2012

Manchester—assemble at the Midland Hotel in Manchester and leave at 2.15pm for a walk to see many of the great Victorian buildings which still predominate in the city centre—a palatial manifestation of municipal pride, Alfred Waterhouse’s Town Hall (1867–77) is one of the most splendid buildings of the era, an imaginative Gothic design with glorious interiors and murals by Ford Maddox Brown—first of two nights in Manchester.

Manchester—the industrial landscape of Castlefield encompasses the world’s first passenger railway station (1830), the nodal point of England’s most important canal network and other monuments of the industrial revolution—the City Art Gallery has a superb collection of Victorian paintings, particularly Pre-Raphaelites—an afternoon by coach includes the soaring beauty of Bodley’s St Augustine at Pendlebury—overnight Manchester.

Liverpool—St George’s Hall is but the most magnificent of a group of buildings which is unequalled as a display of potential for variety of classical architecture—another is the Walker Art Gallery with an outstanding collection of Victorian painting—explore the architectural riches of the central business district including the former Bank of England (Cockerill 1845) and cast iron Oriel Chambers (1864)—finally Giles Gilbert Scott’s Anglican Cathedral, begun 1904 so not quite Victorian but the superb, sublime culmination of the Gothic Revival—overnight Liverpool.

Port Sunlight—cross the River Mersey to Port Sunlight, the exceedingly pretty and superbly appointed township started in 1888 for workers at Lord Leverhulme’s adjacent soap factory—the Lady Lever Art Gallery is outstanding for English painting of the 18th and 19th centuries with masterpieces by Millais, Leighton, Burne Jones and others—drive to Manchester, reaching Piccadilly Station by 3.30pm.