Museum of Liverpool

The Museum of Liverpool is the city’s own museum. Not a national collection that happens to be housed here, but a museum about Liverpool and the people in it. When it opened, it was the first national museum anywhere built to tell the story of a single regional city, which tells you something about how Liverpool sees itself.

You’ll find it at Mann Island on the Pier Head, in the low white building that looks like folded paper, sat next to the Three Graces. Danish practice 3XN designed it, Buro Happold engineered it and Galliford Try built it, at a cost of £72 million. It opened to the public in the July of 2011, replacing the old Museum of Liverpool Life, and gives over 8,000 square metres of floor space to more than 6,000 objects.

The displays are split across four galleries. The Great Port and Global City sit downstairs and deal with the docks, industry, empire and how all of that built the city’s economy. Upstairs, People’s Republic and Wondrous Place take on identity and culture, looking at politics, migration, football, music and the city’s long-running argument with the rest of the country. There’s also City Soldiers, covering the King’s Regiment, and Little Liverpool for the under-sixes. A 180-seat theatre hosts talks and performances.

Lion, the veteran locomotive that starred in The Titfield Thunderbolt, was craned into the building during construction back in 2007 and isn’t going anywhere. Ben Johnson’s vast Liverpool Cityscape is the other thing everyone ends up photographing.

National Museums Liverpool is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and paid for largely through government grant-in-aid. That’s why admission is free, as it has been at all the national museums since the free-entry policy came in in 2001.

Doors are open 10:00 to 17:00 and closed on the 25th and 26th of December. No booking is needed. There’s a café and a shop, and the building is step-free throughout.

The Basics

Where: Mann Island, Pier Head, Liverpool Waterfront, L3 1DG
Opening hours: 10:00 to 17:00. Closed on the 25th and 26th of December
Admission: Free, and no booking is needed
Facilities: Café, shop, step-free throughout
Don’t miss: Lion the locomotive, and Ben Johnson’s Liverpool Cityscape
Best for: A first proper look at the city and under-sixes in the Little Liverpool gallery
Run by: National Museums Liverpool