Days Out

Little Moreton Hall

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A photo of Little Moreton Hall, a Tudor house

Back in March, I listed the National Trust properties reachable from our home that we hadn’t been to. Last month, we were able to tick Little Moreton Hall off that list.

Now, I’m reasonably sure that I’ve visited Little Moreton Hall before, but if I did, it would’ve been in the 1990s. Certainly, I don’t have any photos of it saved anywhere. In any case, neither Christine, nor our nine-year-old had visited before.

Little Moreton Hall probably classes as being one of the National Trust’s medium-sized properties. During the English Civil War in the 17th Century, the Moreton family backed the Royalists loyal to Charles I. The hall was later confiscated by the government, and much of the surrounding land ended up being used for farming. So whilst the hall itself has survived, it sits on a relatively small site – unlike other grand homes in the countryside, you don’t spend five minutes driving through parkland full of deer.

Wonky

What Little Moreton Hall is best known for is that it’s very wonky. If you look at the photo above, it’s as if someone accidentally dropped the hall from a height, and it’s got bent out of shape. The reason for its wonkiness is partly due to a lack of deep foundations, but also its owners adding a third floor on top without taking the extra load into account. As such, the Long Gallery on the top floor has a very uneven floor, and until quite recently remained out of bounds for visitors. The National Trust has had to work hard to sure up the building and allow all parts to be opened to the public.

Originally the hall was H-shaped, with the dining hall and what is now a tea room in the oldest part. Subsequent extensions have made it look like an inverse ‘C’ from above. Around the hall is a moat, and access is via a bridge and through a gateway, above which sits the Long Gallery. Oh, and the original toilets, which opened out onto the moat. Lovely.

As well as the hall, on the island formed by the moat are some small formal gardens. They’re not very extensive – it’s a small site after all – but they’re well maintained. The moat itself is home to a number of different species of duck.

The Long Gallery at Little Moreton Hall

Inside Little Moreton Hall

The interior is laid out largely as it would have been during its heydays in Tudor times. The family crest for the Moreton family features a wolf, and so there are a number of toy wolves, dressed in different outfits, dotted around the rooms. There’s also a focus on how people in Tudor times slept, as a result of a research project with the University of Manchester. In those days, people would sleep propped up on pillows, to aid digestion, and have various sleepy herbs around to help them nod off. One of the beds has an embroidered bed spread featuring these herbs.

The Long Gallery at the top is probably the highlight – it has plenty of windows and so is a very light space, especially on the sunny day that we visited.

Accessibility

As befits an old house known for its wonkiness, access isn’t great. There is step-free access to the hall, where you can view photos of the other rooms, but to see them in person you’ll need to be able use steps. The Long Gallery is atop quite a narrow spiral staircase.

Limited parking is available on site; you may struggle to find a space on weekend afternoons in the summer. There are no electric parking facilities; we ended up charging our car in nearby Congleton where there are two sites with rapid chargers (though neither were working). An infrequent bus service between Alsager and Congleton runs Monday-Saturday, and at three miles away, Kidsgrove is the nearest railway station.

Cadbury World

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A photo of the outside of the Cadbury's Factory in Bourneville, West Midlands

We’ve had quite the busy summer, as it happens, which is why I’m writing about something that happened right at the beginning of August now, towards the end of September. We were invited to a round number birthday for a family member down in Oxfordshire, and so we decided to make use of the fact that we’d be heading through the Midlands to call off at Cadbury World.

This was my third visit to Cadbury World. I first went with my ex, Hari, back in the 2000s as she has family nearby in Worcestershire. My second visit was with Christine and our then two-year-old in 2018, in similar circumstances in that we needed to pass through the West Midlands on the way down to Portsmouth to go on holiday. So, this was our first visit in seven years, and the first one post-Covid.

What’s new

Since our last visit, a few things have changed. The history of the model village of Bournville has been refurbished, and made a core part of the attraction. Before, it felt like an optional extra that hadn’t seen much attention in recent years. The rides have been updated too, and there was a new bit where you could use liquid chocolate to make art. Another bit that I don’t remember from last time was where you could order personalised chocolate items and have them presented to you after a short wait. We ended up buying a personalised chocolate teapot as an additional birthday present.

The other good reason to go to Cadbury World is the factory shop, which has also been refurbished since our last visit and has a huge range. It’s not always the cheapest place to buy Cadbury chocolate (or other Mondelez brands) but they have plenty of stock.

If you’re planning to go to Cadbury World, I strongly recommend booking in advance. When we got there at about 11am, there were no more tickets to buy on the door. But not only that, it’s usually cheaper booking in advance. Cadbury World is run by Merlin, and so it’s often (but not always) included in some discount schemes. As I work in education, I was able to get a discount via Discounts for Teachers, and cashback on my Curve card; combined, we essentially got one of our three tickets for free. You can also get a 1/3 off if you travel by train.

Accessibility

Christine had a fall on the morning before we set off (don’t worry, she’s better now), and so we hired a wheelchair on arrival at Cadbury World. As such, I’m arguably in a better position to comment on accessibility than normal. Wheelchair access was pretty good on the whole; in the first part of the attraction, there are some ramped cobbled floors, but a powered chair shouldn’t have issues. Most of the videos in this section include British Sign Language interpretation too.

There is a car park on site, but there isn’t any electric car charging available there. There are some public chargers about a half mile walk away on the other side of the railway line. We ended up using a rapid charger at the Art Deco McDonald’s in Parsons Hill.

Bournville station is a short walk away, hence why there’s a discount for arriving by train. It’s painted in Cadbury’s purple, and it has step-free access. There are currently four trains per hour from Birmingham New Street. The 27 bus also passes by and runs half-hourly.

The Art of the Brick exhibition in Leeds

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Various large animals made out of Lego at the Art of the Brick exhibition

A couple of weeks ago, we went to see The Art of the Brick, an exhibition of Lego sculptures by Nathan Sawaya which is currently visiting Leeds.

Sawaya is an American sculptor who primarily uses Lego to make his pieces. As you enter the exhibition, there’s a short film where you get to hear more about Sawaya and how he works, before you continue into several rooms with different Lego sculptures. Each room broadly has a theme.

Some are quite abstract – humanoid shapes, with a single colour of brick. But there are also animals – many life size – and some Lego depictions of famous sculptures like Michaelangelo’s David, or of paintings like Edvard Munch’s The Scream. Some sculptures are designed so that you can see inside them – most are hollow. Almost all of them are made using standard sized Lego bricks – there’s very few of the bespoke pieces you get in some official Lego sets nowadays.

At the end of the gallery is the ubiquitous gift shop, and also a huge pit full of Lego for little ones to play in.

For me, my favourite bit was the animals – the models are quite detailed, and are a bit like those you would see at Legoland.

It’s not a very big exhibition – we got around it in about an hour, and it cost us about £30 for the three of us. The exhibition has been on a world tour and only has Montreal, Marseille and Schenectady to go; it was in London last year. If you do decide to go, use the promo code AOTB10LEEDS to get 10% off. It’s around until the end of next month.

Our 2025 holiday: Chester Zoo

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A pair of rhinos at Chester Zoo

This is the last of my blog posts about what we did on our summer holiday to Wales – bearing in mind we’ve been back for over six weeks. Our last stop was on the way home, and as with our visit to Beamish on the way home from Northumberland, not actually in Wales. This was a visit to Chester Zoo.

I last blogged about a visit to Chester Zoo in 2018, when I took our then two-year-old on a day out when Christine was working a weekend. We’ve been back many times since, despite it being over an hour’s drive away. Indeed, we had an annual membership for a year – unfortunately, that year was 2020 when the zoo was shut for several months due to the pandemic, although we still managed seven visits that year. Our last visit was almost exactly two years ago.

This year’s Chester Zoo visit was prompted by receiving gift vouchers at Christmas from my parents, who joined us this time. It had been much longer since they had last visited, and I imagine the zoo has changed significantly since then.

Heart of Africa

Our main focus for this year’s visit was the new Heart of Africa zone. This replaces an area of the zoo which was starting to feel a little run-down, and makes it more like the other newer areas of the zoo. The rhinos, painted wild dogs and meerkats remain roughly where they were before. The giraffes have moved to a new mixed savannah habitat here, along with zebras, ostriches and antelope. It’s definitely an improvement, and the animals feel more in context with themed surroundings. There’s also a mock-up of a lab, showing the work that zoo staff do to ensure the animals’ welfare.

Snow Leopards

Another recent arrival at Chester Zoo were a pair of snow leopards. We got to (briefly) see the male snow leopard, but the female is off show as she’s recently given birth to an adorably fluffy cub. These have a new purpose-built habitat in the older part of the zoo, near to the Red Pandas. Which were doing the usual Red Panda thing of sleeping in a tree, as it was a hot summer day.

Chester Zoo is huge, and even if you get there at 10am and stay until closing, it’s almost impossible to see everything in one day. As such, on this year’s visit, we prioritised seeing the new zone and specific animals that we enjoy seeing. Alongside the new zone is The Reserve, which is Chester Zoo’s first on-sight overnight accommodation for visitors and overlooks the savannah area with the giraffes, so you can extend your visit to two days.

Accessibility

Accessibility is reasonably good, although the site isn’t completely flat – thanks to Flag Lane, which is a public right of way that cuts through the middle of the site. There are two crossings of Flag Lane; the one by the elephants and nearer the entrance is best for wheelchairs. The other crossing, the Bat Bridge, is wooden.

Wheelchairs and mobility scooters are available to hire, and there’s a changing places toilet near the main entrance. Chester Zoo really want you to download their app, but I managed to find a PDF of the current map here – it’s very buried on their web site.

Chester Zoo is located next to one of Chester’s Park and Ride sites, and so you can get a bus from Chester railway station (this is what we did on our first visit as a couple in 2012). Ample parking on-site is available, and there are 20 medium-speed 7 kW electric car chargers close to the entrance. However, when we arrived on a busy summer Saturday, these had all been taken by 10:30am, and I had to pop back at lunchtime to move my car to a bay that had become free. They’re on the Pod Point network.

Our 2025 holiday: RSPB Conwy

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A photo of some birds at RSPB Conwy

I’m almost done with our holiday posts – this is the penultimate one, and is about the RSPB Nature Reserve at Conwy. It’s relatively new, having opened in 1995, and exists because of the building of the A55 North Wales Expressway.

Tunnel spoil

When the A55 Conwy tunnel was built, the spoil created from the excavation needed to go somewhere. Major tunnelling projects often result in the spoil being used to create nature reserves: Samphire Hoe was created from the Channel Tunnel, RSPB Wallasea Island from the Elizabeth Line, and when HS2 is finished, it’ll result in new chalk grassland in the Chilterns. For the A55, the spoil was placed along the side of the Conwy Estuary, to create a new wetland habitat during the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Many birds have now made this wetland their home, and we saw plenty of white egrets, lapwings and whimbrels that you wouldn’t often see elsewhere. The site consists of two large lagoons, with paths and bird hides around them, although the smaller of the two lagoons was completely dry when we visited, as a result of the exceptionally dry summer that we’ve had this year.

A photo of a six-spot burnet at RSPB Conwy

Visitor centre

There’s a large visitor centre at the site, home to the shop as well as information about what you can expect to see. Obviously, the birds there are wild, and so nothing is guaranteed, but we saw a good variety. You can also pick up maps for the trials around the lagoons – we didn’t do the longest path, as we were just visiting for the afternoon. There’s also a café, plenty of places to eat a picnic, and a small playground.

One of the hides that we visited also had an extensive history of the building of the road tunnel, and how that led to the establishment of the nature reserve.

We had a nice, relatively peaceful afternoon at RSPB Conwy. There is the background noise of traffic on the A55, but it was nice to go somewhere with a slower pace.

Accessibility

The site is mostly flat, although the paths are mainly gravel, or wooden boards across the wetter areas. There are various colour-coded trails that you can follow, and the maps provide information about gradients.

Access to the site is from Junction 18 of the A55 – it’s directly connected to the roundabout here. Work was ongoing to improve cycle access when we visited, and it’s a about a half mile walk from Llandudno Junction railway station. RSPB members get free entry.

The Cat That Slept for a Thousand Years

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A photo of The Cat That Slept for a Thousand Years

Whilst I’m not quite done writing about our holiday in Wales, I’m going to squeeze this blog post in here because it’s about a special exhibition which closes a week on Sunday: The Cat That Slept for a Thousand Years at the Manchester Museum.

Fundamentally, it’s just a giant inflatable cat – there’s (someone else’s) small child in my photo above for scale. It’s illuminated, and its tail and ears twitch every now and again. The room it’s in has low lighting, and soothing background music. And yes, you’re welcome to touch the giant cat. It’s like a huge sensory room.

In addition to this, there are some feline objects from the museum’s collection alongside, and before you enter the space with the cat, there’s a fictional short film about how the cat was ‘found’ by scientists in the Antarctic.

It’s a bit of fun, and I imagine younger kids, and those with additional needs who respond well to soothing sensory environments, will love it. The exhibition, like the rest of the museum, is free, but donations are welcome and you do need to book a timed ticket to manage crowds. It wouldn’t be much of a sensory space if everyone piled in there all at once.

The rest of the Manchester Museum

If Swarm is correct, then this was our seventh visit to the Manchester Museum – and yet, as far as I’m aware, I’ve never blogged about any of our six previous visits. Which is a shame, as it’s one of our favourite museums, and a worthy winner of this year’s European Museum of the Year prize.

Like Jodrell Bank, it’s part of the University of Manchester, and has been open since 1867. More recently, it re-opened in February 2023, after an 18 month closure. This saw the opening of a new exhibition space (where the giant cat currently is) and several additional permanent galleries. It’s also actively involved in repatriations of some of the artefacts in its collections to the communities and societies where they belong. Whilst we were there, visitors were encouraged to contribute to a consultation about the display of an Egyptian mummy, and whether it’s still appropriate to display human remains in this way nowadays.

Our favourite bit is the Vivarium, which is the only part of the museum with live animals – namely frogs and lizards. The live collections originate from the university’s zoology department, and the museum is involved in breeding programmes for rare species of frogs. There’s more in the Manchester Frog Blog.

Accessibility

Though housed in a late 19th Century building, the Manchester Museum has, as mentioned, had a number of refurbishments in recent years, and it tries hard to be as accessible as possible. Though it’s on multiple floors, there are lifts and stairs can be avoided. Wheelchairs are available to hire.

It’s a short walk from Manchester Oxford Road station, along, appropriately enough, Oxford Road. It is, however, some way away from the nearest tram stop (St Peters Square) but there are plenty of buses that pass right outside the entrance. For car parking, the University of Manchester’s Car Park D is a short walk – it’s a multi-storey with almost 1000 spaces, including 8 for electric vehicle charging (both medium 7 kW Type 2 chargers and some rapid chargers).

As mentioned above, entry to the Manchester Museum is free, but donations are welcome.

Our 2025 holiday: Bodnant Garden

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A photo of Bodnant Garden.

The next place we went to on our 2025 holiday to North Wales was Bodnant Garden. It’s another National Trust property, and consists of the formal gardens attached to the larger Bodnant Estate.

Bodnant Garden is located to the south of where we were staying, in the Conwy Valley. The garden itself began to be developed in 1874 (so just over 150 years ago), when the Pochin family bought the estate at auction. Over time, the garden was extended multiple times, and is now home to a number of prize-winning trees. It came into the National Trust’s care in 1949, but the rest of the Bodnant Estate remains family-owned.

If you look at the prices for Bodnant Garden, you’ll see that they’re towards the higher end of the scale compared to some National Trust properties. That’s no accident – Bodnant Garden is huge, and we ended up spending all day here. Being as it was the summer holidays, there was a Wallace and Gromit Augmented Reality Trail running, although today was its last day, sorry. Our nine-year-old really enjoyed doing the trail, which included some hands-on activities too.

A photo of Bodnant Garden.

The Wallace and Gromit trail took us to the far end of the site, and then we made our way steadily back along the stream that flows through it. There’s lots to see – even if you’re not a big horticulturalist, it’s still very pretty.

In all, we probably saw about two thirds of what was there – we missed some of the fringes as it is just so big. Indeed, there is more than one café there; one at the entrance, and another near the Old Mill towards the middle of the site. It’s definitely somewhere I’d consider going to again, and taking a different route around.

Accessibility

You enter the site at the top, and then there are slopes down to the stream – some more gentle than others. The map shows a couple of step-free routes that encompass most of the site, but there are some steep slopes. Most of the paths are gravel.

There are two electric car charging sockets in the car park. On the plus side, they’re both completely free to use, however, one is a medium-speed 7 kW Type-2 charger, and one is just a 3-pin plug. We ended up having to use the latter with our granny charger, but then we were there all day, and it was free after all. It managed to charge our Nissan Leaf up from 31% to 59% over around five hours.

The nearest railway station is Tal-y-Cafn on the Conwy Valley Line, however, it’s a 40 minute walk, it’s a request stop, and there are only 6 trains per day (4 on Sundays). If arriving by public transport, a better bet is the number 25 bus, which runs from Llandudno and calls at Llandudno Junction station. That being said, there’s still only one bus every two hours.

Nearby attractions

The Bodnant Estate also runs an adjacent garden centre, and Bodnant Welsh Food is a short drive away. We nipped into the shop there, although it was rather expensive and didn’t have a great range.

On the other side of the valley, and about a ten minute drive away, are the Conwy Water Gardens. We didn’t go as the TripAdvisor reviews aren’t great; it seems like somewhere that used to be better than it is now.

Our 2025 holiday: Anglesey Sea Zoo

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A photo of a boat at Anglesey Sea Zoo

After Beaumaris Castle and Plas Newydd, our third stop on our Anglesey day out was at Anglesey Sea Zoo. This is towards the southern tip of the island.

Anglesey Sea Zoo is an aquarium, with a focus on the sea creatures that you would encounter in the seas around Wales and the rest of Britain. As such, you won’t see many tropical fish, or massive sharks, but you will get to see the Lobster Hatchery of Wales – a conservation project to boost the numbers of wild European lobsters. Anglesey Sea Zoo was also the few aquariums in the world to successfully breed the native British species of seahorse, and you can see some of the seahorses on show there. There are also plenty of anemones, starfish, crabs, prawns, and various different species of fish.

Anglesey Sea Zoo is quite small, especially compared to Sea Life Centres or The Deep in Hull, and we got around it in about an hour. But it was interesting, and is certainly something to bear in mind for a wet day as it’s almost all indoors.

Accessibility

Anglesey Sea Zoo is mostly on one level and so those who struggle with steps should be able to see almost everything. There’s a modest car park, and (at time of writing) there were two free of charge medium-speed 7 kW electric car chargers available for visitors to use. The same bus that serves Plas Newydd gets within about a mile of the aquarium.

Nearby attractions

Next door to Anglesey Sea Zoo is the Halen Mon Sea Salt Factory – there’s a shop, and you can book on factory tours which run twice a day.

There’s also Foel Farm Park nearby, which is an open farm with play areas. We didn’t have the time to visit either of these when we went.

National Trust Tracker app

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A screenshot of the National Trust tracker app

If you’re a member of the National Trust like we are, and want to get the most out of your membership, then there’s an app for that.

The app is, appropriately enough, called National Trust Tracker, and it lets you view nearby National Trust properties and track those that you have visited. You can either view them as a list, split by county, or on a map.

There’s also a Statistics tab, which gives you some insights into the properties I’ve visited. I’ve recorded visits to 29 in the app – the actual number will be higher, but I’ve limited it to those where I can record an exact date that I last went. That means that I’ve not included any visited in childhood. Overall, I’ve been to 4.6% of all National Trust properties in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

You can also see how many visits you’ve made each year, your top region (which is Cheshire for me) and your favourite day to visit (Sundays, perhaps unsurprisingly).

The app is for iOS only, although there appears to be an unrelated app for Android which doesn’t look as nice.

Our 2025 holiday: Plas Newydd

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A photo of Plas Newydd, looking up from the sea wall along the Menai Strait

After visiting Beaumaris Castle in the morning, the second place we visited on Anglesey was Plas Newydd (Welsh for ‘New House’). It’s a large country house overlooking the Menai Strait, originally started in the 15th Century but substantially rebuilt in the 18th Century. Nowadays, it’s in the care of the National Trust, who look after both the house and its gardens. The house is presented largely as it would have been in the 1950s.

We went around the house first. Not all of the rooms are open to view; though the National Trust have cared for it since 1976, until around 10 years ago people still lived in the property. The dining room is home to a huge painting by Rex Whistler, which was the largest ever canvas painting in the UK when it was unveiled in the 1930s. A previous owner of Plas Newydd, Henry William Paget, fought in the Battle of Waterloo where he lost a leg – the house has an exhibition about him including one of his prosthetic legs. He was awarded the title of ‘Marquess of Anglesey’ for his bravery.

The 5th Marquess of Anglesey, Henry Cyril Paget, was a rather flamboyant character who inherited Plas Newydd in 1898. He converted the chapel into a theatre, where he performed in what we would now most likely describe as drag. Whilst he was born into great wealth, ultimately he ended up bankrupt six years later in 1904, and died the following year. Many of his costumes were subsequently sold in the ‘Great Anglesey Sale’. However, some photographs survive, and visitors are invited to dance in one of the rooms, as the 5th Marquess would have done.

The gardens at Plas Newydd

Gardens

There are some formal gardens at Plas Newydd, on the slope down to the Menai Strait, and there are great views across the Strait towards Caernarfon. There’s also plenty of parkland, including an arboretum. Anglesey is also one of the few remaining places in Britain with wild populations of native red squirrels, and there’s a feeding station in the arboretum. We didn’t get a chance to visit this, unfortunately, and we didn’t see any red squirrels during our time in Anglesey.

As it’s the summer holidays, there were plenty of activities for kids as part of the Summer of Play event that runs until the end of this month.

Accessibility

For the house, only the ground floor is accessible to those who can’t use stairs. There is a step-free route from the car park to the house, but not all routes across the parkland are step-free and it is on a slope.

When we visited, five electric car chargers were being installed in the car park – these appear to be operational now, offering 7 kW medium-speed charging on the RAW Power network. Bus services pass the site on Mondays-Saturdays, or it’s a roughly 2 mile walk from Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch station, if you want to catch the train.