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.
Kendal, nestling conveniently on the edge of the English Lake District, is a famous town. This, after all, is the place where mint cake was discovered, Katherine Parr had a castle and Alfred Wainwright was Borough Treasurer; but these nuggets of distinction pale into insignificance when you realise that Postman Pat was born there. Indeed, […]
Postman Pat’s post office Read More »
North West England
Castlerigg Stone Circle is probably the best-known prehistoric stone circle in North West England, perched on the slopes to the east of Keswick inside the Lake District National Park. We will probably never know what our ancestors were doing, building these things. Perhaps if you visit Castlerigg when there are few other people about, the
Castlerigg Stone Circle Read More »
North West England
Sooner or later, if you potter about the elderly houses and castles of old England, particularly in the north, you’ll come across Lady Anne Clifford – though hopefully only by reputation, because she died more than 300 years ago. A couple of miles from the Cumbrian market town of Penrith, on the south side of
The Countess Pillar Read More »
North West England
I’m gazing up through the empty keep, where long-dead feet once paced across floors that have themselves long-since vanished, rotted away. Here’s Brougham Castle, scenically sitting on the south bank of the River Eamont a couple of miles outside Penrith, just off the A66. Someone should write a song about that road… get your kicks,
Two thousand years at Brougham Castle Read More »
North West England
John Lennon lived at Mendips, 251 Menlove Avenue, Woolton, Liverpool L25 from 1945 until around 1963. Paul McCartney lived at 20 Forthlin Road, Allerton, Liverpool L18 from 1955, also until around 1963. A short discourse on being a Beatles fan With some people, you’ll always remember where you were, and what you were doing, when
Lennon and McCartney’s childhood homes Read More »
North West England
This is one of our friend Jeni’s favourite places and she said we should go; so of course we did. Heysham (pronounced ‘hee-shum’, not ‘hay-sham’) sits on Lancashire’s coast at the southern end of Morecambe Bay. I knew of Heysham as a ferry port, offering services to the Isle of Man and Ireland, as well
St Patrick’s Chapel, Heysham Read More »
North West England
Up on the moors on the edge of the Forest of Bowland is a large, box-shaped, chunk of rock. It sits just inside North Yorkshire on the border with Lancashire. With characteristic English wit and imagination, it is known as the Big Stone, or the Great Stone of Fourstones – because apparently there used to be
The Great Stone of Fourstones Read More »
North West England Yorkshire and the Humber
I know I’m not alone in finding something compelling about the places where people are known to have met their ends; and something was compelling me to visit the place where one of England’s most formidable medieval kings, Edward I, snuffed it on 7th July 1307. No doubt a psychologist would be able to offer
Memorial to Edward I Read More »
North West England
The tiny village of Arisaig, nestling on an inlet along the beautiful Morar peninsula, has a wonderful little museum. The Land, Sea and Islands Visitor Centre tells visitors all about the local flora and fauna in this relatively remote part of West Scotland. But it also includes a fascinating section on one of Britain’s clandestine
Tracking down Britain’s secret SOE Read More »
East of England History London North West England Scotland South East
‘Cause I’m going to Strawberry Fields, nothing is real and there’s nothing to get hung about. On 1st June (or 26th May, depending on your source) 1967, The Beatles released Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, a groundbreaking recording and one of the most famous and discussed albums ever. It is said that one in
Let me take you down… Read More »
North West England
My mate Dave said we should go to Fox’s Pulpit. “There’s not a lot to see,” he said. “But we should go.” He was right, of course – on both counts. Fox’s Pulpit is one of those curios of the British historical landscape. It is about 3 miles north-west of Sedbergh in the county of
It all started with my chum, Dave. You remember Dave, don’t you? He’s the one that told me about Swinbrook. Not only is Dave an excellent drinking buddy, but he also used to be a gravedigger, often known in these euphemistic days as a ‘burial ground custodian’. You should see the risk assessment. But he
Trooper Pearson and the Charge of the Light Brigade Read More »
North West England