Martin Wainwright is joined in Liverpool by fellow Guardian journalist Ian Cobain for the famous river crossing, with its fine views of the 'Three Graces', and then heads 30 miles east to one of the oldest crossings over the Mersey



Crossing the mighty River Mersey has always been interesting, from the first creaky ferries in Saxon times to 6ft 9ins charity fundraiser Graham Boanas, who in 2006 managed the two-mile stretch between Ellesmere Port and Oglet on foot – just.

His lurch through silt with his chin bobbing on the surface between waves brought back memories of Daniel Defoe's piggyback ride in the 1720s when the wherry to Liverpool from the Wirral was too deeply-keeled to reach the shore.

"We rode through the water for some length, not on horseback but on the shoulders of some honest Lancashire clown," wrote Defoe in his A Tour through the Whole Island of Great Britain. "He trusses you up and then runs away with you, as nimbly as you may desire."

Since then bridges and tunnels have spanned the old division between lush Cheshire's hinterland and the sterner north, but ferries remain at the heart of the river and their decks offer wonderful and very different views. Much the most famous belong to Mersey Ferries, the fleet of sturdy steamers with bright red funnels and trim lines which plough a triangular path between Liverpool and two docks at Birkenhead and Wallasey every working day.

Even those who have never walked along Pier Head, with its imposing "Three Graces" buildings looking out towards America, are likely to have a picture of the boats in their heads. Gerry Marsden and the Pacemakers' yearning ballad, Ferry Cross the Mersey, which made the top 10 in both the UK and the US in 1964-65, is the top hum and whistle on the cheerful weekday service which shuttles commuters between 7.20am and 7pm.

Rival road and rail crossings have failed to woo them away, including regular sailor Martha Stern, an accountant in Liverpool, who clutches her cycle as the ship pulls out from Seacombe and sets course for Pier Head.

"It's just a fantastic journey - I think that every day, though I've been doing it for nearly 20 years," she says. "Just look at that line-up!" Behind the flag cracking in the wind at the bow, the Graces stand in their stately line: the Royal Liver Building topped by its curious birds, the Cunard Building, former home of the most famous shipping line, and the Port of Liverpool Building, commissioned with rival magnificence for the Mersey Docks and Harbours Board.

"It's like they say on the ferry leaflets – you don't often see the words 'enjoyable' and 'commuting' side by side," says Stern, who bikes a mile to the Seacombe ferry pier in the morning and a few hundred yards to her office at the Liverpool end. "That really is the case when your journey's like this. You won't hear anyone say different."

You will almost certainly hear a clash of opinions, though, about the "fourth Grace", shining in the July sun – the sleek but boxy new Museum of Liverpool at the southern end of Pier Head. Sure enough, a group of passengers start a vigorous debate – but then a shout goes up: "Seal! Seal!" and attention turns to another sleek sight.

"You should go out to the tip of the Wirral if you want to see more of them," says Tim Neville, a civil servant who makes the same journey as Stern, but on foot. "Hilbre Island and places like that, they're fantastic. Not just for the seals, but the seabirds too. Masses of them."

Thirty miles east, a very different ferry skitters in a stiff breeze across the Manchester Ship Canal, undeterred by seals but disturbing a couple of grebes. Kevin Wilkinson's simple metal dinghy, propelled by a single scull from a rowlock at the stern, maintains one of the oldest crossings of the Mersey – now transferred to the canal because the nearby river itself is bridged.

For 12p a time, or a 25p all-day fare, travellers between the ancient village of Thelwall-with-Grappenhall and the nature reserve at Thelwall Eyes can hail Kevin from his neat Victorian office where he sits beside an ancient telephone – still used to warn of major vessels using the canal – doing his cross-stitch. Trade isn't exactly brisk, although there's a handful of regular commuters and up to 100 ramblers on good days, so ferrymen traditionally find something else to do.

"There were two of them on duty in the ferry's heyday before the first world war," says Kevin, who used the ferry himself to get to work as a factory driver before a couple of industrial accidents led to his unusual change of career. "They used to sit here with sewing machines, making costumes for the theatres in Manchester."

Kevin learned the skills of single-oar sculling from his predecessor, now retired but still turning out occasionally to help, as does a neighbour in one of three neat bungalows which play the part of Liverpool's Three Graces on the Grappenhall bank. In between times, he keeps the ferry dock immaculate, with its lawn as trim as a golfing green and the Ship Canal company's regulations still warning that "intoxicated persons are not allowed on board"and "ferry passengers shall sit down and keep quiet."

The little crossing, usually running from 7am-9am, noon to 2pm and 4pm-6pm, is a place for micro landscapes. Butterflies dawdle over the cow parsley, birds sing and Thelwall hamlet is full of history. Its pub The Pickering Arms boasts an inscription below its Tudor black-and-white crossbeams: "In the year 923 King Edward the Elder founded a cyty here and called it Thelwall."

The meaning of "city" may have changed from its Anglo-Saxon usage as a fortress against invading Danes, but the Thelwall ferry retains a genuine grandeur. One of the last surviving one-man ferries in the country, it could only be withdrawn by Act of Parliament, so ancient and vital was the path which the Ship Canal disrupted when booming Manchester drove it through between 1887 and 1894.