Liverpool 2010

May 2010 - Liverpool England

After checking into our hotel we wandered over to Albert Dock in Liverpool. 

Liverpool’s Albert Dock is a thriving, fully regenerated maritime heritage destination. Part of a UNESCO World Heritage site at the time, the iconic red-brick Victorian warehouses hummed with cultural attractions, museums, apartments, and bustling restaurants alongside the scenic waterfront.

The Beatles Story

The Beatles Story is a museum in Liverpool about the Beatles and their history. It was devised and created by Mike and Bernadette Byrne and officially opened on 1 May 1990. It is located on the historical Royal Albert Dock, and is owned by Mersey Ferries, part of Merseytravel.

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We settled on The Pump House for a late lunch in the Dock's former pumphouse, originally built in 1870 it has been restored into a public house.

It is a very relaxed pub which gets quite crowded in the evening. We had a late lunch the first day and then returned for dinner the next day.

This was a trio of seafood shooters. Delicious and I am going to copy this presentation.

An Indian Sampler

Cheeseboard

Club Sandwich

Photos from our Magical Mystery Tour of Liverpool.

20 Forthlin Road is a National Trust property in Allerton in south Liverpool, Merseyside, England. It is the house in which Paul McCartney lived for several years before he rose to fame with the Beatles, and it is labelled by the National Trust as "the birthplace of the Beatles".

 

The home was featured in an edition of Carpool Karaoke, which aired on the 22 June 2018, episode of The Late Late Show with James Corden. Corden visited there with Paul McCartney, who said it was his first visit to the home since he moved away in his late teens.

George Harrison was born at 12 Arnold Grove, Wavertree, on 25th February 1943.

The term 'Unadopted' means the council are not responsible for the maintenance of the street.

251 Menlove Avenue named Mendips (after the Mendip Hills), is the childhood home of John Lennon.

The 1930s semi-detached property, which belonged to Lennon's Aunt Mimi and her husband George Smith. England. Lennon moved there in July 1946 at the age of five from 9 Newcastle Road, in the nearby suburb of Wavertree. Lennon lived at Mendips after his mother, who was living with her boyfriend, was persuaded that it would be better for his Aunt Mimi and George to take care of him. He remained at Mendips until mid-1963 when he was 22 years old.

Sentimental Journey by Ringo Starr has the distinction of being the first solo (non-avant-garde) studio album by a member of The Beatles, coming out just weeks before Paul McCartney’s debut. Starr chose to record an album of standards that were some of his mother’s and other family member’s favorites. The album’s cover was a photograph by Richard Polak, of a pub in Liverpool called The Empress. The people in the windows of the pub on the album cover are all relatives of Starr. The pub is just around the corner from where Starr was born at 9 Madryn St.

Penny Lane roundabout mentioned in song. Self-storage van just happened to be going by.

Click here to read a great article about the song.

Bank mentioned in Penny Lane.

The earliest reference to the Gothic Revival mansion 'Strawberry Field' dates from 1870, when it was owned by one George Warren, a wealthy shipping magnate. On an 1891 Ordnance Survey map the building and its grounds appear as the plural 'Strawberry Fields', although this had changed by the 1905 survey. In 1912 it was transferred to another wealthy merchant whose widow sold the estate to the Salvation Army in 1934. It opened as a children's home on 7 July 1936 by Lady Bates in the presence of General Evangeline Booth, daughter of the Salvation Army founder. With a capacity of up to forty girls, boys under 5 were introduced in the 1950s. Later still, older boys also became resident.

Church Road where John’s father Alfred attended the Blue Coat School.

Upon completion of the Magical Mystery Bus Tour you are dropped (conveniently) at the Cavern Club.

Most of the big names in the Liverpool music scene of the early sixties can trace their roots back to the skiffle period at the Cavern.
A lot of people think this big-headed statue doesn't look anything like Lennon, but it's still one of the most popular photo ops in the city. The statue was unveiled in 1997 as is said to be a representation of the cover of John's 1975 album, Rock 'n' Roll. The original head featured John's duck-tail quiff, but was vandalised and replaced with one of seven spares that designer David Webster had from different stages of John’s life. He also did the sculpture of the Beatles on the front of the Hard Days Night Hotel.

Alan Sytner opened The Cavern Club, having been inspired by the jazz district in Paris, where there were a number of clubs in cellars. Sytner returned to Liverpool and strove to open a club similar to the Le Caveau jazz club in Paris. He eventually found a perfect cellar for his club with similar tunnels and arches—which had been used as an air raid shelter during World War Two. The club was opened on 16 January 1957. The first act to perform at the opening of the club was the Merseysippi Jazz Band.

The Quarrymen Skiffle Group, featuring John Lennon, made their first appearance at the Cavern on Wednesday 7th August 1957. A week earlier Ringo Starr is thought to have made his debut with the Eddie Clayton Skiffle group. Paul McCartney did not made his debut until 24th January 1958 with the Quarrymen. George Harrison had to wait until the Beatles made their first appearance at a lunchtime session on 9th February 1961.

OK so I didn't take a picture of our drinks in the club, but it is a club. There was a  music festival on at the time, and a band from New York were playing, suffice it to say I wouldn't sully this post by putting a photo of them here. They were horrendous and it was especially disappointing to most patrons as they had just completed the Magical Mystery Bus Tour.

31 OCTOBER 1970 Queen appeared at the Cavern Club.
Freddie Mercury had been living in rented accommodation in Penny Lane, Liverpool and had joined a local rock band called Ibex. He left Ibex in late 1969 to join Brian May and Roger Taylor after an improptu performance with them in a Liverpool venue called The Sink.

Walking around on our own we found the Hard Days Night Hotel is the world’s only Beatles inspired hotel.

Empress club - on cover of Ringo's first solo album

 Listen to Carpool Karaoke, mentioned above, with Paul taking a tour of Liverpool.

The Beatle Story

Ferry Cross The Mersey - Gerry and the Pacemakers

Random shots.

Prominent outside the law courts and with a view down Castle Street towards the Town Hall - although she’s looking towards Liverpool ONE for some reason - is Queen Victoria again, much older this time, resplendent in all her majesty. Although, if you ask anyone about this statue, they’ll tell you that if you look at it from a certain angle, Vic looks like she’s got her knob out.

Also called Vic's Dick.