Tourist map omits Beatles' cradle

Thousands of Beatles fans visit The Cavern Club every year

Tourism officials have defended omitting The Cavern Club - famously linked with the launch of The Beatles - from a tourist map of Liverpool.

The club has been left off the 2006 Liverpool Visitors' Guide.

Martin King, Director of Tourism at The Mersey Partnership, said the guide had a section on the Fab Four as well as marking a band museum and Cavern Walks.

The current club is on 50% of the site of the previous Cavern in Mathew Street which closed in 1973.

Mr King said: "For the devoted Beatles enthusiast more information is available in the fab new 'Home of the Beatles map' launched last week by the Liverpool Culture Company and Beatles attractions in the city.

"It's available free from the 12 listed Beatles attractions and Tourist Information Centres."

The club was founded in cellars beneath Mathew Street in January 1957. Originally a jazz bar, it was inspired by an underground club in Paris called Le Caveau.

The club's founder Alan Sytner sold it in 1959 and it became a focus for the Merseybeat scene, led by The Beatles.

The Cavern was rebuilt using some of the same bricks and reopened in 1984, becoming a major tourist attraction.