Qualla: Royal Liver Building

Royal Liver Building: Introduction

Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY-SA 3.0. Bella faces the sea. Bertie faces the city. The two enormous copper Liver Birds perched on the twin clock towers of the Royal Liver Building have looked in opposite directions since 1911, and Liverpool likes to say that if they ever turn to face one another the city will fall. Whoever named them - Bella outward over the Mersey, watching for sailors coming home; Bertie inward over Liverpool, watching the pubs do not close too early - knew their job. Eighteen feet tall in beaten copper, designed by the German sculptor Carl Bernard Bartels, they were the first thing emigrants saw arriving in Liverpool and the last thing they saw leaving. They still are.

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Image: CC BY-SA 3.0

Royal Liver Building: An Insurance Company Builds a Wonder

Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Photostevo, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Royal Liver Friendly Society had been founded in Liverpool in 1850 as a working-class mutual: members paid in a penny a week to insure their families against the catastrophe of losing a wage-earner. By 1907 the society had over six thousand staff and needed a head office to m...

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Image: Photostevo | CC BY-SA 3.0

Royal Liver Building: The Three Graces

Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rept0n1x, CC BY-SA 3.0. By 1916 the Royal Liver Building had two younger siblings beside it on Pier Head. The Cunard Building rose immediately to its south, the headquarters of the great Atlantic shipping line. The Port of Liverpool Building - the city's harbour authority headquarters - was already ther...

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Image: Rept0n1x | CC BY-SA 3.0

Royal Liver Building: George's Clock

Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Original uploader was Chowells at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0. The four clock faces are each 7.6 metres in diameter - bigger than the dials of the Great Westminster Clock at the Palace of Westminster in London, which most people call Big Ben. The Liver Building clocks are the largest electrically driven clock dials in the United Kingdom. The...

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Image: Original uploader was Chowells at en.wikipedia | CC BY-SA 3.0

Royal Liver Building: Bella, Bertie, and Carl Bernard Bartels

Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mike Pennington, CC BY-SA 2.0. The German-born sculptor Carl Bernard Bartels won the commission to design the two Liver Birds in 1909. He had emigrated to Britain in 1887 and was working in London when the Liver Building competition was held. His design - long-necked, eagle-bodied, with seaweed in their beaks,...

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Image: Mike Pennington | CC BY-SA 2.0

Royal Liver Building: From Insurance to Visitors

Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit John Bradley, CC BY-SA 3.0. Royal Liver Assurance remained headquartered in its building for exactly a century. In 2011 - one hundred years after the opening - the company merged into the Royal London Group and moved out. The building was put on the market in October 2016, sold the following year to Coresta...

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Image: John Bradley | CC BY-SA 3.0