Liverpool

 

 

Adelphi Hotel, Liverpool city centre

Liverpool is a fantastic city break and one of my favourite places, and I recently combined a family christening with a foray into more of the city's attractions, Speke Hall and Goodison Park, the home of Everton Football Club.

Liverpool has not always had a good press, as the second seaport of these islands it had a lofty and prestigious history, but has suffered in the post war years from economic stagnation, urban blight and maladministration. However, it has managed to pull itself up by its bootstraps on the back of European city of culture 2008 to become a very worthwhile destination.

Liverpool city centre has as impressive a collection of classic buildings as you'll find anywhere in the country, from the massive civic pile of St George's Hall opposite Lime Street Station to the Walker Art Gallery round the corner and the full set of iconic waterfront buildings centred on the Liver Building and flanking the Pier Head. Major new development Liverpool One has been welded onto the old city centre, sandwiched between the bus station, docks and original shopping streets, and has the usual mix of brand name chain stores, cafes and restaurants juggling for space on different levels with flagship stores like John Lewis.

St Georges Hall itself is worth a look inside, very much a part of Liverpool history. It has a large hall inside with an impressive mosaic floor, and was also a seat of judgment for the city. The old criminal court can still be visited and downstairs are the cells for internment of prisoners.

Just over the road from Liverpool One is the Albert Dock where you can wander around the old basin and enjoy the warehouse architecture now converted into a major 'centre of town' hangout, complete with The Beatles Story and Merseyside Maritime Museum attractions. Nearby is the modern Echo arena for major events.

If you take a trip over the Mersey to Birkenhead either by underground or ferry you can visit Hamilton Square, a vast old square in the centre of town, and visit the old U boat that is still perched on the edge of the Mersey and a reminder of the pivotal role that Liverpool had in the Battle of the Atlantic in the Second World War.

The family christening took place at the Anglican Cathedral because of family connections with the cathedral itself, an impressive building designed by Gilbert Scott, the same person who designed the red phone box. It is the largest cathedral in the UK and the fifth largest in the world and was finished in 1978. The cathedral sits on a mound above the city centre and overlooking the River Mersey surrounded by elegant new architecture and some newly cleaned up smart and classic streets to the north of the cathedral precincts. the cathedral bulk from the outside is quite dark and forbidding, but inside has a much lighter and pleasant ambience. The tower is well worth ascending for great views of the city and its surroundings. It's a good place to spot Anfield from the top! There is a protective fence surrounding the tower to prevent any more unfortunate incidents after a local professional threw himself off the top some years ago.

 

Liverpool cathedral

For an alternative experience you can visit the Catholic Cathedral, a wedding cake of a church built in a big circle, altogether more unconventional and locally known as the Mersey Funnel (as opposed to tunnel).

To help get your way round the city, there's nothing like practicing the Liverpool, or scouse, accent, and if you can say 'chicken and chips' with the distinctive 'ch' sound then you are well on the way. Also don't forget to drop the 't' at the end of some words, 'What's tha?' as you scrutinise a chip buttie and mushie peas.

Liverpool has great parks and green spaces, that something you appreciate once you've made a few visits. I am more familiar with South Liverpool and Sefton Park, Calderstones Park and Otterspool Park which hold childhood memories. However I visited Stanley Park for the first time recently when parking up to visit Goodison for the Everton match, and was pleasantly impressed to find not a recession hit piece of waste ground between the two great football grounds but a fully fledged traditional British Park with all the trimmings such as bandstand and lake.

 

Stanley Park

One of my favourite areas of Liverpool is Sefton Park and surroundings, as classical an old Victorian park as you will find anywhere in the country. It's the nearest thing Liverpool has to Hyde Park in London. I have great memories of visiting this park as a little kid when we used to visit my grandma and associated relatives in Aigburth. This vast space with its lakes, shrubbery, Palm House and Peter Pan statue surrounded by a ring road of massive (and I mean massive) Victorian mansions must have been as exclusive as you could get back in the nineteenth century. Even now the faded grandeur is in evidence all around. Rafa Benitez used to live in a block on the perimeter road which bristled with TV aerials so he could catch all the football channels. I wasn't Rafa's greatest fan because I found him a bit on the defensive side as a manager but he was still good!

Big green spaces in Liverpool go well also with lots of leafy dual carriageways swathing the city in all directions bordered by salubrious interwar residential property. This is the side of Liverpool you don't read about in the press, lots of attractive suburban areas where I would be quite proud to own a house.

Speke Hall  is as good a National Trust property as you could visit anywhere in the UK, a large Tudor property simply bursting with black and white splendour. I remember visiting it years ago when I was a kid, now I could appreciate it much more as an adult. It provides a stark contrast to some of the signs of industrial decline on Merseyside. It is surrounded by extensive green spaces, just off the main road into Liverpool from Runcorn and Widnes. It sits in a tree filled depression separating it from the River Mersey. A path circles the property along the top of this depression giving wide vistas of the Mersey as well as tempting glimpses of the house itself. The path takes you right up to the edge of Liverpool Airport where you can sit and watch activity on the main runway.

Speke Hall entrance

Speke Hall - round the back

 

A jolly scouse lady dressed in Victorian finery takes you round the property in a private guided tour if you want, relating the usual anecdotes, such as the last lady of the house who used to dress in black and smoke a pipe. Ah, what's happened to the great British eccentric? Speke Hall of course was a Catholic stronghold and it has its own priest hole which the priest could escape to when the King or Queen's men came hunting for heretics.

Liverpool Airport nudging Speke Hall

From Speke I drove to Everton for the footie. A very nice assistant at Speke hall advised getting the football bus from Lime Street Station to the ground. Sounded like a good idea, but when I got to the city centre I thought I would be too up close and personal with a busful of Everton supporters which could prove embarrassing for a Liverpool supporter like me, so I thought I would drive straight to the ground.

Incidentally I parked nearer Anfield than Goodison Park in a bid to find a free parking space. I avoided the car parks asking for £10 to park for the match and found a spot in a quiet side street. Only thing was there were spaces because the houses were abandoned and boarded up, further up in the inhabited part of the street there were plenty of parked cars. After parking up I noticed the posters on the lampposts 'Car Crime Hotspot!' That's all I needed, but hey it was a beautiful day, no sign of degenerate looking locals, and there was nothing to steal in the car, so I took the chance.

The walk to the ground was very bearable on such a lovely day and not really that far. I arrived with plenty of time to spare, collected my ticket and then promptly went looking for a cash machine. In the end I just had enough cash left to buy myself a healthy snack, sausage and chips, that grand staple of any self respecting football fan.

Everton v West Ham

Goodison Park

Suitable attired in blue (not planned) with a red shirt lurking underneath, I made my way back to the ground and spent an enjoyable afternoon watching Everton beat West Ham 1-0. Later I returned to Liverpool city centre to catch Liverpool playing Southampton in Southampton on any available TV including the end of the first half in John Lewis. Later I watched the second half in the pub.