Things to do in Merseyside

Formby Beach on the Merseyside coast north of Liverpool is the finest and most ecologically important stretch of coastal dune and beach on the northwest coast of England, a National Trust property whose combination of the extensive sandy beach, the tall dune system planted with Scots pine, the red squirrel reserve in the pine woodland and the ancient human footprints preserved in the foreshore peat creates a coastal nature reserve of exceptional variety and national importance. The red squirrel colony at Formby is the most visited in England, the squirrels becoming remarkably accustomed to visitors at the nut feeding areas. The pinewoods planted on the dunes in the late nineteenth century provide the habitat for one of the largest red squirrel populations in England, the isolation of the Formby woodland from other red squirrel populations by the surrounding urban development having maintained a population uncontaminated by the grey squirrel competition that has reduced red squirrels across most of Britain. The squirrel watching facilities in the pinewood provide some of the most reliable red squirrel encounters available anywhere in England. The ancient human footprints preserved in the intertidal peat at the northern end of the beach represent one of the most significant palaeontological discoveries on the northwest coast, the footprints of Mesolithic and Neolithic people and animals preserved in the peat in conditions that allow individual prints to be identified by age, sex and even gait in some cases. The prints are revealed and covered by the tidal action that exposed them and their significance for understanding prehistoric human activity on this coast is considerable.

The Museum of Liverpool stands on the Pier Head waterfront as one of the largest national museums outside London and the most significant new museum building erected in Britain in the twenty-first century. Opened in 2011 after several years of development, the museum was designed by Danish architects 3XN and occupies a prominent position on the UNESCO World Heritage waterfront between the Albert Dock and the ferry terminals, its bold geometric form a confident addition to one of the most recognisable urban waterfronts in the world. The museum tells the story of Liverpool and its people with genuine ambition and emotional depth, covering not just the city's commercial and maritime history but the social and cultural forces that have shaped its distinctive character. Liverpool's history is extraordinary by any measure: a city that transformed from a small medieval settlement into one of the world's great ports through the transatlantic trade in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a trade whose darker dimensions including its central role in the transatlantic slave trade are addressed with honesty and care in the museum's dedicated gallery. Music is inevitably a central theme. Liverpool's contribution to popular music through the Beatles and the wider Merseybeat movement of the 1960s changed music globally and the museum contextualises this within the broader culture of the city that produced it. The particular social geography of Liverpool, its Catholic and Protestant Irish immigrant communities, its port culture of cosmopolitan exchange, its tradition of street performance and community music-making all contributed to an environment uniquely suited to producing the music it did. Football, both Everton and Liverpool Football Club, is examined as the cultural phenomenon it genuinely is in this city, where the sport has been interwoven with community identity and social life for over a century. Other galleries explore Liverpool's maritime heritage, the experiences of the city's diverse immigrant communities and the history of everyday life across different periods and social classes. The museum is free to enter, making it one of the best value cultural experiences in the north of England. The waterfront location means it sits naturally alongside visits to the Albert Dock, the Beatles Story museum and the ferry terminals from which Mersey Ferry services operate.