Mark Meek's Ideas: Liverpool And Manchester

LIVERPOOL

Liverpool was based on both the Industrial Revolution and on elements in Europe being hostile to Britain. In the days of sailing ships, Bristol was the most important port. We saw this in the recent visit there. But when the Industrial Revolution began, it brought much larger ships that were based on steam engines. As long as Europe is friendly, Southampton is the best port because it faces toward Europe. But, if there is some conflict with Europe, Liverpool becomes a safer port for ships because it faces away from Europe.

Liverpool became the port of the Industrial Revolution, the route by which raw materials were imported for the new industries of England's Midlands, and finished products were exported.

Liverpool is much more than just it's docks. It has started so many innovations that spread across the world that there is not room to go into them here. For one thing the world's first railroad, running on the new steam engines of the Industrial Revolution, began service between Liverpool and Manchester.

This was the world's first building of glass over a metal frame, Oriel Chambers. This set the precedence for modern architecture. Image from Google Street View.

The city is also known for the Beatles, although they were far from the only rock music band to emerge from Liverpool. A good band would release an album with ten songs and one, or possibly two, of the songs might be hits. The Beatles would release an album of ten songs, and all would be hits. In fact, unique in the rock music era, there is no such thing as a Beatles song that was not a hit song. Image from Google Street View.

Penny Lane is a street in Liverpool that was made famous by the Beatles song about it. The street signs are painted onto walls because the usual metal street signs were always stolen by Beatles fans. My pics.

The dock at Liverpool was also where my family left by ship for North America, when I was a young boy. We sailed on the Empress of England which, at the time, ran the Liverpool to Montreal route. I still have the written instructions that we were given explaining how to disembark at Montreal. Years later, I would revisit the dock where we got on the ship. I had a poster made of the ship that we came over on.

The three prominent buildings along Liverpool's waterfront are known as the Three Graces. The two statues of birds atop the Royal Liver Building are of the Liver Birds, which are a legend in the city. Four images from Google Earth and Street View.

The following image shows the two Liver Birds atop the Royal Liver Building, facing in opposite directions, just below the two red dots.

This is my pic of the Three Graces.

Here is a look around the waterfront area of Liverpool. Liverpool is just about the most walkable city that I have ever seen. The Three Graces are visible in the first image, from Google Earth.

There are multiple scenes following. To see the scenes, after the first one, you must first click the up arrow, ^, before you can move on to the next scene by clicking the right or forward arrow, >. After clicking the up arrow you can then hide previews of successive scenes, if you wish.

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Here are nine images of the central city area, from Google Earth and Street View.

This is where I arrived in Liverpool, at the Lime Street Station. Image from Google Street View.

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Liverpool's Anglican cathedral is a massive structure that is the longest cathedral in the world and the largest cathedral in Britain. It is not old, having been built only in the Twentieth Century.

The long central hall of a cruciform (shaped like a cross) cathedral is called the nave. "Nave" means "ship" in Latin and a cathedral is indeed a ship that carries one by faith through the unpredictable sea of life down here on earth. The nave of Liverpool Cathedral is the longest in the world, and this fits with the city's heritage of bring founded around ships.

Here are some scenes of Liverpool's Anglican cathedral, beginning inside the cathedral. This is a vast cathedral, people are like ants inside it. The first nine images are from Google Earth and Street View.

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At the other end of Hope Street is Liverpool's Catholic cathedral. It is a modern building, even newer than the Anglican cathedral, and was built during the 1960s. England went on the Protestant side during the Reformation, but a significant number of Catholics remained and Liverpool is the most Catholic city in Britain. Part of it is also due to immigration, particularly from nearby Ireland.

The following scenes begin inside the Catholic cathedral. The first two images are from Google Street View.

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Like many cities, Liverpool has been through having the entire basis of it's economy pulled out from under it. The industries of the Industrial Revolution moved elsewhere. With Europe at peace, Southampton is a better location for a port because it faces toward Europe. Jet airplanes brought the era of travel by passenger ship to a close.

But Liverpool has come through all of this and is better than ever. It has undergone what is likely the most successful program of urban renewal anywhere. An example is the shopping area known as Liverpool One. Five images from Google Street View.

There is no medieval Liverpool, it only became an important city with the Industrial Revolution. It is not really that big of a city, with a metro area population of just over two million. But it is still one of the most visited cities in the world, people come to see it just because it's Liverpool.

The city on the other side of the Mersey River from Liverpool is Birkenhead. When we were leaving for North America, I remember being told that we were entering the Mersey Tunnel. The dock of Liverpool was at the other end of the tunnel, where our ship would be waiting. Today there are two traffic tunnels, the Queensway and the Kingsway, but this was before the Kingsway was open so it would have been what is now called the Queensway Tunnel that we went through.

Here are some scenes of Birkenhead, beginning at the entrance to the tunnel. Liverpool is on the other side of the river. If something seems out of place in street and traffic scenes, it is because cars in Britain drive on the left side of the road. In the first two images, from Google Street View, Liverpool is in the foreground and Birkenhead is on the other side of the Mersey River.

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Here is something that I have never seen pointed out about Liverpool. The three prominent buildings on the waterfront are known as the Three Graces.

The buildings are, from north to south, the Royal Liver Building, the Cunard Building and, the Port of Liverpool Building.

What I have never seen pointed out is that the three buildings are aligned just like the three Pyramids of Giza. The front of the three buildings, facing the waterfront, are not in a straight line. The front of each building is set further westward as we proceed southward. In the same way the three pyramids are aligned from northeast to southwest.

Here are the Pyramids of Giza. The pyramids decrease in size and age as we move from northeast to southwest. These pyramids are the mausoleums of three Old Kingdom pharaohs who were grandfather, son and, grandson.

From grandfather to grandson their names were Khufu, Khafre and, Menkaure. Their names are often given in Greek, Cheops, Cephren and, Mycerinus. Image from Google Earth. The apex of each pyramid is shown by a red dot.

Muslims of about a thousand years ago made an effort to disassemble the three pyramids and some blocks from the newest and smallest pyramid, Menkaure, are missing.

Not only are Liverpool's Three Graces aligned in the same way as the Pyramids of Giza, the location of the nearby Queen Victoria Monument is just about congruent in it's location relative to the Three Graces as the location of the Sphinx relative to the three pyramids. Although the Queen Victoria Monument is somewhat southward. Three images from Google Earth and Street View. The first shows the positioning of the Three Graces. The second and third show the Victoria Monument and it's position relative to the Three Graces, indicated by red dots.

Building pyramids was very expensive and fell out of favor after the end of the period known as the Old Kingdom. Later pharaohs, such as King Tut, had much more modest tombs in the Valley of the Kings.

But the three Pyramids of Giza are the best-known of the pyramids, and are reflected in the waterfront of Liverpool.

MANCHESTER

Even though Manchester's cathedral is over 500 years old, it was not an important city until the Industrial Revolution began there. At one time, more than half of the cotton items that were made in the world were made in Manchester. It was all about industry.

England was a logical place for the Industrial Revolution to get it's start. The country is not rich in resources, but two things that it does have in abundance were the early industrial essentials of coal and iron ore. London was the capital and had too many important buildings so that it didn't want the smoke that comes with industry, so the Industrial Revolution began some distance away, in Manchester.

The city has the most famous sports team in human history, Manchester United. Every year, hopefuls come from all over the world for a chance to play for this team.

These seven images, from Google Earth and Street View, are of central Manchester.

Manchester is inland, but used to have a port because a canal was built to link it to the sea.

There are several locks on the canal, to change the level of ships.

Next to the Manchester Arena is the very old Chetham's Library. Image from Google Street View.

Friedrich Engels, the co-developer of Communist theory in the Nineteenth Century, lived for a long time in Manchester. Karl Marx, in exile in London, came to Manchester to visit Engels. The two met in this library, and their discussion was the beginning of the world-changing book, "The Communist Manifesto".

Thus, we could say that the modern economic landscape of Communism and Capitalism at opposite ends, and socialism as a reaction against both as the middle ground, began with the factories of Manchester. Engels and Marx thought that it would be better if the workers themselves owned the factories in which they worked, instead of many workers working for a few wealthy people.

The French Revolution began the replacement of kings with either republics or dictatorships, but the left against right economics began here. The modern terminology of left and right actually began in Britain's parliament when members would sit to either the left or the right of the aisle, depending on their political views.

Despite Manchester being the beginning of modern industrial society, England, with the typically Protestant attitude of think-for-yourself individualism, probably wasn't the best place for the collectivization of Communism to get started. But it would eventually spread to about a third of the world, and would also greatly affect the other two-thirds.

The following scenes begin near the Manchester Arena, and just outside the cathedral. The first four images are from Google Earth and Street View.