New Brighton Tower

New Brighton Tower stood on Wirral’s north-east coast, a steel lattice observation tower rising 567 feet above the resort of New Brighton. Built to rival Blackpool Tower, it opened in 1898 as Britain’s tallest building. The tower rose from a four-storey red-brick pavilion housing the Tower Ballroom, topped by copper-domed turrets. Maxwell and Tuke, who had designed Blackpool Tower, oversaw the project while Andrew Handyside and Company constructed the steel frame. More than a thousand tonnes of mild steel went into the lattice, painted and lit at night with fairy lights. Six men died during construction and a fireman fell while fighting a blaze 172 feet up. The grounds stretched over twenty acres and included a boating lake, funfair, gardens and an athletic ground. The ballroom seated more than a thousand couples on a sprung floor, with balcony seating and white-and-gold decorations. Granville Bantock directed music here, giving six-hour daily sessions and later classical concerts. Edward Elgar conducted his Enigma Variations in the ballroom in 1898. The Beatles played 27 times at the venue, second only to their appearances at Liverpool’s Cavern Club. Visitors reached the top by four lifts that climbed in ninety seconds, carrying up to two thousand people each hour. From the viewing platform they saw Liverpool’s skyline, the Mersey estuary and on clear days the Isle of Man, Lake District and Welsh Mountains. Below, the grounds offered a menagerie with lions, wolves and bears, an aviary above the ballroom and a shooting gallery. The octagonal plan of the entertainment buildings centred on the tower, its steep roofs and cupolas framing the resort’s elegant atmosphere.