Places to visit and things of interest in North West England. To many visitors, North West England means the Lake District; to others it is the home of the Beatles. Including the counties of Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Merseyside, North West England is a hugely diverse region of Britain. It has lively urban areas like Liverpool and Manchester, shaped by Georgian and Victorian trade and industry; attractive market towns; large country estates; ruined castles; a heritage influenced by Roman, Norse and Norman invaders (as well as border warfare); countryside ranging from lush farmland to fells, lakes and mountains and a varied, often unexpectedly beautiful, coastline that includes both brash resorts and barely visited backwaters.
A statue of 1960s pop idol Billy Fury stares out from Liverpool’s Albert Dock, across the Mersey, where he used to work on a tug-boat. Billy was hot stuff in his day. Of course, no immediate contemporary of mine has any clear recollection of those far-off heady times, when Billy Fury made the girls swoon. […]
Halfway to paradise Read More »
North West England
It is hard to wrap your brain round, but the small Cumbrian village of Eamont Bridge was once an international frontier crossing. Well – kind of. At first glance, it seems a nondescript sort of place, stretching along the A6 in typically linear northern fashion, so that both ends of the village could be blocked
The importance of Eamont Bridge Read More »
North West England
I’ll never forget my first experience of Great Gable. It was during a geography field trip to the English Lakes, I was callow youth of 17 and, up to that point, the landscape opening up all around had belonged on biscuit tin lids and boxes of fudge. Walking up Great Gable was one of the
Missing Great Gable Read More »
North West England
There are several reasons why you may want to visit Kirkby Lonsdale. Not least, because it’s a fine old Cumbrian market town, with a lovely church, St Mary’s, and, beyond that, Ruskin’s View – a panorama allegedly described by the Victorian polymath, without a trace of hyperbole, as “One of the loveliest views in England,
Kirkby Lonsdale’s Devil’s Bridge – and the bikers who live there Read More »
North West England
Holker Hall (say ‘Hoaker’ or ‘Hooker’) is one of those places you could easily miss if you didn’t already know about it – which now you do. To those in the know, Holker is a renowned grand estate, house and home; but it is stuck on the fringe of south Cumbria in north-west England, well away from
The sectioned remains of a World War Two vintage German submarine, or U-boat (from Unterseeboot – undersea boat), lie next to Woodside ferry terminal at Birkenhead, on the west bank of the River Mersey. In April 1945, Hitler’s Third Reich was dying. The Allied armies were inexorably closing in, like the jaws of a giant pair
The mystery of U-534 Read More »
North West England
The key to Keld Chapel is hanging by the front door of the house opposite. It’s that kind of place, if you know what I mean. Keld is a tiny Cumbrian hamlet, just outside the straggling village of Shap and a little south east of long abandoned Shap Abbey. Travellers on the M6 will be
English literature resonates with killer opening lines. Some have become embedded in our culture to the extent that they help define the people we are: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” “Last night I dreamt I went to
From garden to plate – a helping of Peter Rabbit Read More »
North West England
The first thing that struck me about Furness Abbey was how red it is. The second thing was the girl in the visitor centre and the third was drainage; but we’ll come onto all that later. For the moment, all you need to know is that the great red sandstone abbey of Furness was once
The great abbey of Furness Read More »
North West England
The men of the 4th Cohort of Dalmatians were a long way from home. They were undoubtedly cold and Hardknott Fort, which the Romans probably knew as Mediobogdum, must have seemed like the end of the world. Certainly, situated in the mountainous northern region of the most northerly province of Imperial Rome, it was one
The road to Mediobogdum Read More »
North West England
Ah, look at all the lonely people. A bronze statue of a woman sits alone on a stone bench in Liverpool’s Stanley Street. She appears to be middle-aged, tired, worn down by life. Her small handbag sits carelessly in her lap and she seems to be gazing down wistfully to her left at a sparrow
The story of Eleanor Rigby Read More »
North West England
It’s funny how things turn out. John Rylands was born in St Helens, Lancashire, in 1801 and helped to create what was at one time the biggest textile company in the UK. At its peak, John Rylands & Sons employed 15,000 people, mainly across North West England in and around Wigan, Bolton and Manchester, in
Manchester’s John Rylands Library Read More »
North West England