Liverpool tourist attractions

Jesse Hartley and Philip Hardwick built this ring of brick and cast iron warehouses around a tidal basin in 1846, the first dock system in Britain made without a scrap of structural timber, so cargoes of tobacco, silk and sugar sat safe from fire. The colonnaded quaysides now hold bars, restaurants and the Beatles Story exhibition, while the Maritime Museum and International Slavery Museum in the warehouses are closed for redevelopment. The open water at the centre still mirrors the Three Graces on the waterfront.

Architect: Jesse Hartley and Philip Hardwick

Location: Albert Dock, Liverpool Waterfront, L3 4AF

Access: Free to wander the quaysides at any hour. The attractions are ticketed; the maritime and slavery museums are closed until 2028.

Photo: "Albert Dock, Liverpool" by Thomas Fabian (CC BY-SA 2.0).

Walter Aubrey Thomas raised this thirteen storey tower in 1911 as the head office of the Royal Liver Assurance friendly society, among the first buildings in the world built on a frame of reinforced concrete. Two copper Liver Birds, Bella looking out to sea and Bertie facing the city, stand on the clock towers, and local legend says the pair guard the port. It is the tallest of the Three Graces on the Pier Head, beside the Cunard Building and the Port of Liverpool Building, the waterfront the city long fronted the world with.

Style: Art Nouveau

Location: Pier Head, Liverpool, L3 1HU

Access: Free to admire from the Pier Head promenade. The RLB360 tour to the clock tower is ticketed.

Ferries have crossed the Mersey for more than 800 years, since Benedictine monks of Birkenhead Priory rowed passengers over in the 12th century, and Edward III granted the priory a ferry charter in 1330. The River Explorer cruise now makes a 50 minute loop from Pier Head to Seacombe and back, with audio commentary, while Woodside terminal is closed for refurbishment. Gerry and the Pacemakers recorded Ferry Cross the Mersey in 1964, and the song is played on the cruise.

Operator: Mersey Ferries, run by the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority

Location: Pier Head, Georges Parade, Liverpool, L3 1DP

Access: Ticketed. Sailings were suspended in October 2026 after an engine fault on the only ferry in service, so check the Mersey Ferries timetable before going.

Giles Gilbert Scott won the competition to design this Anglican cathedral in 1903 when he was only twenty two, and building went on from 1904 until 1978, long after his death. It is the largest cathedral in Britain, raised in local sandstone in a bold, simplified Gothic, with a central tower that carries the highest and heaviest ringing peal of bells in the world. The interior opens into a single great space under the tower, and the west end looks down St James's Mount towards the old cemetery cut into the hillside below.

Style: Gothic Revival

Heritage: Grade I listed

Location: St James' Mount, Liverpool, L1 7AZ

Access: Free to enter, with a donation invited. The Tower Experience, climbing to the viewing galleries, is ticketed.

Frederick Gibberd's circular cathedral of 1967 rises as a ring of concrete and glass around a central altar, its funnel shaped lantern tower glowing with stained glass by John Piper and Patrick Reyntiens. Liverpudlians call it Paddy's Wigwam. It stands over a vast brick crypt, all that was built of an earlier and far larger cathedral designed by Edwin Lutyens before the war stopped the work. From the top of Mount Pleasant its steps look straight down Hope Street to the tower of the Anglican cathedral half a mile away.

Architect: Frederick Gibberd

Location: Mount Pleasant, Liverpool, L3 5TQ

Access: Free to enter. The cathedral opens daily from 7.30am to 6pm and the Lutyens Crypt from Monday to Saturday, times kept by the Metropolitan Cathedral.

Harvey Lonsdale Elmes designed this great Neoclassical hall as a set of law courts and a concert hall under one roof, and it opened in 1854 after Charles Cockerell finished the interiors. The columned front faces Lime Street station across St George's Plateau, and inside the tunnel vaulted Great Hall holds a huge Willis organ above a Minton tile floor of thirty thousand pieces, kept covered and shown only on set dates. Writers often rank it among the finest Neoclassical buildings in Europe.

Style: Greek Revival

Heritage: Grade I listed

Location: St George's Place, Liverpool, L1 1JJ

Access: Free to step inside the entrance halls and see the building. Guided tours and viewings of the Minton floor are ticketed.

Photo: "St George's Hall, Liverpool" by MatthewHoobin (CC0).

The Walker opened in 1877 as a gift from Andrew Barclay Walker, a brewer and former mayor, and its collection is deep enough that the gallery is often called the National Gallery of the North. Rooms run from medieval and Renaissance panels through Rembrandt and the Pre-Raphaelites to Lucian Freud and David Hockney, and the sculpture gallery holds Gibson's tinted marbles. It stands on William Brown Street next to St George's Hall, behind a classical front by Cornelius Sherlock, and belongs to the free family of National Museums Liverpool.

Architect: Cornelius Sherlock and H. H. Vale

Heritage: Grade II* listed

Location: William Brown Street, Liverpool, L3 8EL

Access: Free admission, as one of the National Museums Liverpool sites.

Photo: "The Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool" by Miguel Mendez (CC BY 2.0). Photo: "Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool" by Marathon (CC BY-SA 2.0).

Mathew Street is a narrow lane of cellar clubs and bars in the old fruit warehouse district, and its heart is the Cavern Club, opened in 1957 as a jazz cellar. The Beatles played here close to three hundred times in the early 1960s, and Bill Harry ran his Mersey Beat paper from an office nearby. The original cellar was filled in during the 1970s and rebuilt on the same spot in 1984 using many of the old bricks. A statue of John Lennon leans on the wall opposite, beside a Wall of Fame naming every act that played the club.

Location: Mathew Street, Cavern Quarter, Liverpool, L2 6RE

Access: Free to walk the street at any time. The Cavern Club charges for entry to its live music sessions.

Photo: "Cavern Club entrance and John Lennon statue, Mathew Street" by Loco Steve (CC BY-SA 2.0). Photo: "Mathew Street, Liverpool" by Nick Amoscato (CC BY 2.0).

Penny Lane is an ordinary suburban street and shopping parade in Mossley Hill, made famous the world over by the song Paul McCartney wrote about it in 1967. The places in the lyric are real and mostly still here: the barber's shop showing photographs, the bank on the corner and the shelter in the middle of the roundabout where the buses turn. For years the street signs were stolen so often that the council gave up and painted the name straight onto the walls, though proper signs are back today.

Location: Penny Lane, Mossley Hill, Liverpool, L18

Access: Free. A public street, open at any hour, about a fifteen minute bus ride from the city centre.

Photo: "Penny Lane, Liverpool" by Roblespepe (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Strawberry Field was a Salvation Army children's home in Woolton, and John Lennon grew up round the corner and played in its wooded grounds, later borrowing the name for the 1967 song Strawberry Fields Forever. The red sandstone gates outside became a place of pilgrimage for fans, who covered the walls in graffiti. The Salvation Army opened the site to visitors in 2019, with an exhibition on Lennon and the home, a garden and a cafe, and it still runs training programmes for young people here.

Location: Beaconsfield Road, Woolton, Liverpool, L25 6EJ

Access: The red gates outside can be seen for free at any time. The exhibition, gardens and cafe are ticketed.

Photo: "Strawberry Field, Liverpool" by Robertoalonsomen (CC BY-SA 4.0). Photo: "Strawberry Field entrance" by Jooniur (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Antony Gormley's Another Place is a line of 100 cast iron figures spread over about three kilometres of Crosby Beach, all facing out to sea. Each weighs around 650 kilograms and was cast from the artist's own body, using 17 body moulds, and the furthest stand almost a kilometre out. The tide covers and uncovers them as it ebbs and flows. The work was shown in Germany, Norway and Belgium before arriving at Crosby in July 2005, and Sefton Council decided in 2007 to keep it permanently.

Artist: Antony Gormley

Built: 1997, installed at Crosby in 2005

Location: Crosby Beach, Mariners Road, Crosby, Sefton, L23 6SX

Access: Free. An open public beach. High tides submerge many figures and the sand has soft patches, so visitors are advised not to walk far out.

Anfield opened in 1884 and was Everton's ground before a rent dispute sent them across the park to Goodison, leaving John Houlding to found Liverpool Football Club in 1892 to play here. Archibald Leitch shaped the early stands, and the steep Kop terrace, now all seated, became famous for the wall of sound that greets You'll Never Walk Alone. The Shankly Gates stand at the Anfield Road end, and the ground has grown past sixty thousand seats with its latest expansion. A stadium tour walks the players' tunnel, dugout and dressing rooms.

Location: Anfield Road, Liverpool, L4 0TH

Access: Ticketed. The stadium tour and the LFC Story museum run daily except around home fixtures, and matchday tickets sell through the club.

Photo: "Anfield, Liverpool" by Arne Müseler (CC BY-SA 3.0 DE). Photo: "Anfield" by Daniel (CC BY 2.0).