Before the Royal Liver Building, Cunard Building and Port of Liverpool Building stood at the Pier Head, part of the site was water. George's Dock occupied the ground until it was filled in at the end of the 19th century.
Within about 12 years, three separate organisations built headquarters there. One ran Liverpool's docks. One had grown from a working-class friendly society. The third carried passengers and freight across the Atlantic.
Only later did people start treating the buildings as a set called the Three Graces. Their shared position and pale stone make them look planned as one group, but each building tells a different part of Liverpool's story.
The short version
- George's Dock opened in 1771 and was filled in during 1899, creating part of the land used for the Pier Head buildings.
- The Port of Liverpool Building was built first, between 1904 and 1907.
- The Royal Liver Building followed. Work began in 1908 and the building opened in 1911.
- The Cunard Building completed the group between 1913 and 1916.
- The Royal Liver Building is Grade I listed. The Cunard and Port of Liverpool buildings are Grade II* listed.
- All three remain in use. Royal Liver Building 360 and the British Music Experience give the public access to parts of the group.
- Liverpool's former UNESCO World Heritage status ended in 2021, but the buildings' individual listed status remains in place.
Before the Three Graces there was George's Dock
George's Dock opened in 1771. Ships and smaller vessels used water that would later become some of Liverpool's most photographed land.
By the late 19th century, the dock no longer suited the port's needs. It was filled in during 1899, creating valuable ground beside the Mersey. A National Museums Liverpool historic character study identifies the former dock site beneath the later Pier Head buildings.
The change was more than architectural. Liverpool replaced part of its working dock system with buildings for the organisations that administered, insured and organised the business generated by the port.
The Port of Liverpool Building came first
The first Grace was built for the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board between 1904 and 1907. Arnold Thornely and F.B. Hobbs designed it with Briggs and Wolstenholme.
The building has a reinforced concrete frame covered with Portland stone. Its huge central dome and Edwardian Baroque detail make it easy to identify from the river. The Historic England list entry for the Port of Liverpool Building records its Grade II* status and first listing date of 12 July 1966.
Inside, the main hall rises through the centre of the building. Stained-glass panels referred to places linked with Liverpool's global trading network and the British Empire. A surviving Historic England archive image records a panel labelled Ceylon, the colonial name then used for Sri Lanka.
Those details show that this was never meant to look like an ordinary office. It presented Liverpool's port as the centre of an international system.
The Royal Liver Building grew from a friendly society
The organisation behind the Royal Liver Building began far from the Pier Head. Working men formed what became the Royal Liver Friendly Society in Liverpool in 1850. Research collected by Royal Liver Memories traces its early work providing burial cover for families paying small regular sums.
By the early 20th century, the society had grown into a large financial organisation. It commissioned a headquarters that would show its scale and confidence beside the Mersey.
Architect Walter Aubrey Thomas designed the Royal Liver Building. Construction started in 1908 and the building opened in 1911. Historic England describes it as one of the first multi-storey concrete-framed buildings in the world.
The reinforced concrete frame allowed a different type of height and mass from the older load-bearing buildings around Liverpool. The tower reaches about 322 feet, or 98 metres, to the top of its spires. L1Local's guide to Liverpool's tallest buildings places it in the longer story of the city's changing skyline.
The clocks marked a royal coronation
Each Royal Liver clock face is about 25 feet, or 7.6 metres, across. That makes the dials larger than those on the Elizabeth Tower at the Palace of Westminster.
The clocks were started at 1.40pm on 22 June 1911, timed to coincide with the coronation of King George V. The building officially opened on 19 July that year.
Calling the dials “bigger than Big Ben” is common but imprecise. Big Ben is the nickname associated with the great bell, not the clock face.
The Liver Birds and the stories around them
The two copper birds above the clock towers were designed by German-born sculptor Carl Bernard Bartels. They turned an old Liverpool civic symbol into figures visible from the river.
The symbol itself is much older than the building. Birds appeared on Liverpool's seals for centuries before the towers opened in 1911.
Today, the birds are commonly called Bella and Bertie. One faces the Mersey and one faces the city. Stories that one watches sailors while the other protects people on land, or that Liverpool would disappear if they flew away, are local folklore. They are not documented instructions from the architect.