Pier Head

About this place

Two copper birds, each five and a half metres tall, have stood on the towers of the Royal Liver Building since 1911, one watching the city and the other watching the sea; Liverpool legend has it that if either flies away the city ends. Beneath them lies Pier Head, the plaza where a visitor grasps in minutes why this was once the second port of the British Empire: three colossal Edwardian buildings shoulder to shoulder on the bank of the Mersey, the Royal Liver Building, the Cunard Building and the green-domed Port of Liverpool Building, known locally as the Three Graces. The whole waterfront was a UNESCO World Heritage Site from 2004 until the listing was stripped in 2021 over redevelopment of the northern docks, which changed nothing about how it looks but explains the construction cranes on the horizon. The stop everyone makes is the bronze Beatles statue, four larger-than-life young men striding towards the river, unveiled in December 2015 fifty years after their last Liverpool concert and gifted to the city by the Cavern Club. A photo with them is the most-taken picture in Liverpool, which means an informal queue at weekends and hawkers hovering nearby. A few steps away stands the memorial to the Titanic engineers who stayed in the engine room to the end, along with monuments to merchant seamen and war dead; all of them reward a read of the plaques rather than a walk past. The plaza itself is free and open day and night, the promenade is dead flat and pushchair- and wheelchair-friendly, and it links south to the Royal Albert Dock in a ten-minute stroll. Spending starts when you go indoors. The Royal Liver Building 360 tour takes you up the clock tower for £18.50 per adult, but it involves 124 stairs, does not admit children under five and is best booked ahead in summer. The River Explorer cruise from the ferry terminal lasts fifty minutes and costs roughly £12 per adult with a family ticket around £30; it is the only way to see the Three Graces from the angle they were built for, which is the water. The Museum of Liverpool at the edge of the plaza is free, very good with children, and open from 10:00 to 17:00, but it closes on Mondays outside school holidays. The site is fully exposed to the river mouth, so the wind here is sharper than in the city centre even in July and a light jacket is not a luxury. In winter the sun is gone before half past four, though the floodlit buildings after dusk give the plaza a second, handsome face. Arriving by train is easiest: James Street station on Merseyrail's Wirral line is a five-minute walk, Moorfields about ten. Drivers will find paid parking at the Royal Albert Dock or the Liverpool ONE car parks; there is none on the plaza itself.