The Piece Hall in Halifax, West Yorkshire, opened in 1779 as a cloth hall, where pieces of woollen fabric woven on handlooms would be traded by the area’s clothiers. The 19th-century industrial revolution brought automation and scale to the area’s weaving industry, and the fall in the number of small-scale producers precipitated a decline in the Piece Hall’s fortunes to Read more...
From age 5 to 23, John Lennon’s childhood home was his Aunt Mimi’s house, Mendips, on Menlove Avenue, in Woolton, Liverpool. Lennon’s widow Yoko Ono purchased the 1930s semi-detached property in 2002 and donated it to the National Trust, after which it was restored to its 1950s appearance and opened to the public for tours. A blue plaque on the Read more...
The nearest hotel to Cheshire Oaks Outlet Village is the Travelodge Cheshire Oaks situated on the Coliseum Leisure Park next to the retail park. Read more...
The Eleanor Rigby statue by musician and entertainer Tommy Steele is located on Stanley Street in Liverpool city centre. The bronze statue depicts a woman in a headscarf, sitting on a stone bench with a shopping bag at her side. On the bench is an open copy of the local Liverpool Echo newspaper on which a small bird has landed, Read more...
The name Roodee for Chester Racecourse in Chester, England, is a corruption of its earlier name, Rood eye, thought to mean Island of the Cross. It is derived from a combination of the Saxon word ‘rood’ for ‘cross’, and the Norse ‘eye’, meaning ‘island’. The racecourse sits on the banks of the River Dee and much of it was under Read more...
A person who is a long-time resident or native of Leeds is called a Loiner or a Leodensian. Both words are used as demonyms for someone from Leeds, West Yorkshire. Read more...
Ewloe Castle was built by native Welsh prince Llywelyn ap Gruffudd after he captured the lands forming most of modern-day Flintshire from the English Crown in 1257. It is thought that the castle may have built upon earlier fortification work by his grandfather, Llywelyn the Great, and great-grandfather, Owain Gwynedd. The castle’s life was short and it was abandoned after Read more...
St Margaret’s Church, the Victorian-era Gothic style church in Bodelwyddan, near Saint Asaph, North Wales, is known as the Marble Church because of the lavish use of marble on its interior. Designed by John Gibson and completed in 1860, the eye-catching limestone building with its 62 metre tower and spire is a landmark for traffic passing on the A55 road. Read more...
The longest seaside pier in Wales is Llandudno Pier, which has a total length of 2,295 feet (or 700 metres), of which the original main pier is 1,234 feet (or 376 metres). Located on the North Wales coast and stretching out into the Irish Sea, Llandudno Pier was constructed over two years from 1876 and later extended landwards to the Read more...
The statue of English footballer Duncan Edwards is located on Market Place in the centre of his home town of Dudley, West Midlands. The Manchester United and England national team player, was one of the Busby Babes, a group of young, talented footballers playing for Manchester United in the 1950s under manager Matt Busby. Edwards was one of eight Manchester Read more...
You can bike around Bala Lake (Llyn Tegid) on a route that uses a cycle path and public highway. Follow the A494 from the lake car park to Llanuwchllyn, returning to Bala on the B4403 road that tracks the steam railway line. The 10 mile circuit has some inclines and takes an hour at a moderate pace. Read more...
Trwyn Du Lighthouse was built in 1838 by Trinity House at the north entrance to the Menai Strait. Situated at Penmon, the Isle of Anglesey’s easternmost point, the distinctive black and white banded circular stone tower lighthouse marks the passage for ships between the island and the nearby island of Ynys Seiriol (also known as Puffin Island). Originally manned by Read more...
The red-brick clock tower in the centre of the city of Bangor, Gwynedd, was built between 1886 and 1887, by builder T J Humphreys of Bangor. The Victorian listed structure on Bangor’s High Street has four clock faces and a chiming bell, and was given to the city by Bangor businessman Thomas Lewis, who was Mayor of Bangor between 1885 Read more...
Menai Suspension Bridge has narrow arches with a width restriction of 2.6 metres and a height limit of 4.7 metres. HGVs, large lorries, and buses normally use Britannia Bridge, the other bridge crossing the Menai Strait between the Isle of Anglesey and the Welsh mainland, which is subject to less restrictive width and height limits. During periods of high winds, Read more...
The height of Menai Suspension Bridge’s road deck above water at high tide is approximately 30.5 metres (or 100 feet) at centre span. Built by Thomas Telford between 1819 and 1826 across the Menai Strait between the Isle of Anglesey and the Welsh mainland, he designed the bridge height to allow for the passage below of sailing ships of the Read more...
The stone towers and arches of Menai Suspension Bridge are built of grey-brown veined limestone quarried nearby in Penmon on the eastern tip of the Isle of Anglesey. Construction started with the bridge towers in 1819, with the stone, also known as Penmon marble, transported to the site by boat down the Menai Strait. The Thomas Telford-designed bridge connects Anglesey Read more...
Menai Bridge was built between 1819 and 1826. The first stone was laid on 10th August 1819 and the completed bridge opened to traffic on 30 January 1826. Read more...