So we got back from this year’s Sci-Fi Weekender on Sunday, and now that I’ve had a few days to recover, here’s what we got up to.
Thursday
We arrived on the Thursday evening. For lunch, we stopped off at Thaymar Ice Cream, which is just off the A1 near Retford and has a lovely tea room and farm shop. Oh, and the ice cream is great – I can particularly recommend the damson and liquorice flavour. After some food, we attended Pirate Pete’s Quiz and Karaoke. Sci-Fi Weekender normally opens with a quiz, and though the format was different this year, it was good fun.
With it being the first day, we called had a (comparatively) early night.
Friday
Our first on the Friday morning was a panel featuring Lauren K Nixon. Lauren is an author and a friend from university, and one of the people we gave a lift to down from Yorkshire on Thursday. Panel discussions are a big part of Sci-Fi Weekender, and Lauren was there for four of them, including discussions about traditional vs indie book publishing, and fantasy vs romantasy.
The headline guest for this year’s SFW was the eight doctor, Paul McGann, who appeared on stage with Daphne Ashbrook who played his assistant Grace Holloway in the 1996 TV film. They were both excellent guests, with really insightful answers to questions. Their interviewer was David J. Howe, one of the organisers of Sci-Fi Weekender and a writer of many Doctor Who handbooks.
In the evening, it was a welcome return for Jollyboat, who have performed at three previous SFW events.
Saturday
Whilst cosplay is encouraged throughout SFW, the cosplay competition normally takes place on Saturdays, starting with the preliminary round in the morning. The standard of cosplay is always really high, and there’s a really strong cosplay community around SFW. Throughout the weekend, there were several unofficial cosplay meets themed around fandoms like Star Trek.
There were also two events featuring John Robertson – a Q&A event at lunchtime, and then the The Dark Room in the evening. John has been at the majority of SFW events in recent years, but missed last year’s due to a clash. It was a welcome return – whilst the format of The Dark Room is consistent, there’s a lot of improvised material and it’s always hilarious.
Another session that we enjoyed on Saturday was a motion capture demonstration by Creature Bionics. They specialise in motion capture for films and videogames – especially for non-human creatures. It was really interesting and great to see the footage in realtime too.
There was also a great workshop by Artyfakes, a costume and props company, where they made an axe out of a plastic pipe and foam in about 90 minutes.
Right before The Dark Room were the Cosplay Finals on the main stage, where the 10 best entrants from the morning were asked to do a short piece of singing or acting. The winners were Hoggle and Ludo from Labyrinth, and much of the outfits were crocheted.
The Holodeck
SFW has normally been split between three rooms – the Main Void, the Spaceport, and the Timeport. The Main Void has the main stage, and the Spaceport is a smaller venue used more for panels. Over the past couple of years, the Timeport has just been used for vendors; this year it was home to various workshops. Meanwhile, the Games Room at the holiday park was rebranded The Holodeck, and was home to more vendors, a retro gaming set-up and ‘Full Size D&D’, which unfortunately we didn’t have time for. It was great to see this space better used; in previous years, it’s only been used for table-top gaming.
Things we didn’t get to see
Seeing as it’s split across four rooms, and we also needed to eat and drink occasionally, we didn’t get to see everything. The other big guest was Noah Hathaway, who we missed on the Friday, and there were some panels that we wanted to see but couldn’t. There’s more about this year’s event on Blazing Minds.
One feature of Home Assistant that I’ve only recently started using is Dashboard Badges. These are small widgets that appear at the top of your dashboard, and allow you to view information at a glance. There’s a screenshot above which shows the widgets that I currently have set up.
Badges have been part of Home Assistant for a long time, but they received a major overhaul last August in version 2024.8. In the (approximately) 18 months that I’ve been using Home Assistant, I’ve been gradually adding more and more data to my dashboard, to the point where I had to scroll through several screens worth of data to see what I needed. Which isn’t ideal. Badges are a potential solution, showing basic information at the top, where it’s most accessible.
Each badge widget can usually display the state of one entity. In the screenshot above, I’ve included:
The temperature in our dining room, as recorded by our Nest thermostat
The current weather (it was, in fact, not raining when I took this screenshot)
The current power output of our solar panels
How much charge our solar battery currently has
The current status of our dishwasher
The current status of the TV in the living room
The current status of the sun
The latest version of Home Assistant
There’s a moderate amount of customisation available. For example, as well as the status of the entity, you can include its name, and this text is also customisable to save space if needed. You can also tweak the colours and the icons.
Controlling visibility of badges
One great feature that badges have in Home Assistant is controlling when they’re visible. I actually have more badges than the eight mentioned above, but they’re not showing as I don’t currently need the information offered. For example, I have a badge that displays whether an update to Home Assistant is available. But I only want to see this when an update is available – if I’m running the latest version, I want the badge to be hidden. Here’s how I configured it:
Having selected the widget, I’ve gone to the ‘Visibility’ tab, selected the entity, and told Home Assistant to only display it when the ‘State is equal to’ and ‘Update available’.
I use this on some other badges too. For example, if there’s no power coming from the solar panels, that badge disappears. Similarly, if my solar battery is at 20% or below, which is its idle state, that’s hidden too. You can also control the visibility based on which user is currently logged in, or anything really – the state of one entity can control the visibility of the badge for another.
A useful badge is one that makes use of the custom Octopus Energy integration from HACS, and will display if I haven’t used my Octopus Wheel of Fortune spins that month. Last month, I won 800 Octopoints, which was nice, and it’s helpful to have a reminder to use them.
By using badges, and setting their visibility, I’ve reduced the number of cards on my dashboard significantly. It makes the dashboard less overwhelming, and prioritises the most important information that I need to see quickly.
With us having guests in the car for a long journey, I’ve recently bought a new USB car charger to go in the back of our car. Unlike others that I’ve bought in the past, which offer 2 or 3 USB ports, this offers six.
It’s currently on sale on Amazon for £13(sponsored link), but I picked mine up cheaper elsewhere. There are two USB-C ports with Power Delivery, and then four USB-A ports. Of these four, there are two standard ports which offer 3 amps, and then a green one and an orange one, which support various proprietary quick charge specifications. I’m already using one of the USB-C ports for my CarPlay unit in the front, on a long cable.
Above the ports is a three digit display, which shows the current voltage coming in to the charger. This should nominally be 12 volts, but as you can see in my photo it’s higher at 14.4 volts. Should it go higher than 14.8, or below 11.6, that would be a cause for concern. The whole thing also glows blue when the engine is on and it has power.
Apparently you can’t use all six ports at once – the maximum is five. However, it’s apparently capable of quite high wattages. Whilst I’ve always known it as a ‘cigarette lighter socket’, the official name is the Automobile auxiliary power outlet, and the maximum current can be as high as 10 Amps. As such, 120 Watts is possible, assuming a 12 volt supply (see, I remember what I learned in GCSE Science). In practice, the maximum power from any one port will be around 60 Watts, but that’s still enough to charge a laptop.
For what it’s worth, I haven’t found any chargers offering more than six ports, so this seems to be the maximum. In the front of our car, we have a much smaller two port USB car charger, with one USB-A and one USB-C port. The location of the auxiliary power outlet, which is right next to the gear stick on the driver’s side, means that I prefer a smaller, low profile charger that doesn’t get in the way. Still, this means we have 3 USB-C and five USB-A ports available in the car.
Our car dates from 2012 and so it only came with one USB-A port built-in – I haven’t included it as it’s a 0.5A port and therefore a bit useless for charging. Also, if I plug my iPhone into it, the car stereo instantly starts playing the first song in my iTunes library, which is ‘Nothing’ by A. More modern cars presumably have many more USB ports, and I can see the cigarette lighter sockets becoming less common. Not least because it’s illegal to smoke cigarettes in a car with children in it in the UK, and barely anyone smokes nowadays anyway.
By the time you’re able to read this, Christine and I will be beginning our second day at Sci-Fi Weekender in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. This is the seventh consecutive SFW event that we’ve been to, and we’ve always enjoyed it.
This year will be different; it’ll be the first full SFW that we’ve been to where there’s no Professor Elemental, and it won’t be compered by Adam Washington, again for the first time in many years. But then there have been changes every year as the event changes and evolves.
We’ll be driving down again, and as with last year we’re offering friends a lift down so we’ll have a full car. It’s a rather long drive from West Yorkshire, mainly due to the A17 which we use to cut across Lincolnshire. It’s not a particularly fast nor scenic road, passing across mainly flat agricultural land. We call it the Sto Plains.
As for whether we decide to do cosplay this year – probably not. I’ll probably take my Steampunk gear but we don’t have any specific plans. In previous years, Christine has been Sadness from Inside Out, and a Feegle Kelda from Discworld. I think she just likes making herself blue.
I’ve recently added a wrist strap to my phone. This is primarily on the back of Terence Eden’s advice for mobile security. As well as advising the use of a password manager, password/biometric lock and not sideloading apps from shady sources, he also mentions physical security of the handset.
Whilst my phone “only” cost around £700, I’ll only finish paying it off next month. If you have an iPhone Pro Max with the maximum 1 terabyte of storage, you’ll have paid £1600 which is a lot of money to lose. Some Samsung Android phones also cost serious cash to buy new nowadays too.
I often have my phone out when walking around, mainly for playing Pokemon Go. All it takes is someone brazen enough to snatch it out of my hand for it likely to be gone for good. So I’ve finally decided that a wrist strap would be a good idea in the hope of preventing this.
Both the strap, and the phone case I use, are relatively cheap ones from AliExpress – collectively costing less than £5. The case has a pair of holes for threading a strap through, but you can also buy wrist straps that attach to the bottom of any phone case if yours doesn’t have holes. Somewhat annoyingly, the holes are on the left side of the phone, and I’m right-handed.
My wrist strap itself is adjustable, so you can tighten it around your wrist and reduce the risk it falling (or being pulled) out of your hand.
Whilst I was mainly motivated to reduce the risk of my phone being stolen, having a wrist strap also reduces the risk that you’ll drop your phone. As well as reducing the risk of the phone being damaged, it means you’re less likely to drop it in places where it can’t easily be retrieved. Maybe if Rebekah Vardy’s agent had a strap on her phone, she wouldn’t have ‘accidentally’ dropped it in the North Sea. Snide remarks aside, I use my phone’s camera quite a bit, so having a wrist strap makes me more confident that I’m not going to drop it into a lion enclosure at a zoo or something.
Just a quick word of caution though. If you keep your phone in a pocket, make sure you tuck the wrist strap in as well so it’s not hanging out. Otherwise, counter-intuitively, it might make your phone easier for pick-pockets to steal.
Goddards is in York, and in fact is in walking distance of where I grew up. It was owned by the Terry family, they who introduced the world to the Chocolate Orange, and later on became the regional offices for the National Trust. I don’t remember it being open when I was younger, but nowadays you can pop in and see the gardens at weekends.
Rievaulx Terrace
Again, stretching the 90 minute journey time but it’s also closer to York, where my parents live. The village of Rievaulx is just outside the pretty little market town of Helmsley, and is better known as the home of Rievaulx Abbey. The Abbey is a ruin (yet again, Henry VIII had a lot to answer for) and managed by English Heritage. But above the abbey is Rievaulx Terrace, home to some formal gardens, woodlands, and a couple of folly temples. The National Trust suggest that you combine a trip with nearby Nunnington Hall if you want to make a day of it.
Beatles’ Childhood Homes
Going over to the West Coast, and you can visit the childhood homes of John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Access is by guided tour only, and has to be booked in advance with pickup from either Liverpool South Parkway station, or Speke Hall. There are only four tours offered each day, but they’re available seven days a week, except in low season when the houses are closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. Whilst many Beatles tours in Liverpool will take you past these houses, this is the only way that you can actually go inside.
I feel like I may have been to Little Moreton Hall in the past – as with nearby Biddulph Grange, we have family nearby. But I certainly don’t remember anything about it, so if I have been, it must have been a very long time ago. It’s a similar-looking Tudor house to Speke Hall and has an actual moat. Over the years, various bits have been added to it, making it probably one of ‘wonkiest’ houses that you would ever see.
Rufford Old Hall
Another Tudor survivor is up near Ormskirk. Rufford Old Hallmay have been visited by William Shakespeare during his teenage years. As well as the house, there are large gardens and woodland to explore, and so if you’re not a member then it’s one of the higher-priced National Trust properties. But that should mean that there’s plenty to do there.
So there’s only six places that we haven’t yet been to within 90 minutes travelling time, and three of them have limited opening hours. That being said, I think we’ll make plans to go to Little Moreton Hall and Rufford Old Hall in the near future. As I mentioned at the start of the year, our summer holiday this year will be in North Wales, and there’s no shortage of National Trust properties up there either.
Recently, my Facebook feed has been full of adverts for male shapewear – essentially vests which push your tummy in. The idea being that you can hide a beer belly and look more confident. Of course, the adverts have lots of before and after videos of men who have squeezed themselves into one of these vests.
Of course, when it came to writing this, none of the adverts showed up for me to take a screenshot.
Whilst I rarely drink beer nowadays, it’s fair to say I’m more portly than I used to be. Between the start of the Covid lockdown five years ago, and the summer of 2021 when things started re-opening again, my waist size increased by a couple of inches. It used to be that I did around 30 minutes of brisk walking every weekday, but despite my efforts to get out during lockdown, I don’t do as much exercise now as I used to.
Therefore, on the face of it, shapewear offers an easy solution – squish your belly into a tight-fitting vest to look better. But besides the price of these vests, I’ve been hesitant to try them, for a couple of reasons.
Shapewear health risks
A quick search with a well-known search engine brought up this article from BBC Science Focus about the ‘hidden health risks of shapewear’. Feel free to read it, but the summary is that shapewear may not be suitable for people who experience issues with breathing, digestion, skin irritation or who have nerve or circulatory issues. And I tick two of those boxes: I’m asthmatic, and, without wanting to go into TMI, I have some digestive issues. Wearing shapewear regularly could exacerbate both of those.
Health risks aside, forcing your body to look a certain way, or only feeling confident if you’re wearing shapewear, isn’t a healthy relationship with your body. I’m reading (well, listening to the audiobook of) You Are Not A Before Picture by Alex Light(sponsored link), which is a really good book about the history of the diet industry, and how to have a good relationship with your body regardless of its size. It also dispels the myth that fat = unhealthy and thin = healthy. For more, see HAES – Health At Every Size, which offers advice for healthcare professionals who work with differently-sized people in a way that is affirming and supportive.
So, no – as much as I’m not a big fan of my sticky-out-tummy, I won’t be trying to force it into a restrictive vest.
Last weekend, I took our nine-year-old to the Abbey House Museum in Kirkstall, near Leeds. We’ve been a couple of times before, and it’s a nice little museum to visit for half a day. It’s also recently been reprieved from closure, but in the long term it needs more people visiting it to be viable.
The Abbey House Museum is essentially in three parts. The first is a recreated Leeds street scene, with various shops and houses that have been saved and transplanted into the museum. There’s a pub, a pharmacist, a general store, and many others. It’s a bit like Kirkgate in the York Castle Museum, but on a smaller scale. It’s designed to show how ordinary, working class Loiners would have lived in the past.
Exhibitions
Next, you go upstairs to an exhibition space. Previous exhibitions that we’ve seen have included one about various common household objects from the past now considered dangerous, back in 2019. Older Lego bricks contained various heavy metals like cadmium, there were sore throat pastilles containing potassium chlorate which can spontaneously combust, and there were plenty of things with asbestos in them. The last time we went, which was in 2021, the exhibition was about the Leeds music scene and various bands and venues.
This year’s exhibition is called ‘Story Time‘, and is all about children’s stories. Expect to see lots of books and toys, both old and new.
In the next room are various entertainment machines, which can tell your fortune or show an animated diorama. They require one or two old pennies, which can be obtained from an exchange machine that takes modern day British currency. Each 1d coin costs 10p and so have a pound coin spare if you want to try every machine.
The final space is the childhood collection. There’s a collection of dollhouses and toys, spread across several rooms.
History of the Abbey House Museum
The Abbey House Museum gets its name from Kirkstall Abbey, across the road, and it used to be the gatehouse. Parts of the building date back to the year 1152, and after Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries (yes, him again!) it was repurposed as a farmhouse. It became a museum in 1927, and so hopefully it’ll be able to celebrate its 100th anniversary now that it has been saved from closure.
Expect to be able to spend half a day at the museum – we combined our visit with a trip to Tropical World, but you could pop across the road to the abbey itself as well, if you want to make a day of it.
Free parking is available (at the time of writing, though note that Leeds City Council has recently introduced modest parking charges at many of its sites), and it’s on major bus routes from Leeds city centre. If you’re arriving by train, it’s roughly equidistant from both Headingley and Kirkstall Forge stations – both of which are about a mile’s walk.
I now have two dongles – both Sonoff ZBDongle E devices – connected to the Raspberry Pi which runs my Home Assistant instance. One is for Zigbee, and the other one is for Thread.
During the further development and testing of the multiprotocol firmware, we have concluded that while Silicon Labs’ multiprotocol works, it comes with technical limitations. These limitations mean users will not have the best experience compared to using dedicated Zigbee and Thread radios. That is why we do not recommend using this firmware, and it will remain an experimental feature of Home Assistant Yellow and Home Assistant SkyConnect. If you currently have the multiprotocol firmware installed but don’t actively use it to connect to Thread devices, we recommend that you disable multiprotocol.
For the time being, I have been operating a single ZBDongle E just with Zigbee firmware. However, now that I have some Thread devices, I decided to buy a second dongle and flash that with Thread firmware, using this web flasher.
Now, my Thread smart plugs can be reached by Home Assistant without its own Thread dongle – I have a Google Nest Wi-Fi system which also acts as Thread Border Routers. Therefore, having a Thread dongle isn’t necessary – Home Assistant can see and interact with the devices using Google Nest Wi-Fi. But having a dedicated Thread dongle for Home Assistant does offer some advantages:
Thread is a mesh network, so adding another Thread device extends the mesh and should improve resilience.
It gives Home Assistant direct access to the Thread network.
It enables another Thread Border Router, offering an additional exit node.
The Home Assistant Thread Border Router addon includes a web interface, allowing you to view your network’s topology and get a visual representation of how the devices connect to each other.
If you’re looking to buy your own Sonoff ZBDongle E, you can, of course, buy one from Amazon(sponsored link), but (whispers: they’re cheaper on AliExpress).
Just a note: I was unable to flash any updated firmware on the newer dongle that I bought this month, using the Web flasher, so that’s now the Zigbee dongle. Apparently it may be an issue with the Windows drivers, as I was able to use Home Assistant’s Silabs Firmware Flasher addon to update it instead. If you specify this custom URL in the addon settings, it’ll use the latest (as of November 2024) Zigbee firmware. It’s also worth noting that, if you use Zigbee2MQTT, once you’re running the latest Zigbee firmware, you’ll need to tell Zigbee2MQTT to use the new ’ember’ driver rather than ‘ezsp’.
The older dongle seemed to happy to accept different firmware using the web flasher, having done so in the past. So, that’s the one with the Thread firmware.
Now that the weather is improving a bit, and the days are getting longer, we’ll be planning to make the most of our National Trust membership by getting out and visiting places. In this blog post, I’m going to detail all the National Trust properties that we can get to from our home in Sowerby Bridge, West Yorkshire, within a maximum of 90 minutes driving team (one way). We’ve visited the majority of them, and I’ve blogged about many of them, so this will hopefully serve as a useful guide for me to see where we haven’t been to.
I’m armed with my copy of the National Trust 2025 handbook, and have been through all the properties listed that I know we can get to.
Part one: Properties we’ve been to
I’ll start with the places that we’ve been to before.
Hardcastle Crags
Starting with the most local is Hardcastle Crags, in the hills above Hebden Bridge. I’ve never blogged specifically about our visits to Hardcastle Crags over the years, but it’s been mentioned in passing a few times. Most recently, I mentioned how the main visitor centre at Hardcastle Crags is off-grid, and it came up in last year’s book review as several scenes in Juno Dawson’s Her Majesty’s Royal Coven series take place there. Our most recent visit was in 2023, and it gets a mention in my year-end review. Over the years, I’ve been many times, as it was reachable by train and on foot from Bradford. I’m sure we’ll end up back there in time.
Beningbrough Hall
Beningbrough is close to where my parents live in York, and so I’ve been a few times – the most recent time was in 2022. I blogged about our 2017 visit.
Beningbrough Hall is, I suppose, typical of what you think of when you imagine a National Trust property – a big, stately home, with nice gardens.
Brimham Rocks
Another place I used to go to a lot whilst growing up, and again whilst at university. Brimham Rocks is home to various rock formations, many of which have been given names and backstories over the years. We last visited in 2014, so over 10 years ago and so we’re probably due a repeat visit at some point.
East Riddlesden Hall
This is the nearest indoor property to where we live, on the outskirts of Keighley. We’ve been a few times, with the most recent visit just last year. East Riddlesden Hall is a smaller site, so best for half a day, and isn’t as grand as some other country homes. If anything, that makes it more interesting. There are also gardens at the back.
Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal
One of the National Trust’s larger estates, Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal Water Garden includes the ruins of an abbey and monastery, a water garden with ponds and fountains, a stately home, a church, a water mill and a huge deer park. It’s big enough to require two separate car parks and entrances.
Our last visit was in early autumn in 2020, during a time when we could meet relatives outdoors. It was the first time I’d seen my parents face-to-face in almost six months, and would be the last time in a while too. Prior to that, our previous visit was in 2015, so again, we’re probably due another trip.
Mount Grace Priory
Mount Grace Priory is rather pushing the 90 minute journey time. I’ve been before with my parents, but it was many years ago. Both English Heritage and National Trust members get in free, as it’s jointly managed by both organisations.
It’s another ruined church and monastery (Henry VIII had a lot to answer for) but on a smaller scale than Fountains Abbey. There’s also a 13th Century Manor House, and formal gardens.
Nostell
I mentioned Nostell earlier this month as somewhere we’d planned to go, but the weather had other ideas. We’re back to large country house and formal gardens territory here; Nostell is well-known for having masses of snowdrops at this time of year. Inside the house is a range of Chippendale furniture.
I’ve been twice; once with Christine and my parents, and once with our nine-year-old when they were much younger. We haven’t been as a family yet, and I haven’t previously blogged about it.
Nunnington Hall
Nunnington Hall is another place I’ve been to as a child, but not as an adult. Again, it’s pushing the 90 minute journey time – it’s actually further away than Mount Grace Priory, but on slower roads. That being said, it’s also somewhere that we could go when staying in York with my parents.
The hall is smaller than others, but hosts regular exhibitions, and the garden has been completely organic for over 20 years.
Treasurer’s House
Being as it is in York city centre, I’ve been to the Treasurer’s House a few times. It’s so named as it was the home given to whoever was the Treasurer at the nearby York Minster. It’s also very haunted, and on Hallowe’en one year I went on a ghost tour. Though I’ve been past it a few times in recent years, I haven’t visited as an adult.
Wentworth Castle Gardens
Wentworth Castle Gardens is one of the newest properties to join the National Trust’s portfolio, having been taken over as recently as 2018. We went in 2021, on a gloriously sunny day that let us see the flowers in the gardens in full bloom. More work has been undertaken since, and so we’re probably due another visit.
The most recent National Trust property that we went to was Gawthorpe Hall. We went at the end of August. It’s also a smaller property; whilst there is extensive parkland, the gardens are small. It’s fine for half a day.
Hare Hill
Hare Hill is a nice, peaceful garden in Cheshire, and home to lots of rare trees. It’s not very big – it was enough for a morning, but not a full day out. Thankfully, there are other National Trust properties nearby, including…
Nether Alderley Mill
Nether Alderley Mill is a medieval corn mill, that has been restored to working order, and one a few that survive to this day. Indeed, it was still in commercial use as recently as 1939, using the power of water to mill corn.
We combined our visit with Hare Hill, back in September 2022, which is nearby. It’s only open on Thursdays and Saturdays during the summer months, and visit is by guided tour only. There’s also limited parking.
Lyme
Lyme is not far from Stockport, and it’s another larger site with a big country house, formal gardens and a deer park. There’s plenty to do and it’s certainly one for a full day out – especially if you want to walk out to a viewing point with a view across most of Greater Manchester. We went in June 2021, and previously I had been in my late teens as well.
Quarry Bank
Another top-tier National Trust property, this time on the western side of Greater Manchester and not far from Manchester Airport. Quarry Bank is big, with the main attraction being a restored cotton mill. It’s now a museum, and has lots of hands-on activities for kids. Elsewhere, there are formal gardens as well as a huge kitchen garden, and a hydroelectric generator with a fish bypass system. My first visit was in 2017, and we went back in 2019 and 2020.
Speke Hall
Speaking of properties near airports, Speke Hall rubs up against the runway of Liverpool John Lennon Airport. If you haven’t already guessed from the architecture, it was built in Tudor times, and Catholic priests were hidden there (like I said, Henry VIII had a lot to answer for). It was restored in the 19th century, so a lot of the interior decor is in the Arts and Crafts style.
Outside, there are extensive gardens, including a ‘secret’ garden accessible by a tunnel, a maze, and a story trail for kids. We’ve been a couple of times, in winter 2019 and August 2022.
Tatton Park
Another large site, although the National Trust is only responsible for part of it. That means members have to pay for parking, and the farm. That said, the farm is worth it, as it’s home to many rare breeds and plenty of talks about the animals.
The gardens at Tatton Park are really good. On the times we’ve visited, we’ve only had time for the farm and the gardens; we haven’t been into the houses yet. Yes, there’s more than one house there; the one pictured, and a medieval house now known as Tatton Old Hall. Our visits were in May 2019, May 2021 and June 2022.
Biddulph Grange Garden
Biddulph Grange is in North Staffordshire, and again at the limits of how far we would go in a day. I went there lots of times as a kid, as I had family nearby, and it’s one of my happy places. To call it simply a ‘garden’ isn’t doing it justice – there are lots of different themed areas, with various follies and hiding places. The Japanese garden is my favourite. Our recent visits were February 2019 and during lockdown in August 2020, seeing as it’s mainly outdoors. I haven’t blogged about our visits before.
Later this week, I’ll post part two – the places where we’ve not been to yet.
