UK Roadtrip Take Two - Manchester to Conwy

14th September

This morning was the last morning of Mum's conference, so we packed up our little house and loaded it all into the car before heading into Manchester and the Principal Hotel for the last time. Once there we set Nan up in the lobby with her book and we headed off to the final presentations.   Thoroughly interesting as they were, I was quite happy when they were finished and we could begin our road trip!

From Manchester we headed out down the M56 to Quarry Bank.  Quarry Bank Mill (also known as Styal Mill) is found in Styal, Cheshire.  It is one of the best preserved textile mills of the Industrial Revolution and is now a museum run by the National Trust UK of the cotton industry. Built in 1784, the mill is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II* listed building.  At the site you are able to visit and explore the mill, visit the apprentice house and garden and Quarry Bank House as well as wander the extensive grounds. 

Most impacting was the guided tour of the apprentice house.  Here you get to see just what life was like for the children who lived there. Timed tickets for the tour are collected upon entering the grounds and we made our way straight to the Apprentice House. The early Industrial Revolution wasn’t just powered by water and steam. It was powered by children. At Quarry Bank, child workers lived in the Apprentice House where they were given food and board in exchange for their labour. Children as young as eight years old were brought from workhouses or from their family homes to the Apprentice House. As many as 90 children lived packed in together, and worked in the mill in exchange for food, clothes and board. On this tour, you can see where these children lived, ate and slept from the 1790s right through to the end of the apprentice system in the 1840s, and explore the garden that the children tended after their long shifts in the cotton mill. Compared to many apprentices in the cities, these children were given access to health care and physicians when required.  However the nineteenth century cures for everything from headaches to lost limbs that we leant about might not have been so helpful!

One of the current exhibitions at Quarry Bank is Lost Voices.  In 1918 women in Britain were finally given the right to vote, but only if they were over 30 and owned property. This meant that for the majority female workforce in the cotton mill at Quarry Bank, nothing changed. They didn't receive the vote for another 10 years. Lost Voices explores the experiences of women whose stories were not heard, and which are often lost to us today because of their age, status or means. Installations across Quarry Bank bring their voices to life.

After finishing up at Quarry Bank and catching the little golf cart back up the hill, we piled back into the car and headed down the road to Tatton Park.  Tatton Park is an historic estate, north of the town of Knutsford, Cheshire. It contains a mansion, Tatton Hall, a medieval manor house, Tatton Old Hall, Tatton Park Gardens, a working 1930's farm and a deer park of 2,000 acres (8.1 km²).  Tatton Hall, the mansion on the estate is the main area we walked through.  Around 1716 a new house was built on a separate site for the Egerton family. From 1758 improvements were made to the house and between the 1770s and 1816 most of it was replaced by the present neoclassical mansion, designed by Samuel Wyatt and his nephew Lewis William Wyatt. Further additions to the house were made in 1861–62 and in 1884. During the late 19th century large house parties were held in the hall, some of them attended by British and foreign royalty.  The mansion contains much of the furniture made for its occupants by the family firm Gillows of Lancaster.  Also in the hall is a large collection of paintings, many of them being portraits of the Egerton family, and in addition paintings by Canaletto, Poussin, Chardin, Van Dyck, Vasari, and many others. The Library contains first editions of two novels by Jane Austen. One room is dedicated to a collection of items from around the world assembled by the last owner of the house, Maurice Egerton. In the family wing are the servants' quarters. These include rooms containing much of the equipment and many of the utensils used to serve the family.

Our history quota filled for the day, we headed into Chester to do a bit of shopping through the main centre of town and grab some thing for dinner. We managed a flying visit through the Chester Cathedral before the priest (literally!) shut the doors behind us for the evening prayers. From here we jumped back into the car and made the journey to Conwy, North Wales where our next Air BnB apartment is.  After being extremely impressed with the Conwy Castle sights as you come over a bridge into Conwy, (it looks like something out of a fairy tale!) we found our apartment easily enough, although parking was a hassle!! Trying to park a large car on a tiny road with only street parking isn't so fun!!

 

The Apprentice House at Quarry Bank

 

The Deer at Tatton Park

Tatton Hall

 

 

 

Chester Cathedral

Chester Cathedral

Conwy Castle coming into Conwy

UK Roadtrip Take Two - Conference Day Two

13th September

Today was a pretty boring day when it comes to writing this blog! I attended a couple of mums conference session with her and learnt a couple of things about guidelines and how to write them, otherwise I chilled in the hotel lobby and completed the previous posts and did some art doodling!

In the afternoon we visited the Fab Cafe, a bar around the corner from The Principal Hotel, which has a life size Dalek and Cyberman (Dr Who for those uneducated!) Before heading home for a quiet night in!

Told you it was a boring day!

UK Roadtrip Take Two - Conference Day One and Manchester

12th September

Guideline International Network (G-I-N) Manchester 2018 Day One

This morning we left Nan at home to head into the City for Mum's conference.  Being held at the Principal Hotel Manchester, the conference is a three day event co-hosted by NICE (The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) and SIGN (Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network) themed around "Why we do what we do: the purpose and impact of guidelines". 

This morning I attended the Welcome and opening presentation before leaving Mum by herself to meet Victoria for morning tea at the Midland Hotel up the road.  It was a lovely place to have a pot of tea, tea leaf tea served in a tea pot with cups and saucers and a strainer!  Victoria's fun fact about the Midland Hotel is that it was where the original meeting between Charles Rolls and Henry Royce occurred, leading to the formation of Rolls-Royce Limited in 1904.

Once finishing our tea, we wandered out onto St Peter's Square and to the Manchester Central Library. 

St Peter's Square derives its name from St Peter's Church which was built in 1788-94. The church was built in the neoclassical style by the architect James Wyatt and was once famous for its church music. It was demolished in 1907 and the Cenotaph replaced it in 1924. A stone cross (1908) now commemorates the church.  The Square was also the site of the Peterloo Massacre on the 16th August 1819, when cavalry charged into a crowd of 60,000–80,000 who had gathered to demand the reform of parliamentary representation.

A Brief History Lesson! The end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 had resulted in periods of famine and chronic unemployment, exacerbated by the introduction of the first of the Corn Laws. By the beginning of 1819, the pressure generated by poor economic conditions, coupled with the relative lack of suffrage in Northern England,  had enhanced the appeal of political radicalism. In response, the Manchester Patriotic Union, a group agitating for parliamentary reform, organised a demonstration to be addressed by the well-known radical orator Henry Hunt.  Shortly after the meeting began, local magistrates called on the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry to arrest Hunt and several others on the hustings with him. The Yeomanry charged into the crowd, knocking down a woman and killing a child, and finally apprehending Hunt. However in the midst of the throng they became separated into small groups and halted in disorder. The 15th Hussars were then summoned by the magistrate, Mr Hulton, to disperse the crowd. They charged with sabres drawn, and in the ensuing confusion, 15 people were killed and 400–700 were injured. The massacre was given the name Peterloo in an ironic comparison to the Battle of Waterloo, which had taken place four years earlier.


From here we wandered into the Manchester Central Library, another beautiful building in the centre of Manchester.   It was designed by E. Vincent Harris and constructed between 1930 and 1934, opening on the 17th July 1934.  It has recently undergone a four-year project to renovate and refurbish the library commenced in 2010.  Central Library re-opened on 22 March 2014.


Next door is the Manchester Town Hall.  We were able to see and enter the back and newer section of the Town Hall, however the main building is currently closed until 2024 for restorations.  Judging by the front of the building and the areas we saw, it would be gorgeous inside!


From here I said my farewells to Victoria, as she was off to catch her train, and I headed back to the Principal Hotel.  Here I hung out in the hotel lobby and coffee lounge for the early afternoon waiting for Mum to finish.  When she finished, we both jumped back into the car and headed home to collect Nanny before heading out for the afternoon and evening.


The afternoon's plan was based off a recommendation from one of the hotel waitresses.  She suggested we head up to Blackpool to see the sea side and the lights and an hours drive is nothing to us!  So we picked up Nan and headed off, stopping for a couple of spots of shopping along the way. 


Blackpool was not at all what I expected! We arrived about 5:30pm, and was able to watch the sunset over the low tide.  The beach and sea side was exactly like every British movie depiction of the sea side ever, but on the other side of the road was a completely commercialised amusement parks and arcades! We picked up some fish and chips for dinner and ate in the car (it was too blustery by the sea side!!) waiting for 8pm when the lights switched on.


At 10 kilometers long and using over one million bulbs, the Blackpool Illuminations are an awesome spectacle.  They consist of almost every kind of light display you can imagine: lasers, neon, light bulbs, fibre optics, searchlights and floodlighting. There are set pieces made out of wood studded with light bulbs: the characters and objects portrayed seem to “move” by way of winking lights.       There are over 500 road features attached to lamp posts linked together with festoon lighting. Strings of lights along the structure of buildings pick out landmarks in luminous detail – you can definitely make out the Tower and the Pleasure Beach rides in this way. Some of the hotels on the east side of the Promenade are floodlit in colour sequence. Even the trams on which you can tour the lights are illuminated and decorated with specific themes.

Tea at the Midland Hotel

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The Library (Left) and Town Hall (Right)

 

More Bees! (Left: the Original Bee)

 

St Anne's Pier at Blackpool and the Dunes on the side of the road

 



 

The Sea Side!

 

 

The Blackpool Illuminations

 

 

 

 

UK Roadtrip Take Two - Manchester

11th September




After an early start to the morning, (we were all awake by 6am) it took us a surprisingly long time to organise and our selves out for the day.  I had sorted our map problem out the night before by downloading Google maps onto my phone for use offline. This meant we could actually have an idea where we were driving!




We drove around the outskirts of Manchester near our Air BnB first, finding some shops to wander in Chortlon and surrounds.  From here we headed into Manchester City Central to find where Mother Dearest had to attend her conference for the following couple of days and to explore the city.


Wild in Art and Manchester City Council are bringing all of Manchester’s communities together for Bee in the City, one of the most spectacular public art events the city has ever seen. In total 232 large and small Bees are waiting to be discovered on this free, family-fun trail, taking in the city’s landmarks and undiscovered gems. Each Bee has been designed by a different artist and celebrates the unique buzz of Manchester, from its industrial heritage to its vibrant music scene. An inspirational learning project will give schools, colleges and community groups the chance to take part.  The humble worker bee is the symbol of Manchester City.  It was adopted during the industrial revolution, referencing the textile mills which were often described as hives of activity.  The bee represents the unwavering Mancunian spirit of hard work and enterprise.  We saw several of these bees along our travels today and I'm sure we will see plenty more before we leave Manchester!




The main stop for the day was the John Ryland Library in Central Manchester. The John Rylands Library was founded by Enriqueta Rylands in memory of her husband John Rylands. In 1889 the architect Basil Champneys designed the striking gothic building, which took ten years to build and was opened to public readers on 1 January 1900.  The library became part of The University of Manchester in 1972 and currently holds the Special Collections of The University of Manchester Library. Mrs Rylands' memorial to her husband is now part of the third largest academic library in the United Kingdom, and the Deansgate building houses over 250,000 printed volumes, and well over a million manuscripts and archival items.




The current exhibition on display is 'Women Who Shaped Manchester'.  Women Who Shaped Manchester captures the passion and strength of these pioneers. You will be astounded by the actions of women as they engaged in politics, scientific debate and culture and are able to explore the history of the women whose hard work fuelled Manchester’s booming cotton industry.  Many items and stories were on display in the exhibition; Emmeline Pankhurst’s stirring letter that speaks for those prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice in the name of equality, the lives of the women spinning cotton at Gidlow Mill, the beautiful scroll presented to Enriqueta Rylands, the first freewoman of the City of Manchester, just to name a few.  Unfortunately photos were not allowed to be taken in this exhibition. 




The permanent exhibition at the library is home to what is believed to be the oldest fragment of the New Testament of the Bible.  The fragment of the Gospel of John contains incomplete lines written in ancient Greek, the Bible's original language.  The fragment was bought for the library in Egypt 1920, but the original origins of the piece are unknown.  Specialists have identified similar handwriting in documents dating from the early second century to the early third century AD, the fragment on display was copied during this time frame, and is one of the earliest surviving manuscripts of the New Testament and one of the oldest archaeological remains of Christianity. 


The whole library was absolutely beautiful.  The gothic architecture along with the musty book smell, made you feel like you were in the middle of a Harry Potter movie and Madam Prince was going to come any second and tell you off for talking or using your electronic devices!




After visiting the library, we drove up into the North Quarter of Manchester and had a wander around the little shops, bars and restaurants there. We dawdled home stopping in just about every town's centre street along the way, unfortunately on the way home we ran into some car trouble in the way of what we diagnosed as a slow leak in our front passenger tyre.  After a quick trip to the local Hertz, we headed back to Manchester Airport where we had original hired the car to see if they could sort it out.  Unfortunately there we ran into more trouble!  Hertz was completely booked out of cars and the only appropriate was a 12 seater van! Which would be almost impossible to drive around the UK!! Thankfully after some talking and rearranging we ended up with a smaller 7 seater van, with a sky light and navigation! definitely an upgrade! Mum just has to learn to drive it!




 The final stop of the night (after a quick run home and change of clothing) was Mum's conference opening at the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry.  It was a great way to wander the textile exhibition and see the first computer 'Baby' whilst enjoying the evening food, drinks and company.

   



The John Ryland Library

  

  

The Textiles Exhibition

 

The Computer Exhibition and 'Baby' Replica