CHESTER (pop 80,000)
History. Chester was Castra Devana, the largest Roman fortress in Britain. In 70 AD, they built the original walls of red sandstone and the present 2-mile walls that surround the historic center are the most complete in Britain. Although they were significantly altered over the centuries, they have retained their current location since about 1200. Get the tourist office’s Walk Around Chester Walls guide. Throughout the Middle Ages, Chester made its money as the most important port in the northwest, but the River Dee silted up over time and Chester fell behind Liverpool in importance. Now behind the walls, Chester is an ordinary residential town.
The Rows. This developed as the oldest shopping arcade in Britain in 1200-1300 when Chester was a booming market town. They remain the heart of town today. They remain as a series of a four-level handsome mix of Victorian and Tudor (original and mock) buildings that house a wonderful selection of individually owned shops – all centred along four streets that fan out in each direction from the Central Cross.
Chester Cathedral. Originally a Benedictine abbey built on the remains of an earlier Saxon church, it was built in the 1200s and still retains much of that original structure. It was shut down in 1540 as part of Henry VIII’s dissolution frenzy but opened up again a year later. Walk up to the top of the panoramic bell tower.
LIVERPOOL (pop 468,000)
It has a reputation as a hardscrabble town, but one with wit. It has worked hard to outgrow those clichés. There is an obsessive love of football. It has an impressive cultural heritage with more listed buildings than other cities outside of London. An ongoing program of urban regeneration is slowly transforming the city center into one of the most pleasant cities in northern England. The Beatles are cherished as a central part of the tourist experience.
History. Liverpool grew wealthy on the back of the triangular trading of slaves, raw materials, and finished goods. From 1700, ships carried cotton goods and hardware from Liverpool to West Africa where they were exchanged for slaves, who in turn were carried to the West Indies and Virginia, where they were exchanged for sugar, rum, tobacco, and raw cotton.
As a great port, it drew thousands of Irish and Scottish immigrants. Between 1830 and 1930 however, 9 million English, Scots and Irish, and also Swedes, Norwegians and Russian Jews sailed from here to the New World.
The start of WW II led to a resurgence of Liverpool’s importance as it was the western gateway for transatlantic supplies. More than 1 million American GIs disembarked here before D-day. The GIs brought with them rhythm and blues that would eventually become rock and roll. Within 20 years, the Mersey Beat was the sound of Britain and the Beatles were born.
After seeing Chester in the early morning, I drove 30 minutes up to Liverpool and parked near the Liverpool Cathedral for a full day of sightseeing.
Liverpool Cathedral. This Anglican cathedral is not only Britain’s largest church but also the world’s largest Anglican cathedral. It is the work of Sir Gilbert Scott, who also created the red telephone box but also the Southwark Power Station in London, now the site of the Tate Modern. The central bell is the world’s third-largest bell with the world’s highest and heaviest peal. The organ with its 9765 pipes, is the world’s largest operational mode.
Inside, its simplicity is a welcome change, but it is still very grand. I arrived at 10 am and it was closed for service, but I entered via the elevator and had a quick look around.
I walked north and west to hit the docks. Within a block is Chinatown with its huge Chinese gate but barely a block of restaurants and Chinese associations. There is certainly no atmosphere here or many Chinese.
Down at the River Mersey on the Monarch’s Quay, is the ultra-modern convention center and ACC Echo Arena with listings for many music concerts. The tiny harbour had several tired sailboats. The Albert Dock is the city’s biggest tourist attraction.
Merseyside Maritime Museum. The story of one of the world’s greatest ports, it starts in the basement with the fascinating customs and tax exhibit showing all the ways contraband is smuggled in and ways of avoiding taxes. Emigration to the New World tells the story of 9 million emigrants and their efforts to get to North America and Australia. Black Sailors is another interesting but odd exhibit. The Lusitania (1907) was torpedoed by a German U-boat on May 7 1915 at Kinsdale, Ireland, and sank in 18 minutes and all 1191 died. Liverpool played an outsized role in the WW II Battle of the Atlantic when 1/20 merchant ships (104 in total) were sunk. The Athenia was torpedoed in September 1939 within 8 hours of Britain declaring war on Germany with 93 killed. German U-boats with a range of 4000 miles, were small and fast and sank 200 ships by June 1945. Free
International Slavery Museum. Upstairs from above, it tells the story of the horrors of slavery and Liverpool’s role in the triangular trade between Africa, Liverpool, and the New World, especially the Caribbean and Virginia. Africans were viewed as barbaric savages justifying colonization and slavery. For example, on St Pierre in 1847, there were 9542 whites, 38,729 free people of colour, and 72,859 enslaved. Britain abolished slavery in 1806. Free
Tate Liverpool. An extension of Tate Modern in London, this is usually difficult to appreciate the scene of modern art. Free
Liverpool Museum. This municipal museum is housed in a brilliant new building on the water and shows the history of the city from prehistory to the present. There are large exhibits on the Chinese, Indian and American communities and a small display on Mechano (the precursor of Lego and one of my favourite childhood toys) that in 1925 was the most successful toy in Britain. In the blitz, only 10% of Liverpool homes were not damaged. A temporary exhibit was Double Fantasy, the story of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. John was born in 1936, abandoned by his father at age 1, and raised by an aunt and uncle. Yoko was born in 1933, moved to New York at age 6, and returned to Japan in 1941. They met in 1966 and married in 1969.
Royal Liver Building. In NM’s modern architecture series, this 10-story building has clock towers on each end with a winged goddess on each.
I then had a walk-about looking for Beetham Towers, talked to some guys in a van stopped at a light, and found out it is in Manchester even though 3 Liverpudians gave me directions to it!
World Museum. With a little bit of everything, there is an aquarium, bug exhibit, Egypt (how can there be anything left in this country), endangered animals, and the special charged exhibit on the Terracotta Warriors with 10 figures. Free £8.75 for the terracotta warriors.
Walker Art Gallery. Andrew Walker (1824-93) was a brewer who donated £20,000 in 1873 and this museum opened in 1877 with art from the 14th to the 21st century. I get tired of art museums generally. Free
Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ King Liverpool. A Roman Catholic cathedral, it had a long construction history. The crypt was built in the ’30s and the first mass held there in 1937, but the war and insufficient funds delayed its completion until 1967. And wow this is an architectural masterpiece. Climb the 55 broad steps to the vast circular space seating 2,300 surrounding the central sanctuary with its roof sloping up to a central cylinder of stained glass topped with 12 spiral spikes each topped with a cross. The 14 Ways of the Cross, rough manganese bronze sculptures done by the Liverpool artist Sean Rice, are the most dynamic I have ever seen. The several side chapels are all stunning modern creations of contemporary artists. Go down 56 steps to the crypt with its massive brick vaults and granite pillars exhibiting archaeology, treasures, and a chapel. Free £3 crypt.
The cathedral ended up being 2 blocks from where I had parked my truck. Despite it being a Sunday and a non-busy road, I got my first parking ticket at a metered site in over 5 months for £50!
As it was too late to see all the things I wanted to do in Manchester, I detoured north to Blackpool. On the highway was a large service center with 6 restaurants and modern, clean showers for free.
BLACKPOOL. In a bid to be a low-brow copy of Las Vegas, this is the hedonistic holiday spot of NW Britain. On 5 miles of sandy beach, there is a wonderful promenade with rows of steps and arcade-jammed piers all fronting a selection of fast food and casinos. The casinos are very family orientated and unlike Vegas where blackjack and roulette are common, these are all video lottery terminals, slot machines and ‘games of skill’, and I was amazed at all the children walking around with plastic containers of money playing.
Blackpool Tower. Built in 1894, this 154m tower of steel girders is reminiscent of the Eiffel Tower. The price listed in the Rough Guide of £53 was £14.75 for the tower, a guide, and a 4-D film on Blackpool’s history. Views are through thick glass, but not really worth the price as the views are to the empty ocean and the uninteresting town of Blackpool and its flat country environs.
Blackpool Pleasure Beach. Down at the less crowded southern end of town, this 16-hectare collection of more than 145 rides attracts more than 7 million visitors annually. The roller coasters are the highlights. There are a dizzying array of passes, paying more to avoid the long queues. £6 to walk around but not do any rides
MANCHESTER (pop 527,000)
The people of Manchester believe they live in the best city in the world. The uncrowned capital of the north is the driving force of the Northern Powerhouse, a government program of investment and development that corrals northern England’s 15 million people into a collective force to rival London and the southeast.
History. Canals and steam-powered cotton mills were what transformed Manchester from a small, disease-infested provincial town into a big, disease-infested industrial city. It all happened in the 1700s, with the opening of the Bridgewater Canal between Manchester and the coal mines of Worsley in 1763, and the cotton mill was patented in 1769. When the canal was extended to Liverpool and the open sea in 1776, it was dubbed ‘Cottonopolis’, it took off in high gear.
The burghers of the 19th century made sure that the vast majority of the city’s citizenry (population in 1801 was 100,000 and 2 million 100 years later) who produced most of it, never got their hands on any of it. Their reward was life in a new kind of urban settlement, the industrial slum. Working conditions were dire, with impossibly long hours, child labour, work-related accidents, and fatalities commonplace.
It started to end at the end of the 19th century when the USA began its industrial growth by taking over a sizable chunk of the textile trade and then ended altogether by WW II. Postwar, 150,000 manufacturing jobs were lost between 1961 and 1983, and the port – still the UK’s third-largest in 1963 – finally closed in 1982 due to declining traffic. The nadir came in June 1996, when the IRA bomb wrecked a chunk of the city center, But the subsequent reconstruction proved to be the beginning of a new revival.
Imperial War Museum. This is a great example of what museums should be like – terse descriptions that tell the complete story. In an aluminum-clad architectural stunner, the story of war from WWI through to Afghanistan and Iraq is told from a variety of perspectives. Free
Museum of Science & Industry. On the old grounds of the Liverpool St Station, the oldest rail terminus in the world, this good museum tells the rich, industrial legacy. There are steam engines to the first stored-program computer. Unfortunately, the textile exhibit was closed for renovation. Free
Manchester Art Gallery. This superb gallery in the centre has a good collection of British art and European masters. I especially enjoyed the Annie Swynetton exhibit. Free
Manchester Museum. In the University of Manchester, this is not about Manchester but all the collections of the locals who fanned out across the globe to collect stuff. There is lots of natural history, Egypt and Rome. Free
Beetham Tower. In the NM modern architecture series, this 43-floor skyscraper is the 11th tallest in the UK. Clad in black glass, the Hilton Hotel occupies the first 23 floors and high-end apartments the rest. At the transition, the top floors jut out a few meters. I could not find out the price range (but I imagine it is very high) and the ones with views of the city are the most expensive.
National Football Museum. I only came here as it is in the NM series list. I don’t particularly like watching football on TV and have a difficult time getting into all the team and championship records but endured the first two floors of the 5-floor exhibit on the great game.