As soon as you alight at Liverpool’s Lime Street station, step outside and hear the seagulls squawking, you know you’re near the sea – areminder that for all its footballing and musical links, this is a port city. And it’s the waterfront where you should head first on your visit – for it was the explosion in maritime trade from the 18th century onwards that turned this once insignificant spot on the river Mersey into a mighty northern city.
The city’s Maritime Museum is at the Royal Albert Dock, which dates back to the mid-19th century, but is now home to restaurants, bars and other attractions. The museum tells how – in its heyday as a port – Liverpool boasted a huge, inter-connected 7.5 mile dock system which, it is said, handled 40 per cent of the world’s trade in the early 19th century. The city’s pivotal role in the slave trade – adark chapter in British history – is explored in the adjoining International Slavery Museum.