Pier Head and the Three Graces

Pier Head on the River Mersey in Liverpool, England, is the city's best-known waterfront space, framed by three early 20th-century buildings known as the Three Graces. The Port of Liverpool Building was completed in 1907 to the design of Arthur Davies and Briggs with Francis Doyle, a domed Edwardian Baroque headquarters for the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board built on the filled site of George's Dock. The Royal Liver Building followed in 1911, designed by Walter Aubrey Thomas for the Royal Liver Friendly Society, and was one of the first major buildings in Britain constructed in reinforced concrete. Its two clock towers are crowned by the mythical Liver Birds, which have become the city's emblem. The Cunard Building, completed in 1916 by Willink and Thicknesse, was the Cunard Line's headquarters and borrows from Italian Renaissance palazzo design. Together they represented the wealth of Liverpool as a transatlantic gateway at the height of the British Empire. Pier Head also contains the Mersey Ferries terminal, the Museum of Liverpool, the Titanic Memorial to the engine room crew and the Beatles statue installed in 2015. The Three Graces' stone facades and carved details are best appreciated from the open plaza. Tours of the Royal Liver Building tower and clock chamber run in season, and the Port of Liverpool Building's interior is largely closed to the public. Liverpool's Maritime Mercantile City was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004 and removed from the list in 2021 after the Liverpool Waters development, but the buildings remain legally protected, and the Grade I listed Three Graces are still among the most photographed urban views in England.