I have been making the rounds of free museums in and around Liverpool. Having previously visited The Beatles Story Museum and the Liverpool Beatles Museum, which you can read about in my post from May 2024, I can add several other museums and art galleries to the list. Now, the Beatles museums aren't free sadly, but there are some Beatles artefacts at the Museum of Liverpool. There are listening booths, too, where you can hear some famous music from Liverpool groups. Inspired by this, I created my own list: Merseybeat! I also learned where Liverpool Castle used to be and saw artefacts from the old overhead railway system and a model of the planned Catholic Cathedral. On a BBC programme highlighting the Museum of Liverpool, the museum's director Laura Pye said:
'Liverpool is a very confident city. I think one way of summing this up is a vote that was made recently about which would be the second city in Britain. They asked people from across England which would be the second city in England. The people of Manchester said Manchester, the people of Birmingham said Birmingham, the people of Newcastle said Newcastle, the people of Liverpool said London.'
The World Museum—which was very busy the day I visited during school holidays—has an aquarium and a collection on ancient Egypt. The mummy room is most popular, morbidly. All I can think about is the story of mummy brown paint and the several thousand mummified cats used as fertiliser on English fields in the 1800s. At the Atkinson in Southport, there was also a small exhibit on ancient Egypt, including a limestone stela from circa 1550 BC on loan from the Manchester Museum. It kind of makes me dizzy to think of things that old. The Tate Liverpool is closed for renovation right now, but they have a space with RIBA North by the docks. What I saw there was the exhibit on Roaming Britain. I haven't seen St George's Hall yet because I can't figure out how to get inside, haha! Sudley House in Mossley Hill is the historic former residence of George Holt now owned by the National Trust. The grounds are also a free park. Victoria Gallery and Museum on the University of Liverpool campus is worth visiting just to see the inside of the building! Both the Walker Art Gallery and the Lady Lever have excellent Pre-Raphaelite works on display. (For photos of the Lady Lever and also of Speke Hall, see my post from May of this year.) The Williamson in Birkenhead has a lovely collection of Della Robbia pottery. The company was started by Harold Rathbone of the Liverpool School in 1894 and was in business for about 12 years. Okay, before this starts to sound like Antiques Roadshow...
Lastly, there's an interesting National Trust exhibit on now in the Hornby Library (at Central Library) about the work of photographers E. Chambré and Margaret Hardman. Their Rodney Street house is a museum. You can browse through some of their photographs here: Chambré Hardman Collection.
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| Museum of Liverpool, image from liverpoolmuseums.org.uk |
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| Stuart Sutcliffe's acoustic guitar |
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| John Lennon's 1963 suede jacket |
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| World Museum, image from liverpoolmuseums.org.uk |
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| Chocolate-Chip Starfish, image from liverpoolmuseums.org.uk |
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| The Book of the Dead |
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| The Atkinson, Southport |
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| Limestone stela circa 1550–1295 BC |
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| Roaming Britain at RIBA, Romani artefacts |
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| Tiling at Sudley House |
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| Fireplace at Sudley House |
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The Finding of the Saviour at the Temple
by William Holman Hunt |
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| Grounds at Sudley House |
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| Victoria Museum & Gallery |
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| At Victoria Museum & Gallery |
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| At Victoria Museum & Gallery |
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| Ruth by Edward Burne-Jones |
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| Walker Art Gallery, image from liverpoolmuseums.org.uk |
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| Dante's Dream by Dante Gabriel Rossetti |
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Echo and Narcissus by J.W. Waterhouse
(and cast of William Holman Hunt's hand below) |
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| Williamson Gallery and Museum, Birkenhead |
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| Williamson Gallery and Museum |
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| Pimpernel by Morris & Co. |
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| Panel by Della Robbia Pottery |
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| Della Robbia Pottery |
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| Della Robbia Pottery |
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| Della Robbia panel by Cassandra Annie Walker |
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Schoolboys on the Ferry by E. Chambré Hardman,
image from ntprints.com |
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| Both Tom Baker and Elisabeth Sladen come from Liverpool |
Next week I'm visiting Strawberry Fields during Heritage Days. I've also been to visit the John Rylands Library in Manchester—look for a future post on that and a few more places in Manchester! Thanks for reading!
