Merseyside Maritime Museum

The Merseyside Maritime Museum occupies part of the Grade I listed Royal Albert Dock warehouses in Liverpool, England, and is one of the national museums operated under the Liverpool museums group. Admission is free, with donations welcomed, and the museum sits just a few minutes from the dock's cafes and the Tate Liverpool. The galleries explain how Liverpool became one of the great trading ports of the British Empire and a gateway for millions of emigrants. Maritime Liverpool and the Titanic and Liverpool displays cover the city's links to the White Star Line, whose ships were registered in Liverpool, and also to the Lusitania. Further galleries are devoted to the Battle of the Atlantic, in which the city's port and the nearby Western Approaches command played a central role in the Second World War. Visitors will see ship models, paintings, navigational instruments, uniforms and personal objects, along with sections on the dock engineers who built the system of docks that lined the Mersey. A separate gallery on the Customs and Excise history of the port and a family-friendly area for younger children add variety. The International Slavery Museum occupies the upper floors of the same building and is reached from inside, so many visitors combine the two. Allow between one and a half and two hours for the Maritime Museum alone, and more if combining both. The building can be busy on rainy weekends and during school holidays, when family groups fill the entrance hall; weekday mornings soon after opening offer the quietest conditions. Photography without flash is typically allowed. The museum is a short walk along the waterfront from the Museum of Liverpool at Pier Head, and visitors on a Mersey-side day commonly link the two with a stroll past Royal Albert Dock. Cafes and the museum shop are available on site, and the dockside setting means cobbled areas around the entrance. The wider Albert Dock complex offers plenty of seating for a break between galleries.