We had seen that there were tours of the Old Dock and we booked ourselves one. They bare free but you have to book in advance and they depart from the Maritime Museum. The Dock was re-discovered when the shopping centre Liverpool 1 was being built across from the C&RT Moorings in Salthouse Dock.The guides do a great job of talking up the importance of the new fangled thing called a dock. It was the first enclosed dock that allowed cargo operations to continue easily through out the day as the ship stays largely at the same level. The fact that they also enclosed the muddy pool that gave Liverpool its name is added drama.
This is the inland end of the dock. Unfortunately the lock gates are under the main dual carriage way so are unlikely to ever be excavated. You can see that the sides were built of brick on top of the natural sandstone. In feature projects stone would be used rather than the brick. The pipe sticking out of a bricked up wall is a drain for the passage way that once led up to the castle. The castle was demolished about the same time as the dock was built and some it's stone was used for the coping stones that you can see just one of on top of the brick wall middle rear. That was the height of the quay side.
You can see some square cut outs of the bed rock and this is where the upright fender posts were fixed to protect the brick work and the ship's side.
The part that has been preserved is just a small part of the whole dock but it certainly is well worth seeing and hearing the story too.
The last pub visited was the Railway and next store is the Lion and as you can see from the pub sign it is named after a steam engine that ran between Liverpool and Manchester. It has been a pub for 180 years, the oldest continuously serving beer in Liverpool. It has recently had a renovation that hasn't changed it a bit. Partly I'm sure as it is Grade II Listed and is on CAMRA's Historic Interiors list.
It is a two room pub with a passageway hatch that is made glorious by the wood and etched glass. The bar had 8 beers on which was a bit of a temptation. They don't do food other than pork pies. The bar back is fantastic as is the glass and tile work
There is a real mix in the pub and everybody seems to be up for a chat. We had a great night at a quiz here, although we didn't win, obviously.
I had a pint of Langton Spin. A golden beer of 4.4% brewed by Peerless Brewing Co. that is based in Birkenhead since they started up in 2009. It was £3-10. The beer was brewed for the 250th Anniversary of the Liverpool Pilots in 2016 and is named after a difficult manoeuvre undertaken off Langton Lock to get a full size ship turned in the river to enter head first. It is is great mix of initial bitterness with a nice citrus finish. I was going to have another but decided to try something new.
This time I tried a pint from another local brewery, Little Crosby just north of the docks, that had started brewing in 2015. Funnily enough the Bootle Bull also has marine origins as it is named after the very loud fog horn that was on the lighthouse that was demolished when Gladstone Dock was built in 1927. This 3.8% beer is a good session drink with a good colour with a nice subtle mix of malty and hops, and a decent prize of £2-80 too. Both the beers were beautifully kept and this is one of the pubs that we always return to as there is a warm welcome and a good choice of beer.
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