Liverpool can justly claim to be the most remarkable, most surprising and most interesting city in England apart from the capital. Indeed, capital cities apart, few if any cities in Europe match Liverpool in architecture and art and none in terms of the achievements of some of its citizens of the last two centuries.
In the nineteenth century, Britain's Empire contained a quarter of the world's population. Liverpool was the second city of that empire. The city’s astonishing buildings are testimony to that position. The Anglican cathedral has been for a century the largest Anglican cathedral in the world. It is among the largest four or five cathedrals of all denominations in the world. Its organ is the biggest in Britain. The Metropolitan (Roman Catholic) Cathedral is the largest Christian building built in Britain in the second half of the twentieth century and arguably one of the most striking. St George's Hall, described as the finest neo-classical building in Europe, and the range of buildings comprising the St George’s Hall, World Museum Liverpool, the Central Library and the Walker Art Gallery constitute one of the finest vistas of classical architecture to be found anywhere in Britain.
The Pier Head with its three contrasting "Graces" - the Liver Building (topped by the largest clock faces in Britain), the former Cunard Steamship headquarters and the Port of Liverpool building provides the most spectacular riverside panorama in the country and is of world-wide renown. The eighteenth century Town Hall is one of the few in Britain that was built to house Council meetings and for ceremonial purposes and not for use as offices. The Synagogue in Princes Road is possibly the finest in Britain.
The original seven streets of the medieval city are now lined with a fine a collection of mostly Victorian commercial architecture. The houses of the "merchant princes" who made Liverpool a centre of shipping - for the export of the manufactures of Manchester, Stoke and Birmingham and for the import of cotton, other raw materials and food - and of insurance and banking are reflected not only in their offices but in some of their elegant homes in the Georgian quarter behind the Anglican cathedral. Larger and later residences of the super-rich are in and around Sefton Park, which was designed by a partnership of Edouard André, who laid out the Tuileries Gardens in Paris and Liverpool-born Louis Hornblower. A million daffodils were planted a few years ago, indeed a sight to be seen.
Some of the city's rich merchants funded the collections inside the city's museums and galleries and the buildings which house them. The Walker has the most representative collection of high quality paintings in Britain outside London (to which the pre-Raphaelite works in the Lady Lever Gallery across the Mersey in Port Sunlight are a splendid complement). In the late eighteenth century Henry Blundell of Ince Blundell near Liverpool assembled the largest private collection of classical sculpture in the country, second only to that of the British Museum. This is now in the World Museum Liverpool. Other exhibits in the various premises of National Museums Liverpool include pottery made in Liverpool when it was a major centre of this trade. The technique of transfer printing on to pottery was invented here by John Sadler and Guy Green and used by Wedgwood among others. The International Slavery Museum, the Liverpool Tate, the Beatles Museum, the Western Approaches Museum and the Victoria Gallery add to the city’s cultural offer.
Classical music in the city saw Sir Thomas Beecham, Sir Adrian Boult and Sir Malcolm Sargent at the Philharmonic, still home to one of Britain's finest orchestras, increasingly well-known on the international stage. In 2008, Sir Simon Rattle conducted the Berlin Philharmonic in the
city of his birth. The Playhouse, Everyman and Empire theatres offer top line entertainment.
As well as the University of Liverpool (founded in 1903), Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool Hope University and the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts and the FACT creative arts centre are well regarded in their respective fields. The Central Library XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Liverpool is anything but provincial. It compares itself with best in the world. Sometimes it achieves this level, sometimes it doesn't. But when it doesn't, it is not satisfied with second or third best. When in 2005 Liverpool football club became Champions of Europe - the stuff of dreams of football lovers across the continent - the city (NOT EVERTON was naturally over the moon but one could still hear complaints that the club had "only" won one trophy that year and hoped that next year would bring at least two cups!
Such is this fascinating, wealthy-in-parts, poor-in-parts, architecturally and artistically splendid city - a city which is above all vibrant and fascinating. It is a place where every local will give you a full run-down of the city's glories (and the score if a football match is in progress), with not a trace of modesty or reticence. A twist of comedy may be added as a bonus.
