Author: David Atkinson

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How To Spend A Family Day Out At Tatton Park Cheshire

Stuck for a family day out this summer holiday?

Here’s a suggestion based on my latest article for The Guardian and centred around my home patch of Cheshire — well, East Cheshire but it’s near enough.

It centred on a new attraction for the summer holidays at Tatton Park. The Farm [pictured above] is designed to introduce kids to the idea of provenance.

Here’s a preview:

The dramatic highlight is a visit to The Slaughterhouse where the opening salvo is a projected image of a pig hanging upside down from a winch.

It’s a Horrible Histories-style audio explanation of slaughter process, explaining how parts of the animals are used for different products and the importance of good animal husbandry.

Morrissey fans look away now.

Read the whole article: The Farm at Tatton Park, Cheshire, review

The amazing story of the Normandy artist behind the Water-Lilies

Just back home.

I spent last week on the Monet trail In Normandy, exploring sites associated with the father of the Impressionist art movement.

It was scorching hot and peak-season chaos but I could still get a sense of the delicious tranquility of Monet’s garden at Giverny [pictured above].

And, by visiting places in the Seine Valley between Paris and Rouen, I could also get a sense of the man behind the movement.

Best of all, a visit to the Musée d’Orangerie offered me a chance to get up close with his master opus, the Water-Lilies cycle — les Nympheas in French.

The article is for the November issue of France Magazine but, meanwhile, here’s a taster.

To get up close to the Water-Lilies requires a visit to Musée de L’Orangerie, tucked into the corner of the Tuileries Garden in Paris.

The eight compositions, moving from dawn to sunset across two light-filed rooms, form the striking centrepiece of the overall exhibition.

In the words of Monet himself, it was created to give “… the illusion of an endless whole, of a wave with no horizon and no shore”.

Get a sneak preview of the new V&A in Dundee, Scotland

To Dundee, then, for the a preview of the opening of the new V&A museum on September 15.

V&A Dundee will be the first ever dedicated design museum in Scotland.

The museum [pictured above] will feature permanent Scottish design galleries, including objects from Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s Oak Tea Room.

The opening exhibition, Ocean Liners: Speed and Style, runs until February.

I was a bit unsure about Dundee at first. It’s not the most straightforward journey, changing trains at Edinburgh, and first impressions of the city centre didn’t exactly blow me away.

Think a vast construction site, compounded by road closures for the weekend’s Rita Ora concert in Slessor Gardens.

But, the next day, I explored beyond the main streets and found a different side to a city still in its tourism infancy.

Read more in my forthcoming feature for Immediate Media.

Robin Hood: how to follow the legend around Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire

Robin Hood is making a comeback.

The latest take on the folk tale hits cinema screens this winter (November 23).

It’s a darker, more adventure-based retelling of the traditional story, starring The Kingsman‘s Taron Egerton in the lead role and produced by Leonardo DiCaprio.

The film comes off the back of the opening of the new Sherwood Forest Visitor Centre, a new £5m facility in partnership with the RSPB, which opens to the public late August this year.

We had a preview, writing an article for a forthcoming issue of Family Traveller magazine. We also visited Creswell Crags, where Robin Hood is alleged to have hidden in the Ice Age caves [pictured above].

Local history expert John Charlesworth told us how the Robin Hood story has always been a favourite of cinema audiences.

The American actor Errol Flynn played the outlaw with verve in the 1938 classic The Adventures of Robin Hood, while the last film, starring Russell Crowe as the man in Lincoln green was released in 2010.

There was even a 1960’s Canadian cartoon series, Rocket Robin Hood, which finds Robin living on the Sherwood asteroid in outer space.

“For me Errol Flynn portrayed Robin Hood best, with great fencing and a superb musical score, but I do have a sneaking fondness for Robin and Marian (1976), staring Sean Connery and Audrey Hepburn. It has a more poignant feel, portraying Robin as a man out of his time.”

Read more in the autumn issue of Family Traveller magazine.