Day 217 - Liverpool walkabout

If you google "Liverpool," what you will get is not information about the city, but rather the football club. That tells you a lot. Of course, Liverpool F.C. did just lose to Real Madrid in the Champion League final, so that could be pulling it up in the google search algorithm, but I doubt it.

The city proper is home to about half a million Liverpudlians, but the general areas has about 2 million people. It is more than 800 years old, but its real growth as a port can be attributed to the Industrial Revolution. There are an amazing number of beautiful buildings, despite attempts by the Germans to bomb the hell out of in during, with most dating from the late 18th century. Many of them are the result of money earned from handling cargo such as coal, cotton and sugar. Sadly, the city's merchants were involvled heavily in the slave trade, and the city was even described as "the most Confederate place outside of America" during the American Civil War.

It is one of the great port cities, and was home to both Cunard and the White Star Line. It is from here that many Irish and English emigrated to North America. About 1.3 million Irish came through Liverpool during the potato famine in the 1800s, with many staying. Many stayed in Liverpool, and the Irish influence can be seen across the city.

Phil gets inspired by book titles in front of the Central Library.

Today, Phil and I took a walk around the city to see some of the highlights. We started in the area of the Central Library. The professor then had us walking through the area of the university first (no surprise there). The University of Liverpool covers about 100 acres in the city, and is one of what is known as the "first six red-brick civic" universities. It is ranked in the top 1% of universities world wide, and was the first to establish departments in oceanography, civic design, architecture, and biochemistry.

One of the buildings that make up
Liverpool University.

From here we walked to the Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King. This is the largest Catholic cathedral in Britain, and its design has been fraught with controversy. In the mid 1800s, the first attempt to build a cathedral began, and was designed in the Gothic style. Just the Lady Chapel alone took over 60 years to build, and building ceased until more money could be raised. Meanwhile, in the early 1900s the Anglicans had begun building their won massive cathedral a few blocks away. A new design was created for a massive domed Catholic cathedral, and work started on the crypts to support the building. But the war brought devastation to the city, and funding dried up for the cathedral. Interestingly, it was the brother of the architect of the Anglican cathedral who was brought in to downsize the design to something more manageable. By the 1960s, more scaling down was needed to reduce costs and the design was open to a competition. As it was the 1960s, you can imaging the design choices! The resulting design had to be built on the crypt, and was built for 1 million GBP. It was built with an aluminium roof  and concrete sides, very Brutalist in design. City residents were split on whether they liked it, and as a result is has several nicknames, including "Paddy's Wigwam," "The Pope's Launching Pad" and "The Mersey Funnel."

The crypt from the original design of Liverpool's Catholic cathedral, with
revised aluminium dome.

From near the centre of the \
Anglican cathedral. Note the
interior bridge with people on it
to get a sense of the scale.

From here we walked to the Anglican Cathedral. When standing inside, it is difficult to believe that this church was only completed in 1974. It looks as if it has stood here for centuries. Building started in the early 1900s and slowed during both wars. It sustain bomb damage during WWII, which wasn't fixed until the 1950s. It battles with St John the Devine in New York City (which isn't complete) as being the largest Anglican church in the world.

From here we walked to through the Chinatown. Despite the rather large and ornate gateway, it was very small and almost devoid of people.

Gateway to Liverpool's Chinatown.

We then headed to the docks for lunch, an area which Phil will advise you of in another blog post.