Liverpool Beatles Museum on Mathew Street

The Liverpool Beatles Museum is at 23 Mathew Street, across the road from the Cavern Club. It shows the collection of Roag Best, half-brother of original Beatles drummer Pete Best, arranged by era from 1959 to 1970. It opened on 13 July 2018 under the name Magical Beatles Museum.

A family collection

Roag Best's family was close to the Beatles before they were famous. His mother, Mona Best, founded the Casbah Coffee Club, and invited the Beatles to help decorate it before it opened. His half-brother Pete Best was their drummer from 1960 to 1962, and his father, Neil Aspinall, was their road manager and later ran Apple Corps. Best spent more than 30 years collecting, and that collection is what fills the museum.

One object from that family history is the original Casbah sign. At the 2018 opening Best said it had been pulled out of a skip and that he had refused a large offer for it.

What is on display

The displays follow the band's career in order: 1959 to 1962, 1963 to 1966, then the studio years up to 1970. Objects the museum names include George Harrison's Futurama guitar from the Liverpool and Hamburg days, a Selmer microphone Paul McCartney used at the Casbah in 1961, Pete Best's Premier drum kit, the medals Lennon wore on the Sgt. Pepper cover, his helmet from the film How I Won the War, front-row seats from the 1965 Shea Stadium concert, and garden furniture from Lennon's house at Kenwood. There is also a cello linked to Magical Mystery Tour, though sources disagree on which song it belongs to.

Names and numbers that don't match

The museum opened as the Magical Beatles Museum and has since been renamed. Counts of what is on show also vary. Reports at the 2018 opening mentioned about 200 to 300 items on display out of more than 1,200, with a plan to rotate pieces from storage; the museum's own site now says over 1,000 items. Its visit page describes four floors joined by three staircases, while other sources call the building five storeys. The building itself is a Grade II listed former warehouse from the early 19th century.

This is not The Beatles Story, which is a separate exhibition at Albert Dock.

Visiting

The museum's site gives hours of 10:00 to 17:00 every day and an adult ticket of £20 (checked September 2026). The visit page mentions staircases and no lift. Moorfields station is about seven minutes' walk. David Webster's John Lennon statue leans on the Cavern Wall of Fame about 70 m along the same street.