Rare photos show changing face of Liverpool's gateway to the city
Barrie Old, now 80, took these fascinating photos decades ago
Liverpool's famous Pier Head is renowned around the world for its history and stunning architecture. Some features of our city's waterfront, like the Three Graces, have been part of the iconic skyline for decades, whereas other buildings, like the Museum of Liverpool, are relatively new additions.
The area has seen much change - from the old bus station to the historic, lost saltwater bath. But some generations will also remember the days when the Liverpool Landing Stage looked very different.
Virtually "the gateway to the city," the first floating stage was built back in 1847. The George's stage was so successful that it was decided an additional stage, the Prince's Stage, would be constructed and it opened in 1857.
In the years that followed, there was much change, restructure and rebuilding to bring Liverpool's Landing Stage into the 20th century. But many will remember back in the 1970s when a modern, concrete landing stage replaced the old wooden one which was known to generations.
Now half a century on, retired civil engineer and chartered health and safety advisor Barrie Old, 80, remembers coming to Liverpool from Scotland in August 1975 for contractor Peter Lind, to be part of the site engineer team to complete the construction of the Liverpool Landing Stage, which they started work on in 1974. On October 29, 1975, in the early hours of the morning, the 800-foot-long concrete section was towed across the River Mersey from East Float Birkenhead to its final resting place at the Pier Head Liverpool.
This year, 2025, it is the 50th anniversary of the stage and it is still in use today. While working on site, Barrie took many photos that not only captured the progress of the Landing Stage, but also offer a glimpse into what this part of the city looked like at that moment in time.
Barrie, who lives in Tranmere, told the ECHO: "I had been employed by Peter Lind in Scotland since 1965 with occasional moves into England, working on motorways and new bypass contracts. For Liverpool Landing Stage, Peter Lind got the contract in 1973.
"The contract was to take the old stage away, that was the Mersey Ferry stage, and put in a new concrete landing stage for the Mersey Ferries. Then there was going to be the Isle of Man stage for the second phase, which was all these concrete cathedrals for the stage that were built in Ireland.
"They were floated across the Irish Sea into the Mersey and then into the docks in Liverpool where they were joined together. The Mersey Ferry ones were joined together, fitted out and then sailed across the Mersey and anchored to the shoreline outside the Pier Head.
"There was already an engineer on that job for those two years and the company wanted him to go down to Devon, they had a big job down in Devon coming off. They heard about me because I'd been here in 1971 on the Trafalgar Dock job.
"The directors decided, well, Barrie is available in Scotland, we'll have him down here. So that's how it turned out."
Living in a mobile caravan in Scotland at the time, Barrie told his wife, Valerie, who he had met on a blind date in March 1971 while working in Liverpool, that they'd be returning to her home in Merseyside. Barrie said: "We came down end of July 1975, the bank holiday weekend, and then started on the Liverpool Landing Stage, which theoretically was only going to be a two year job.
"It ended up being five. We completed it by 1977." But Barrie also remembers the process didn't completely go to plan.
He said: "The end of 1975, when we had the very, very high tide, coupled with a very high wind, it swamped the Mersey Ferry Landing Stage. Somebody over that holiday period had left the hatchway open and water got into it.
READ MORE: Imposing building featured in Peaky Blinders once protected people of LiverpoolREAD MORE: Liverpool city centre department store you may never know existed"There was water trickled down into the bottom. It built up and built up - and the Landing Stage went down and down.
"When we heard, I said to Val, because we were living in the caravan then in Ormskirk, I'll shoot across to Liverpool to see if they want any assistance there.
"We met up with the rest of the crew and we said there's not much we can do because the Birkenhead Isle of Man stage was still in Birkenhead in the West Float. It was a matter of sorting out and trying salvage."
In the decades that followed, generations from the city and beyond have come to know Liverpool's new Landing Stage. In 1980, Peter Lind & Co ceased trading as a construction company.
But during his time on the project, Barrie kept a photographic record of the work and has shared a number of rare photographs with the Liverpool ECHO. He also has fond memories of a Royal visit to the Landing Stage for Queen Elizabeth II's silver jubilee.
Barrie said: "When the Queen and the Royal Yacht Britannia came to Liverpool, she tied up against the new Landing Stage, the Isle of Man's landing stage. I've got photographs of the Queen coming up the Landing Stage in her car.
"The company were issued tickets to sit very close to the Landing Stage, so we could see everything happening on Britannia. My son was only 18-months-old then in the buggy.
"Then after the Queen's visit, The Isle of Man Steam Packet Company wanted some alterations doing and we still had to do bits and pieces to it as well from the previous time that the storm hit the landing stage, early 1977 and damaged it.
"I used to always have a camera with me, going way back to when I was 16 and joined McAlpines motorway construction. I've got photographs galore of the building of the M6 motorway from Birmingham from Winstanley Park and Feltham right down the bridge.
"Every job I did, I had photographs taken by myself - I followed my father in some ways because he also took photographs of where he worked. I've got photographs of the whole Landing Stage area and you can see how it's a lot different to what it is now."