{"id":502323,"date":"2026-03-29T20:12:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T20:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/502323\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T20:12:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T20:12:12","slug":"ferry-crosses-the-mersey-on-final-voyage-after-66-years-in-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/502323\/","title":{"rendered":"Ferry crosses the Mersey on final voyage after 66 years in service"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Passenger Craig Macdonald said: &#8220;It&#8217;s part and parcel of Liverpool really, isn&#8217;t it? <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;So many people over the years have used this to get over the water.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Royal Iris, which also sailed on the Manchester Ship Canal, featured in BBC shows Peaky Blinders and The Liver Birds.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It was previously known as Mountwood after its launch in 1959 until a major refurbishment in 2001. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">She received her current name on her return to service in 2002, following a major revamp.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Services across the river were recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086, with Benedictine monks from Birkenhead Priory running the first regular ferries to Liverpool&#8217;s markets in the 12th Century.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Passenger Craig Macdonald said: &#8220;It&#8217;s part and parcel of Liverpool really, isn&#8217;t it? &#8220;So many people over the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":502324,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-502323","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-greatbritain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=502323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/502324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}