Circumnavigating the Uk- day 6- Unexpected Liverpool: Speke Hall

During my last cruise update, I left you in Belfast, where we had enjoyed the delights of the Giant's Causeway.  Then I left you with details of what happened because of the storm in the Scottish waters.

Our next stop after Belfast was due to be Tobermory on the Isle of Mull, yet another exciting hard to reach island.

But, sadly, as we left Belfast, they announced that since the storm was still going rather in the Scottish seas and we'd have to anchor there, for reasons of safety, they were going to have to forgo visiting Tobermory and we they had managed to secure a place at Liverpool. I admit to being furious at the time.  The point and reason I was so looking forward to this cruise was visiting islands. Those hard to reach places you have to make a dedicated trip to. No offence to Liverpool but I can very easily jump on a train or in the car with CBC and travel to Liverpool.

Of course I understood the reasons for the diversion but what with missing The Isle of Skye, it just felt a huge blow.

I sulked through the beginning of Dinner. I just found it so disappointing but then eventually, I slowly let go of it.

The next morning, we spent a delightful time chatting to a couple at Breakfast. This amazing lady turned out to be a professional opera singer who had moved to Malta 20 years ago.  She was utterly fascinating and we stayed talking to her and her husband for ages. She was really happy to be able to talk about her experiences and loved the fact we were on her wavelength, knew about what she was talking about and had opinions. From her husband's delighted reaction, I got the impression that they hadn't had the chance to talk to people much or people weren't really interested to hear about their life.

Next, we left the boat and walked up into Liverpool.

There seemed some interesting and varied buildings.

However, since I wanted somewhere a bit more quiet and countrified, I had an idea to get us out of the city centre. 

Alex Odd Socks, who was the unwitting catalyst for this trip in the first place lives in Liverpool and works at a beautiful Tudor home- Speke Hall. I'd seen photos in various blog posts from different people and knew that sounded idea for the day.

We headed into the bus station and waited for the bus towards Speke. It took a lot longer than I expected to.  It's nearer to John Lennon airport than the city.  Everyone kept telling us to get off at Dobbies garden centre which we didn't see. It was then a mammoth trek of over a mile to reach the grounds of Speke Hall.

The first place we headed for was the Kitchen garden which had been yarn-bombed with a beautiful interactive community project involving William Morris as inspiration and lots of knitted and crocheted things as well as having plenty of healthy-looking vegetables.

 Whoever does the grounds here should be mightily proud. They are exquisite.

 I was dying to go into this green house but had to be content to peep through the window.

 Mum was pleased to see bee hives

 and she happily identified plants and produce varieties,

 There was a cute little bug hotel.

 Information points showed how the William Morris wallpapers were created in wool. I recognised this one instantly (see it later in the house!)

 The fruit trees were adorned also.

 There was flora AND fauna!

 Here's the Lesser-spotted Mummykins...

 Even the scarecrow was knitted! I was seriously envious of their crop of courgettes!

 Bzzzzz...

 Outside, we saw some very affable and industrious bumble bees at work.

 At last, we saw Speke Hall itself. This is the view I had seen in pictures before.

 SUCH beautiful patterning on this exquisite building! Alas that it was SO busy being school holidays.

We had a fair hefty wait to enter the Hall itself.

 I LOVE entering through these doors within doors!

 Inside was a quadrangle.

 There's the Greater spotted Kezzie.

 Mum was delighted with the grand, ancient Yew trees which had names!

 And here's the William Morris original wallpaper.

 Inside, the light made it hard to photograph but there were lots of interesting things to see.

I had no idea Billiard Tables were so HUGE!

I was rather taken by these bright stained glass panels.

 Money and Bacchus!

 The thing which most excited me was that THERE WAS A PRIEST HOLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It has long been on my list of things to see: one being see a real priest hole, two being getting into one, three being finding a secret passage.  You can tell I was brought up on a diet of Enid Blyton,

 Sadly, I couldn't get in it so that amibition remains but I was really delighted.

 The rooms were very interesting. What a delightfully spacious bathroom!

 I adore a set of bells!

 Outside, we saw some excellent dressed-up people.  Sadly, Alex didn't seem to be working that day otherwise it would have been lovely to say Hi to her in person.

 We went for a cup of tea in the tea room and then headed onto the South Lawn (I think)

 The Hydrangeas were looking splendid.

 The second excitement of the day was the discovery that there was an Adrian Fisher-designed maze there.  I own his Amazing Book of Mazes and I delight in visiting mazes.  This one looks fairly young but it was brilliant with gates that been the route of the maze can be changed by unlocking and locking various gates and there are bridges too.

 It only took me 4 minutes!

 At this point, Mum realised she was really tired and we really should be heading back to Liverpool city-centre so we began the long mile-plus trudge to the bus stop. We briefly stopped in the shop where I picked up my Tudor Rose lapel pin as a souvenir of the day.

As we walked back, it began to rain heavily so by the time we climbed onto the bus, we were rather sopping. The kind driver looked pityingly at us and said he'd crank up the heating.

The drive back to the city was quite long but we reached there eventually.  Mum was exhausted and headed back to the ship but I decided to do a walking route around the city. However, you'll have to return soon to see what I saw as you've already waded through 55 photos here!

It was a great time at Speke Hall and I was grateful for knowing about its existence!

Have you been to visit Liverpool or Speke?

xx