Magical Mystery tour June 2025 Part 5 Liverpool

Anne B 10milesfrom
Jul 1
6 min read

Updated: Jul 2

Liverpool...once the second city in England, and one we have never visited. Arriving into port from the Isle of Man, late on a grey afternoon, we passed a new icon in the city's history, and one which certainly represents one of it's key passions.

It was the new Everton Football stadium, due to open fully in a few weeks at the start of the new season, and which has replaced Goodison Park, the oldest football stadium in the top flight of English football.

Due to be torn down for a housing estate, Goodison has received a brilliant last minute reprieve to become the home of Everton ladies team. We plan to spend 2 nights in the city, as guests of Brian, Jen's father in law, and Winston his cat!On our way to his house we stopped at Crosby beach to see the incredible work of art entitled 'Another Place' by Anthony Gormley. 100 statues of him, cast from 5 different moulds, set across 3 miles of beach. The tidal range is large here so they look very different at high tide. The weather had cleared enough for us to see Snowdon in the far distance across the bay.

Brian joined us on day one for an ambitious day of sightseeing, starting with a real Magical Mystery tour...a great 2 hour tour around many of the sights associated with Liverpool's other great passion, music and the Beatles!

The tour was full of stories and music and we thoroughly enjoyed it! It was incredible to see the humble beginnings of the Beatles in 1957, and get an insight into their hard work and determination to progress. I will let the pictures tell the story...

"In Penny Lane, there is a barber showing photographs." "On the corner is a banker with a motorcar" The tour ended at the Cavern Club, one of the locations where skiffle and blue grass developed into Rock and Roll, and so many bands played. This is a rebuilt version, but in the same spot.

After the tour, we split up. Chris and Brian walked to the Western Approaches museum which is set in a WW2 bunker, and was the original headquarters of the nerve centre of the Battle of the Atlantic. It tells the story of the 300 men and women who worked here round the clock.

There is also a WREN Museum, which included the story of a girl who was very keen to join, but too light, so her mother sewed pennies into her clothes to make her heavier! Both museums were highly recommended.

I walked to the Walker Art gallery, but everywhere there are reminders of Liverpool's 2 loves... football and music.

It even gets referenced in unlikely places!

The Walker Art Gallery holds a good collection of art from all eras, including some great pre raphaelite and impressionist works.

This is a Minton Peacock, and there were several works by L.S.Lowry, including one of the original ferry across the Mersey!

Their special exhibition included people who have won the John Moores art prize across the years, including this cheeky David Hockney.

This year's prize was won by Graham Crowley whose entry portfolio was painted in just 2 colours - Cadmium lemon and Payne's grey.

We reunited and Brian drove under the River Mersey to Port Sunlight, the fascinating town laid out by Lord Leverhulme in 1888 for his workers in his soap factory.

He used 30 architects and surrounded the houses with parkland. He built a concert venue, Hulme Hall which was the first place Ringo played with the Beatles. Also an art gallery, called the Lady Lever Gallery to hold their collections. It also had schools, medical care, recreational facilities and a pub..... although at first it was a temperance pub and only sold soft drinks! As we walked towards the art gallery, Chris said " that car is just like our friend's car". Well it was.... they had been on holiday in the Lake District and had stopped off nearby. We found them inside, much to their astonishment! We were only 270 miles from home!

The gallery hosts an amazing collection of art, furniture and decorative pieces, predominantly from the 17th - 19th centuries. This cabinet was exquisitely decorated using quilling.. tiny mosaics of rolled paper.

There was also a lovely special exhibition of Jim Moir's Bird art. Better known to many as Vic Reeves, he is a very accomplished artist.

From here we headed back under the Mersey to park up at Liverpool's Anglican Cathedral, which dominates the skyline. It has the longest nave in the world.

Looking for all the world like a Gothic creation, it was actually built between 1904 and 1978. It hosts modern art installations,

From here we walked through the very elegant Georgian streets, where ship owners and wealthy merchants would have built their fine houses, and famous people hace lived.

We continued down Hope street to the huge Roman Catholic Cathedral, a very modernist design built in the 1960s.

It is very beautiful inside, with its striking stained glass and stations of the cross.

There is a large Catholic population in Liverpool, due primarily to the large numbers of Irish people who emigrated here during the potato famine and afterwards. It is thought they also give rise to Scouse, the very distinctive dialect spoken here, also influenced by Welsh and Scandinavian speakers. 150 years ago, most people here had a Lancashire accent. The Irish brogue and others got intertwined with it to produce Scouse! That term originates from a Scandinavian stew called Lobscouse and here the stew is Scouse as well, and Liverpudlians are known as Scousers!

Sightseeing at an end, we headed for the incredible Philharmonic dining rooms, a large bar on Hope street dating from 1898, and John Lennons favourite pub. It was in the media in 2018 when Paul McCartney, having done his Car pool Karaoke with James Corden, played a surprise concert here, with James Corden pulling pints!

Our final stop was the excellent Italian Club restaurant for supper.

What a great day. This is a city of proud, passionate people who have lived through some very rough times and retained their identity.

Day two here saw us saying farewell to Brian and Winston and spending our last morning in the rejuvenated Albert dock.

Lots of great statues and monuments.

The iconic Liver building still stands proudly on the waterfront with its Liver birds on top.

There is a lovely legend....

Sadly the Maritime museum is closed for refurbishment, but we visited the Museum of Liverpool, which reiterated the themes of a great and thriving port city, left in tatters by bombing during World War 2, and then again as the shipbuilding, and port trade dwindled rapidly in the later 20th Century. The vast swathes of empty docks - 43 in total - would once have provided many jobs. In 1947 80,000 were listed as working there. Today it is 850. There was even an overhead docks railway running along much of the riverside.

The museum highlighted the music and entertainment heritage of the city, not just the Beatles, but so many others, Vivienne Westwood, Cilla Black, Ken Dodd, .......

and a special exhibition on Holly Johnson, known best as lead singer of Frankie goes to Hollywood, and a pioneer for LGBGT rights.

We decided that we would leave the other Liverpool museums for a return visit - look out Brian, we will be back! This city has really grown on us and is well worth a visit, espeecially if you love music, maritime history or football. And Ive written the whole diary without mentioning L*v**p**l FC!

We set off through the tunnels again, and headed south towards our last stop of the trip. We stopped for a break at the formidable Chirk Castle, set on a hill top near the Welsh border and shouting power to all who saw it.

We have been here before, because again it was once the property of one of my Stanley ancestors..Sir William Stanley my 13th great grandfather. He is very famous for helping to change the course of history. His armies changed sides at the battle of Bosworth field, leading to Henry VII defeating Richard and becoming King. Sir William was made Lord Chancellor. All great until he changed sides again some years later and was executed for treason, losing all his lands including Chirk! Another Castle I cannot claim!