Blackpool has been a tourist Mecca since the 19th century and boasts Britain’s only extant tower inspired by Paris’s Eiffel Tower. But only a few generations ago visitors to New Brighton on the Wirral Peninsula would have seen an even taller tower and bigger ballroom than those of its Lancashire rival.

A couple of centuries ago Rock Point was a little known and desolate corner of the Wirral overlooking the River Mersey towards Bootle. A lighthouse had been erected there in 1683, then more elements of civilisation came in 1829 after the completion of Fort Perch Rock to protect the Port of Liverpool. The replacement stone-built Perch Rock lighthouse was first lit the following year.