It stands at 90 m ft tall and has 13 floors. On the top of the building, sat on each of the two towers are the mythical Liver Birds, the symbol of Liverpool. They are 18 feet tall, have a total wing span of 24 feet and are made of copper. Local legend has it that if they fly away, Liverpool will cease to exist. The Liver Birds are a cross between an eagle and a cormorant the bird of good luck to sailors.
The City of Liverpool removed all reference to his achievements and at the end of the war, despite having a wife in London , he was sent back to Germany. Listed Grade I. The Liver Building was built as the head office of the Royal Liver Friendly Society, which had its origins as a midth century burial club.
It is notable as one of Britain's first multi-storey reinforced concrete framed buildings. Stylistically unique in England, it is more akin to the early tall buildings of America such as the Allegheny Court House by H. It has nine bays on each front and thirteen bays on the sides. The top floor steps back behind a Doric colonnade, taking advantage of the technical possibilities offered by its reinforced concrete structure.
The roof has turrets and domes in receding stages and the clock towers have copper Liver Birds designed by Carl Bernard Bartels and constructed by Bromsgrove Guild. The Bromsgrove Guild were awarded this important commission by The Royal Liver Assurance Company who wanted two mythical Liver Birds to be mounted on the twin towers of its new head office at the Pier Head when it opened 19 July, Their construction presented many problems, firstly their size and the fact that they were to be mounted feet from the ground.
This meant that they would have to be constructed to withstand high winds but not be too heavy. The birds were constructed in Bromsgrove, dismantled and then transported to Liverpool. At this point, we notice that the health and safety procedures are rigorous. There is a briefing, warning of potential hazards and telling us what to do in an emergency.
This is quite different from other older attractions. The guide counts some of us into the lift and we go up. We wait for the others and then proceed out onto a balcony below the south clock face. Our guide provides information and plenty of humorous remarks. Soon the lights go down. What follows is a state-of-the-art presentation on the history of Liverpool and the Liver Building from its construction at the beginning of the century, through two world wars and up to the present day.
The visuals are good, including animated 3D Liver Birds as well as many still and moving archive images. The sound is immersive and very loud. It presents Liverpool perfectly and truly expresses the pride people have in the city. View north from the Liver Building roof Emerging into the daylight, we walk out onto the balconies and start to admire the panoramic views: the city centre to the east, the Pier Head, Albert Dock and River Mersey to the south, the view west across the river towards Birkenhead and the Welsh mountains and to the north and north-west, the docks, New Brighton and the Irish Sea.
We are standing below the dome with Bella standing on top. Now it is stunning to see the view in the other direction. I start to take photos and videos, moving around each balcony and back again. You are only allowed, I think it was around 10 to 15 minutes at the top before being asked to leave.
I spent a whole evening on the Shard in London and a similar amount of time and spent a few hours at the top of the Rockefeller Center in New York. Royal Liver bosses, please take note!
Blick nach oben auf die Fassade des Liver Building. The Liver Building was begun in the same year my father was born, He was christened Bertie, presumably after the popular name of George, who became King in I remember visiting the Pier Head with my mother in the s and taking the ferry to Woodside. I was captivated by the Cunard Building and the Port of Liverpool building. They had just been cleaned and looked as if they were made out of icing sugar.
At that time, all the buildings in Manchester were still covered in black soot from the factories. Another memory from the sixties is the opening credits of the Liver Birds tv series, starring Nerys Hughes and Polly James. The grimy Liver Building can be seen from the ferry.
There is an iconic shot looking up at the glamorous Nerys Hughes standing on the back of a bus, with the tower of the Liver Building behind. I love the Liver Building, its design, its location, the Liver Birds that stand on top of it, and all the associations it has with the history of Liverpool.
I will go on admiring it and taking photos of it, like every local person and every visitor to the city. I hope to find out even more hidden facts about the Liver Building, which I will add to this page. Mobile phone images show a blaze in front of the semi-circular window below the west tower.
The fire was put out by Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service. Hi, My Grandad once told me the Liver building was built on foundations of bales of hay or cotton. Many thanks for your comment. Thanks very much indeed for your comment. I wanted to provide as much information as possible but also highlight the uncertainties surrounding some of the information.
Thanks also for subscribing to my site. I currently live in France and am planning to return to Merseyside early next year. If you can offer any guidance as to the required experience for the position and also the best way to apply it would be very much appreciated.
To be a guide at the Royal Liver Building you would need to get in touch with Royal Liver , the visitor experience. They employ people to act as guides, leading visitors on the tour of the tower and rooftop viewing areas. To become an official tour guide for Liverpool — not just the Liver Building, you would ideally need to have Blue Badge status.
You would need to do a course and take an exam. The course is held only from time to time. Good luck anyhow. The Liver Building is one of the most remarkable and unique buildings in the world. The Liver Building is an has always been an office building. First it housed the offices of the Liver Assurance. When I was a child I remember that there was a news item showing the liver building clock turning backwards and a group of workers pointing to it.
It was filmed from the birkenhead side of the mersey. I could never find footage of this. This is intriguing. I have no recollection of that, though I used to watch the local news at that time. I showed your comment to two friends of mine from Liverpool. That would be a good question for the Liverpool Hidden History group on Facebook.
Could it have been at the time that the clocks go back at the end of October? I have a cine film from or 71 and the Liver building appears to be black. Someone has shown me a photo from and the building is its present colour. What year did the Liver building get cleaned? Does anybody know? I remember visiting Liverpool as a child — I think it was around and with my mother and I was astonished by the sight of the Port of Liverpool building.
Maybe it was later. The only way to find out for certain would be to do some picture research. Find photos of the Liver Building from around that time, with the date they were taken, and look to see when the exterior changes from smoke blackened to clean. It was definitely between the late sixties and early seventies. I have just found 2 photos online from showing the Liver building with the upper parts covered for sand blasting so I guess that answers my original question.
The clean up must have been done in Interesting article, thanks! I work in the Liver Building. The offices are very modern. Each floor including the lift area is decorated according to the design of the occupants. In they rebuiilt the ground floor and basement. The plans are on the Council website the planning application. There is a new cafe on the ground floor. There is a new gym in the basement, with a running track and boxing ring for some obscure reason , though they have kept the safety deposit vault.
The cafe was due to open in November The contractors overran significantly, they underestimated how much of the concrete had to be removed. The new reception is at the end of the cafe, where new entry barriers for office workers have been installed. Unfortunately the work overran and it was due to open at the end of March — just after lockdown started. You went past it on the way to the lift for the tour, there was a glass door which staff used to be able to go through to get to the lift but they locked it when the tour started.
It was very dingy with no windows but served good food, excellent home-made soups and some hot food though mostly people went for sandwiches. Whilst the work was being done they got a company to run a pop-up sandwich shop in the atrium closest to the river, that company was going to run the new cafe but unfortunately they went bust during lockdown so the cafe is currently empty with no-one to run it.
The only annoying thing is that the lifts are they type where you press which floor you want to go to and it tells you to use a particular lift called A-F. Wow, you work in the Liver Building? I never expected to receive such a detailed description of the inner workings of the Liver Building from someone who familiar with the building on a daily basis.
It is quite frankly fascinating. Sometimes on tv, images from outside the Liver building seem to show one clock face displaying a different time to the others. Is this an optical illusion or maybe just my imagination? All four clocks are electronically controlled and should show exactly the same time.
Maybe from different angles, the minute hand might appear to point to a slightly different point on the clock face. Thank you for the detailed history. I have been told that he gave the speech convincing other board members of the feasibility of creating a skyscraper for the company. His name is on a plaque to the entrance of the building. Sounds like he was a visionary — the Liver Building was the first skyscraper in the UK, a groundbreaking building in every respect.
Many thanks for this fascinating piece of information. I wish the clock had real bells. As bells were initially intended, I assume the clock mechanism was designed with a strike and chime mechanism. Presumably, this is what the piano wire chimes installed in the 50s ran on.
Maybe someday we could fundraise for some. These could include modern elements such as the bell hammers being operated by electrical impulse rather than gearwork. Another smart feature could be to allow the hammers to strike the bells at a variable speed setting to control volume.
This could be linked to a sensor that monitors outside ambient sound levels so the bells are a bit softer during quieter periods. I believe the bells were intended for the west tower. Presumably, the belfry for the east tower was merely for architectural symmetry.
Perhaps a carilion could be installed in the east tower. The architectural lighting has recently been upgraded, including the lighting of the dials.
I think this is LED and the colour scheme can be programmed to display different colours and patterns. That said, the default for the dials seems to be a neutral white.
However, until recently, the dials were illuminated in a murky orange colour. I understand that this was low pressure sodium lighting; the very same type of lamp as that used in the older style streetlights that are now being phased out.
Thanks very much indeed for this very detailed response. I think it would be fantastic for the Liver Building to have real bells, and maybe as you say housed in the east tower as the west tower is now part of the visitor experience. It really was the original intention to install real bells so why not now? I make a brief mention of the colour of the light towards the end, but I am going to add an extra piece of information and a photograph of the new colour provided by the LED lights.
Thanks again for your response! Each dial has its own mechanism: the so-called Waiting Train movement, by Gent of Leicester. This electric mechanism moves the hands through the space of half a minute in about 27 seconds, then stops and waits for an electric pulse from a central Master Clock, then re-starts.
This movement is used in other clocks, but a smaller version and operating more than one dial. You have answered my question perfectly! Many thanks for posting! The liver birds were built here in Bromsgrove at the Bromsgrove Guild long since disbanded.
We have a small museum and there is information and images of the Liver Birds under construction. The Guild also built Buckingham Palace gates. Many thanks for that information. I would be very interested in seeing that museum some time. Many thanks! Thanks, a great source of information.
These different concepts allow the bird to be used to represent many different ideas and brands. After two Liver bird statues were placed atop the majestic towers of the Royal Liver Building , a number of myths and legends began to spring up around the creatures.
The statues themselves are 5. The statues were designed by German artist Carl Bernard Bartels, who had won a competition to design the statues for the building. Local legends suggest that one of the statues is a male Liver bird, whereas the other one is a female.
The other bird is looking inwards towards the city to watch over the wives, girlfriends and families who have been left behind. Close-up shots of the birds also show that they are tightly strapped on to the towers. Although the reality of the situation is that these chains are there to secure the heavy statues in case of extreme weather, many myths have sprung up around why the statues have to be chained. Local legend says that if the Liver birds were to fly away from their perches, the banks of the Mersey would breach and the city would succumb to a great flood.
Some versions of the legend even state that the city would cease to exist altogether! Fans of the Liver birds can see them in many other locations around the city. The Museum of Liverpool contains a life-sized replica of the Royal Liverpool building birds; so that visitors can take the opportunity to see the birds close up.
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