Liverpool (3): The Mersey Ferry and the Anglican Cathedral

Celebrating the Work of Gerry Marsden and Giles Gilbert Scott

The Mersey Ferry

Liverpool

The River Mersey is formed by the confluence of the Rivers Goyt and Thame in Stockport. It is reputedly 70 miles long, but after 50 miles of serpentine twisting through urban landscapes and a straight stretch shared with the Manchester Ship Canal, it has reached Widnes, barely 25 miles from its source. Here the river becomes the Mersey Estuary.

The estuary narrows between Liverpool and Birkenhead, so this is the obvious place to build tunnels for road and rail and, before that, the obvious place for a ferry.

Lancashire, Greater Manchester and Merseyside

There has been a ferry here since at least 1150, when the monks of Birkenhead’s Benedictine Priory charged a small fee to row passengers cross the river.

With two road tunnels taking the bulk of the traffic, Mersey Ferries now operate only two vessels, the MV Royal Iris of the Mersey and MV Snowdrop. Both were built in the 1960s but were extensively refitted – and renamed - in the early 2000s.

We had tickets for a 50 minute ‘Mersey River Cruise’, and to be sure of being on the 10 o’clock sailing we joined the crowd at the Pier head early enough to see the 9.30 ferry arrive. A few people got off, most of them wheeling bicycles, a few got on and within minutes the Royal Iris set off for Birkenhead leaving the bulk of the crowd still at the Pier Head. We were all waiting for the ‘cruise’.

MV Royal Iris of the Mersey sets off for Birkenhead

The Mersey here is almost exactly a kilometre wide but Birkenhead is a little upstream, so the journey is a tad further. The Royal Iris of the Mersey was back in plenty of time to load up for the ‘cruise’. The Snowdrop seemed to be having a day off.

Cruising on the Mersey

Mersey Cruising with Gerry and the Pacemakers

The sun shone and the river was calm and almost blue as we set off, rather predictably, to the sound of Gerry and the Pacemakers 'Ferry Cross the Mersey’.

The Beatles bursting of the dam created a flood of what were then called ‘beat groups’, many of them from Liverpool (‘Merseybeat groups’). Among the leaders were Brian Epstein’s second signing as a manager, Gerry and the Pacemakers whose first three singles all went to No 1, a feat never achieved before not even by the Beatles.

As Gerry Marsden sang, we headed downstream near the Wirral bank and then returned to view the Liverpool waterfront, staring straight into the morning sun.

The Wirral side of the Mersey

Their first two singles (released in March and May 1963) were pieces of fluff, cheerful upbeat tunes but with a hook so barbed that once it had encountered a twelve-year-old ear it could embed itself for the next 59 years (and counting) – I write from experience.

Their third in October 1963 brought a change of direction; You’ll Never Walk Alone came from Rogers and Hammerstein’s 1945 musical Carousel. Few would claim that Gerry Marsden had a great voice and You’ll Never Walk Alone had already been recorded by several more accomplished singers, including Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley, but he brought his own personality and background to the song, and that made it about Liverpool. (YouTube Video) The city was then still walking through a storm as the docks that had once brought wealth endured their long, slow death. Liverpudlians pride themselves on standing by one another against those they believe have wronged them (and have ferociously long memories about who that is) and they enjoy a little mawkish sentimentality.

The Liverpool waterfront

Club Crest¹

Shankly Gates, Anfield²

The song was immediately adopted by Liverpool Football Club and it has been played on the public address and sung by the crowd at every home game since 1963. The song title sits atop the club crest and the Shankly Gates at Anfield stadium, but the title refers not just to the song, but to the Gerry and the Pacemakers recording of it.

Back almost at our starting point, we headed up stream and across river to stop briefly at the Birkenhead ferry terminal and then continued up the rather industrial Birkenhead side to the Tranmere Docks.

Birkenhead Ferry Pier
The obelisk on the waterfront is a ventilation tower for the Mersey Tunnel directly below

You’ll Never Walk Alone was their third and final UK No. 1, though there would be 3 more UK top ten hits in 1964 (and 3 in the USA). The last of these was the title song from the film Ferry Cross the Mersey intended to rival The Beatle’s Hard Day’s Night. It did well enough for a film of its type.

Scenic Tranmere docks, Mersey Cruise

The song (Top of Tops Video on You Tube) has a simple tune with lyrics that might suggest a downbeat lack of ambition:

Life goes on day after day
Hearts torn in every way

So ferry, cross the Mersey
'Cause this land's the place I love
And here I'll stay

The song was the group's last significant UK or US hit. The Beatles were able to develop their music which became more sophisticated as their fan base grew up. Gerry and the Pacemakers did not, or could not. It took a couple of years for the charm to wear off, then they were gone. Gerry Marsden, though, carried on, appearing on children’s television and in a West End Musical and he kept touring, as a solo artist or as ‘Gerry and the Pacemakers’ with various line-ups in ’oldies tours’.

Turning round, Mersey Cruise

He had a heart bypass operation in 2003 and another heart op in 2016. He retired in November 2018, and died of heart problems in January 2021 at Arrowe Park Hospital on Merseyside, aged 78. He died just 8 miles as the crow flies from where he was born.  When he sang ‘and here I’ll stay’ he meant it, though he had moved ‘Cross the Mersey’ from the deprived area of his childhood to more affluent surroundings. (We will overlook his other home in Spain - the weather on Merseyside is not always as fine as they day of our cruise)

Coming to the end of the cruise

After a final glide past Liverpool’s two cathedrals, we were back at the Pier Head.

Liverpool's Cathedrals, the circular Catholic Cathedral and the enormous Anglican Cathedral

The Pier Head to the Anglican Cathedral

According to Google, the Pier Head to the Anglican cathedral is a 25-minute walk mostly along Duke Street. Unfortunately, we chose to walk via Park Lane and St James Street which looked a reasonable alternative on the paper map we had picked up in the hotel.

The gently rising Park Lane took us past the distinctive Gustav Adolf Scandinavian Church. An example of late Gothic Revival, it was built 1883/4 to serve Scandinavian seaman and migrants in transit to North America. The church is still active and part of a broader Nordic Cultural Centre. If you wish to attend a Lutheran church service, eat a sandwich without its top or indulge in conversational Swedish, Norwegian or even Finnish this is the place to go.

Gustav Adolf Scandinavian Church, Liverpool

At the top of St James is the Wedding House, a ‘one-stop shop for those planning their big day’. An earlier piece of Gothic Revival, it was built for the North and South Wales Bank which opened here, and not in Wales, in 1836. Despite its location it successfully developed a network of branches on both sides of the border before becoming part of the Midland Bank (now part of HSBC) in 1908.

The Wedding House, Liverpool

Looking towards the Cathedral from outside the Wedding House we realised we had picked the wrong route. The road to the left slants the wrong way, but the only access to the Cathedral is at its far end so that was where we had to go. This added the best part of 500m to our walk, had it been raining we would have been annoyed, but as we were strolling in pleasant sunshine it mattered little.

Liverpool Cathedral

As a bonus our route now took us past the entrance to Liverpool’s Chinatown. Liverpool may not have the largest Chinatown, but it does claim the oldest Chinese community in Europe and the tallest Paifang. Chinese seamen started to settle around the docks in the 1860s and estimates suggest there are over 7,000 Liverpudlians of full Chinese descent making them the city's largest ethnic group of non-European origin. There are thought to be another 25-35,000 people of mixed Chinese descent.

Paifang across Nelson Street, Liverpool

Liverpool Anglican Cathedral

The industrial revolution (1760-1840) changed England’s demographic landscape. Small market towns, mainly in the north and midlands, sucked in the population from the surrounding countryside as England turned from an agrarian to an urban society in a couple of generations.  The authorities reacted slowly, few of the new metropolises had parliamentary representation until the middle of the 19th century and none had city status.

But change was inevitable. In 1880, Liverpool, with the population already over 600,000 was made a city, followed by Birmingham, Bradford, Leeds and others.

Bishop Ryle³
Splendid Beard

The creation of new cities broke the historic convention that cities were just towns with bishops and cathedrals, but these changes also meant the Church of England needed more dioceses. In the same year as Liverpool became a city, John Ryle became the first Anglican bishop of Liverpool, but he was not Liverpool’s first bishop. After almost 300 years absence, the Roman Catholic church had re-established its dioceses in 1850, and with its large Irish Catholic population, Liverpool was among the first catholic dioceses. In 1880 Liverpool had two bishops and no cathedrals.

The earliest plans of the Catholics ran into financial difficulties, the C of E produced an unworkable plan, then wondered if they needed a cathedral at all. The 20th century dawned and nothing had changed except the Catholic bishop was now a cathederalless archbishop.

In 1901 the C of E found a site and organised a competition to design their new cathedral, It was won by the 26-year-old Giles Gilbert Scott, the 3rd generation of the Gilbert Scott architectural dynasty and the man who later designed the red phone box (I refuse to call them, or anything else, ‘iconic’.) The design was grandiose, work started in 1906 and progressed slowly, halting during World War I.

Inside Liverpool Cathedral

Between the wars the Catholics set to work on an ambitious design by Sir Edwin Lutyens and the C of E continued doggedly with Gilbert Scott’s design. Ironically Lutyens was C of E while Gilbert Scott was Catholic. Work halted for World War II.

After the war, the Catholics dropped the Lutyens design and went back to the drawing board while the C of E laboured on, though the design was modified as money became tight.

Statues of Saints, Liverpool Cathedral

The Catholics adopted another plan in 1962 and their cathedral was completed by 1967 (we visited on Monday). Giles Gilbert Scott died in 1960 and his work was taken over by his son Richard, the cathedral eventually being dedicated in 1978. The Catholic Cathedral took 5 years, the C of E 72 years (Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia has been under construction for 138 years so far, so it was not that slow).

And was it worth the wait? Well, it is big - much bigger than the Catholic cathedral as the photo from the cruise showed. It is the largest religious building in England and the largest Anglican/Episcopalian Cathedral in the world (disputed by the unfinished Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City). At 180m long it is the longest cathedral in the world and the 5th biggest in terms of volume.

Stained glass window
I felt you and I knew you loved me by Tracey Emin

And is size important? Not really. The Catholic cathedral is innovative in design, plays with light in original ways, gives everybody a view of proceedings and is human in scale. The C of E Cathedral is just big, too big to be appreciated (or photographed) from the outside and a vast cavern inside. It is (I’m sorry) a bit ugly and the central tower is as charmless as the Mersey tunnel ventilation tower. But it does have some interesting corners, the people were nice, and the café provided a very acceptable coffee and a cake for our lunch.

Interesting corner, Liverpool Cathedral

And that lunch brought our visit to Liverpool to an end, and we returned home.

¹Copyright Liverpool Football Club
² Borrowed from Wikipedia, Photo by Andy Nugent, reproduced under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5
³Borrowed from Wikipedia, scanned from Illustrated London News (June 1900) by Tim Riley

See also

Liverpool (1): Castle Street and the Catholic Cathedral
Liverpool (2): The Waterfront, The Cavern Club and St George's Quarter
Liverpool (3): Ferry Cross the Mersey and the Anglican Cathedral