Category: Liverpool

I visited this Cathedral several years ago with my friend Lucy, when I remember going on the tower tour as I was feeling rather brave at the time. But, I was young and reckless then, I’m much more moderate today. The whole arrangement somewhat dominates the skyline and it’s a cavernous structure, being the largest cathedral and religious building in the country. Wikipedia also tells me that it’s the eighth largest religious building in the world in terms of the floor space and it can cater for a congregation of 3,500.

The opportunity to build a new cathedral was rare for architects, only St. Paul’s and Truro Cathedral had been built from new since the Reformation. The commission was given to Giles Gilbert Scott who was just 22 years old at the time and whose only previous design construction had been that of a pipe rack. It feels brave to say the least, but it’s good to have faith in the young and it certainly doesn’t appear to have been a reckless decision. The design that he submitted was later heavily amended, with the whole process being even more controversial when the committee who had given him the contract realised that he was a Roman Catholic. Scott died in 1960, having seen most of his building completed, with this memorial placed on the nave. He’s actually buried just outside the cathedral, as he didn’t want it becoming a mausoleum by cluttering it up with bodies.

The grand and impressive Lady Chapel, which was initially going to be called the Morning Chapel, which was the first part of the cathedral to be completed. There was some bomb damage to this chapel during the Second World War and it wasn’t fully repaired until 1955. It must have felt sub-optimal to have to fix the bit of the building that had been completed already, but I understand that they were just pleased to have sufficient funding to continue with the project.

The chancel and I think it’s quite interesting to see how the choir area of a church has moved about due to religious reasons. In the late nineteenth century it was commonplace for the choir area to be returned to the chancel, as it is here in Liverpool Cathedral.

Masons’ marks which are visible on stones throughout the cathedral.

And some of their stonemason tools.

The Chapter House, which was funded by the Province of West Lancashire.

The Memorial Chapel which commemorates the sacrifice of local people who have died as a result of war. It also is a place within the cathedral there the sacrifice of the civilian population can be remembered.

Bev was exhausted after her wandering around the building and she needed a post-lunch lunch, so we all agreed to visit the cathedral’s on-site cafe. There’s no admission charge to enter the cathedral, so in lieu of making of a donation we purchased food and drink which seemed a fair compromise to me. I was surprised and delighted with the moist and fluffy chocolate orange cake which complemented the Irn-Bru and crisps beautifully. I’m getting very good at these food and drink pairings.

I won’t linger on the history of the building as there’s plenty of detailed information elsewhere on-line about its heritage, but I was pleased to be able to go back. The sandstone, sourced from nearby Woolton, makes the building feel cool and the substantial size of the structure makes it feel peaceful and grand. It was a suitably respectful way to spend the early afternoon, justifying our decision to then pop to some more bars afterwards.

After a busy forty minutes walking around Tate Liverpool feeling confused, we decided to find some food to reinvigorate ourselves and we went for the Moiim Korean Deli. This very well reviewed cafe is located on Berry Street and it felt bright and open, with just enough seating for our group. The service was immediate and friendly, with the environment feeling warm and inviting.

As I was the most hungry, I went first to ensure I didn’t have to wait as long for my food. That didn’t work out as all the food came out together, but it’s always worth a try.

The menu and I went for the Yangneyom Chicken rice bowl. I perhaps should have tried a Korean corn dog as a few customers came in and mentioned that they had seen them on Instagram. Indeed, the food here seemed very Instagrammable, they make something of an effort with the presentation.

And a can of Fanta. It was too hot, although I might have mentioned that, but we got a bit of a breeze from the street given the windows were entirely open. This is a fast casual dining environment with limited seating, but it obtained a fair few customers during the time we were here so it appears to be popular. The surfaces in the cafe were clean, with everything feeling well maintained.

The chicken was suitably delicious, it was tender and moist with the coating having plenty of flavour. It wasn’t particularly spicy, but I liked the depth of taste and the rice was cooked well, with what I think is pickled radish adding an extra sourness and crunch. The limitation for me is that the rice made it quite dry, I felt that it needed a sauce or soy sauce to just jazz the whole arrangement up a bit. As it was, there was perhaps too much rice compared to the chicken, but it was a filling lunch and I would certainly come here again if I was in the area.

I will note here that Bev used her skills, since she has travelled Asia relatively extensively, to use the chopsticks to eat her meal. Steve tried and had some limited success, but it was all too much for me and since my attempts in the past have ended in near disaster, so I stuck to the traditional western implements. I think that we all left content after the meal and it was something a little different.

No doubt to the delight of my two loyal readers, I’ve just posted separately about several exhibits at the Museum of Liverpool, but I’d better stop here as I’ll never finish writing up the weekend away. We spent just under two hours at the museum and there’s plenty to see across the numerous floors, as well as there being a variety of stuff that I haven’t seen on my previous visits.

There’s plenty of text and exhibits relating to the Liverpool Overhead Railway which operated between 1893 and 1956. This would have been a remarkable tourist attraction today, but it was decided to demolish the structure in 1957 despite considerable local opposition. The excuse for closure was that it was costing too much and it would be better to operate services using buses, which must have felt like a sub-optimal option for the regular users. There was a sad incident when in November 1957 one of these new buses collided with a lorry under where the overhead railway had operated, killing one person and injuring another seven. During the operation of the overhead railway, there were no major incidents.

There are some fine views across the docks from both directions, although there’s no external viewing platform which seems a little bit of a shame. The building that the museum is located in is an impressive structure, dominating this part of the former docks area.

The view from the other direction of the Liver Building. The museum opened in 2011 and replaced the much smaller Museum of Liverpool Life.

There’s plenty more that I could write about this museum and given that it’s free of admission charge it’s certainly worth popping in. For our group, it was time to go and visit Tate Liverpool to be surprised and delighted at their collections of modern art.

The Museum of Liverpool rather likes exhibitions on Sir Ken Dodd (1927-2018) and they’ve currently got one on (although we didn’t have time to visit that one) remembering the local comedian from Knotty Ash. This rather colourful harlequin suit was worn by Dodd during the 1970s, including on the Ken Dodd Laughter Show in 1979. Fittingly, his last performance was in Liverpool, at the Echo Arena Auditorium (now the M&S Bank Arena in what feels a rather odd piece of branding, but there we go) on 28 December 2017. He certainly brought the Knotty Ash area of Liverpool into the public awareness over several decades.

As a separate thought, I think my friend Gordon would feel comfortable in such an outfit, he’s very flamboyant. Perhaps he’ll do a special fashion show for this blog, but hopefully it won’t be like the Inbetweeners one.

There’s something moderately alarming about seeing objects from my childhood which are now in museums, as I refuse to accept any evidence that I might be getting older. But, with my very happy memories of the Amiga, it’s always positive to see one. The relevance here is that Striker was made by Rage Games, who were a video game developer from Liverpool who were in operation between 1992 and 2003. Apparently one of the things that brought them down was the David Beckham franchise of games, evidence that they should have focused on a Neville Southall franchise instead which would have been far better.

On a tangent, a few of us visited the National Videogame Museum in Sheffield several years ago (that was one of my rather good ideas if I may say so), which led to me wanting to visit the Centre for Computing History in Cambridge although I haven’t quite made it there yet. I suppose I should visit with my friend Richard, as one of his many claims to fame is that he wrote software for the Amiga in the 1990s (he’s much older than me, and he has found evidence that he is getting much older, but I digress in case he reads this). The Cambridge museum appears to have a lot of Amigas in their collections, I can relive my youth once again.

I was busily learning plenty of things at the Museum of Liverpool, not least that the great Dame Patricia Routledge has a long history with Liverpool. It’s 50 years next year since she appeared in Steptoe and Son (still my favourite TV programme), but it’s already 33 years since she was the star of Keeping Up Appearances. Routledge was educated at Birkenhead High School and then the University of Liverpool, making her first stage performance at the Liverpool Playhouse in 1952. She’s currently 94 years old and she’s still making occasional television appearances. So there we go, everyone will be fascinated to know that I’ve learned about her connections with Liverpool.

I was though already aware that Ziggy Greaves was from Liverpool, that one was more obvious.

It was unclear at the Museum of Liverpool whether this was the original ceramic hen which was used on the BBC programme Bread in the 1980s and 1990s. Unfortunately, after some checking, it’s not the original one which is a little disappointing. There’s still some authenticity to it as it was presented to Katy Carmichael, the actress who played Connie, by Carla Lane, the writer of Bread. I hadn’t given much thought about this before, but the museum addresses the negative stereotypes about Liverpool presented by the programme, which was at one point was watched by over 20 million people.

There’s a surprising amount of commentary about the whole matter of the city’s portrayal and Bread, not least at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-36425330. I still wonder what happened to the actual ceramic hen used in the show though.