The futur­is­tic build­ing bears lit­tle resem­blance to a cathe­dral in the usu­al sense. The Catholic Church was erect­ed in 1967 as a kind of response to the Angli­can Church, which built the Liv­er­pool Cathe­dral.

The design project that won the World Archi­tec­ture Exhi­bi­tion was cre­at­ed by Fred­er­ic Gib­berd. He came up with a build­ing with a round base and a mas­sive dome resem­bling a crown. Inside there are huge stained-glass win­dows, a snow-white mar­ble altar and a colos­sal organ with 4,565 pipes.

Anglican Cathedral

The Cathe­dral of Christ and the Vir­gin Mary is the largest reli­gious build­ing in the UK and the fifth largest in the world. Its area is about 10 thou­sand square meters. m. The height of the bell tow­er is 67 m, and it con­tains the heav­i­est col­lec­tion of bells in exis­tence. The largest bell weighs 31 tons. The tow­er of the cathe­dral rush­es into the sky at 101 m, and a panoram­ic plat­form is equipped on its top.

Museums and art

Lady Lever Art Gallery

The muse­um is locat­ed in the pic­turesque vil­lage of Port Sun­light in the sub­urbs of Liv­er­pool. The indus­tri­al­ist Lever began to col­lect the art col­lec­tion, and when it ceased to fit in his man­sion, he built a muse­um.

In a neo­clas­si­cal build­ing with antique columns and a trans­par­ent dome, works by artists of the 18th-19th cen­turies, a selec­tion of Chi­nese porce­lain and objects of arts and crafts are exhib­it­ed. The muse­um, found­ed in 1914, became avail­able to the gen­er­al pub­lic only after the death of the mer­chan­t’s wife, Lady Lever.

Walker Gallery

The art gallery, named after the indus­tri­al­ist and phil­an­thropist Sir Andrew Bar­clay Walk­er, appeared in 1877. It is con­sid­ered the largest in Liv­er­pool and one of the largest in the UK.

The build­ing, built in the best tra­di­tions of the clas­si­cal style, exhibits paint­ings by artists of the XIV-XX cen­turies. In par­tic­u­lar, a sig­nif­i­cant col­lec­tion of works by the Pre-Raphaelites, Eng­lish artists who worked in the style of the Ear­ly Renais­sance, is stored here. The expo­si­tions present world mas­ter­pieces of world sig­nif­i­cance: Rubens, Muril­lo, Paul.

albert dock

Dock ware­hous­es were built in 1846 from stone — before that, all such com­plex­es were built exclu­sive­ly from wood. In the late 1930s, the Albert Dock lost its sig­nif­i­cance, and its deplorable state was aggra­vat­ed by the bomb­ing of World War II.

Nowa­days, the docks have been restored, turn­ing them into an art space where you can vis­it inter­est­ing exhi­bi­tions, watch art films, dine in a good restau­rant and drink a cock­tail in a trendy bar. Along the closed bay, sur­round­ed by gal­leries, paths were laid, trees were plant­ed and there were bench­es for rest.

Tate Liverpool

The Liv­er­pool Art Gallery is part of the Tate Gallery sys­tem. The muse­um was opened in 1988 on the ter­ri­to­ry of the Albert Dock in one of the con­vert­ed ware­hous­es.

It hous­es over 60,000 exhibits of British art from the 16th cen­tu­ry to the present day. A sig­nif­i­cant part of the expo­si­tion is giv­en to con­tem­po­rary artists and sculp­tors.

Tate Liv­er­pool often hosts cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al events for chil­dren and adults.

Merseyside

The Mersey­side Mar­itime Muse­um occu­pies sev­er­al rooms at the Albert Dock. An exten­sive expo­si­tion is devot­ed to nav­i­ga­tion and every­thing con­nect­ed with it. Here you can see minia­tures of famous British ships, paint­ings by marine painters, busts of promi­nent cap­tains, and at the same time trace the entire his­to­ry of the port of Liv­er­pool. The entrance to the muse­um is dec­o­rat­ed with a giant anchor.

Museum of Liverpool

The City Muse­um was opened on the Mersey River­front in 2011. A futur­is­tic build­ing with strict geom­e­try resem­bles an alien ship. The effect is enhanced by huge win­dows on the facade, rem­i­nis­cent of the cap­tain’s bridge from Star Track.

Inside is an exten­sive col­lec­tion of near­ly 6,000 items, all relat­ed to Liv­er­pool. A year after the open­ing, the muse­um was rec­og­nized as the best in Europe. The jury eval­u­at­ed the atten­dance and con­tent of the exhi­bi­tions.

Memorable places of The Beatles

John Lennon House

In an incon­spic­u­ous duplex at 251 Menlove Ave, John Lennon was born and spent his child­hood. It was here that the deci­sion was made to cre­ate a cult group that turned the world of music upside down.

Lennon’s wid­ow, Yoko Ono, claims that the immor­tal hit “Please, Please Me” was writ­ten in this house. Today there is a muse­um here. It recre­ates the atmos­phere in which the musi­cian lived and worked.

Beatles History Museum

The muse­um tells a sim­i­lar sto­ry of the famous group — from the moment of its foun­da­tion until the col­lapse in 1970. The exhi­bi­tion occu­pies sev­er­al halls, each ded­i­cat­ed to a cer­tain stage in the life of the Bea­t­les.

Rare exhibits include con­cert cos­tumes, musi­cal instru­ments, hand­writ­ten lyrics, per­son­al items, unique pho­tographs and video footage. Fan gifts are pre­sent­ed at a sep­a­rate stand.

Club “Cavern”

The leg­endary Cav­ern Club is a place of pil­grim­age for Bea­t­les from all over the world. Opened in 1957, it wit­nessed the birth of a great musi­cal group — it was on its stage that the first per­for­mances of The Bea­t­les took place. The cur­rent “Cav­ern” is indi­rect­ly relat­ed to the orig­i­nal club, which was demol­ished and cov­ered with soil for the con­struc­tion of the metro.

The mod­ern remake is locat­ed in a dif­fer­ent place, but is made of bricks from the same Bea­t­les Cav­ern. The inte­ri­ors have been com­plete­ly restored accord­ing to the sur­viv­ing pho­tographs. In the evenings, the band’s cov­ers are played here, and on Jan­u­ary 16, the birth­day of the club and The Bea­t­les is cel­e­brat­ed.

Places for walking

sefton park

The most impor­tant city park was opened in 1872 in the south of Liv­er­pool. Its area is about 1 sq. km. Almost the entire space is occu­pied by a pic­turesque lake, where the towns­peo­ple come to feed the ducks and go boat­ing. For out­door enthu­si­asts, crick­et lawns are bro­ken. Anoth­er pop­u­lar place in the park is a 200-year-old arti­fi­cial cave with a water­fall.

The main archi­tec­tur­al attrac­tion is the Palm House. The glass green­house was erect­ed in 1896 and is still used for its intend­ed pur­pose. Palm trees and oth­er heat-lov­ing plants grow inside. The sur­round­ings of the pavil­ion are com­ple­ment­ed by stat­ues and bench­es for relax­ation.

Matthew Street

This small street is filled with tourists from morn­ing to night. Matthew Street gained such pop­u­lar­i­ty thanks to The Bea­t­les and the Cav­ern club, which is locat­ed here. There are dozens of bars, cham­ber restau­rants and clubs styl­ized as the 60s, one way or anoth­er, exploit­ing the achieve­ments of the emi­nent four.

Every sum­mer, the LIMF (Liv­er­pool Math­ew Street Music Fes­ti­val) is held here. Per­for­mances of bands and artists take place right under the open sky.