Tag: Northwest England

Exploring the industrial heritage of Cheshire at Lion Salt Works

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 I spent a day just before the Easter break talking salt. No, really.

Salt, it transpires, is a huge industry, especially in a town like Northwich, Cheshire, where the salt industry started with the Romans and fostered the development of its booming chemical industry today.

I had come to Northwich for a press preview of the Lion Salt Works – it’s just one of a handful of industrial heritage buildings of its type across the world and it’s right here in the Northwest of England.

The Lion Salt Works will re-open to the public as a visitor attraction in May after a four-year, £9.9m restoration project to save the crumbling historic site.

It’s tough bringing industrial-heritage buildings to life but Paul Stockton [pictured above] made the work-in-progress site come alive with his stories of the daily grind.

My full article will appear in Discover Britain magazine in time for Heritage Open Days weekend this autumn.

But, meanwhile, here’s a sneak preview:

Paul Stockton was just 20 years when he came to the Lion Salt Works in Northwich as a student labourer. It was 1970 and Paul, who went on to work as a maths teacher, earned £5 per week, hauling 28lb blocks of fresh salt around the site.

“It was very hot and steamy. The whole building smelt strangely clean but you could always taste the salt on your tongue,” he remembers of those days, stripped to the waist in boilerhouse conditions ‘lofting’ or hauling blocks of salt around the drying room.

“It was very hard work and the foreman was always cracking the whip. But I also remember the camaraderie,” he adds. “I’d go to the pub every lunchtime with my workmates and we’d spend our wages.”

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Liked this? Try also Guest blog for Heritage Open Days.

Story of the week: A weekend in Manchester’s Chinatown

 

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Lan ‘Maggie’ Ye greets me with two teas, a fragrant jasmine and a more herbal guan yin, accompanied by a plate of crushed-almond teacakes from Macau.

Escorting us to seats amid flickering candles and Asian figurines in the residents-only Sutra Lounge, she explains the history of Chinese tea ceremony, known as Kong Fu, meaning ‘brewing the tea with great skill’.

“Chinese tea ceremony is a way to show respect to favoured guests,” explains Maggie, whose family hails from China’s Hubei province.

“I learnt the ceremony by watching my grandfather prepare tea for the family every Sunday afternoon.”

By the end of the 40-minute ceremony, I am feeling not only calmed but culturally immersed, having learned to tap the table with two fingers to show our appreciation as Maggie pours from a dainty blue-flower teapot into tiny, thimble-like cups, and pick up the saucers with both hands.

The tea ceremony is one just of the extra services available to guests checking in at the Yang Sing Oriental, the latest boutique hotel opening in Manchester.

There’s a charge for afternoon tea, but many of the extra touches, such as a free minibar, free in-room films and a consultation with a scent sommelier to choose a fragrance to be diffused in your room to suit your mood, are included in the room rate.

Checking in 

I check in on a sunny afternoon in Manchester’s vibrant Chinatown district, the hotel has been open just two weeks. The property is awaiting a few final touches to the decor and the last fittings to be imported from China, but it’s already running with an air of quiet efficiency.

To work up an appetite for dinner, I take advantage of one of the other complimentary services: a rickshaw ride.

This alternative taxi is available to guests for short hops across town, such as to the theatre or a meeting. I opt for a rickshaw tour of Chinatown and start free-wheeling through the streets past signs with Chinese characters and colourful shopfronts.

Our Malaysian-born driver, Freddy, peddles furiously through the rush-hour traffic and, as we pass under the elaborate Chinese Imperial Arch, a gift from the Chinese people in 1987, it feels more like Hong Kong’s Wan Chai district than England’s reborn second city.

Local supermarkets sell exotic produce, gift shops sell Hello Kitty merchandise and roasted ducks hang in the windows of restaurants, headless and resigned to the imminent dinner rush.

Room with a view 

Back at the hotel, my suite is from the mid-price Grand Oriental category, roomier than the standard Mandarin and Oriental suites, but still modest by the standards of the Grand Emperor Suite with its £739 per night rack rate.

It is divided between a small lounge and a more spacious sleeping area behind a black screen, and features a mix of modern and oriental influences.

A low, leather-trim bed, offset by cherry blossom-design scatter cushions, dominates the rooms, while the desk is graced with three dipping bowls of fresh fruit and a display of white orchids.

The latter is a recurring feature found throughout the whole hotel from the distressed brown-and silver bathroom to the dark-wood and leather seats of the reception bar.

Most striking of all are two soft-focus artworks on the walls of the sleeping area. They have a 1950’s-Shanghai feel and could almost be stills from a film by the celebrated Chinese film director Kar Wai Wong, who directed the atmospheric In The Mood For Love.

Downstairs the primarily Asian staff busy themselves serving drinks in the hotel’s Oku Champagne Bar, a clean white space dominated by a sweeping curve of a bar.

Dinner buffet

The hotel has no restaurant per se, so for dinner we head next door to the buzzy Yang Sing restaurant, Manchester’s best-known Cantonese eatery, which is owned by the same family as the hotel and works closely with the new property.

Opened in 1977, the restaurant has become something of a Manchester institution with its easy mix of businesspeople and local families treating their children to some real Chinese food.

The basement restaurant feels businesslike but stylish with dark-wood fittings and the same 1950’s-Shangai artworks that feature in the hotel next door.

The menu is bewilderingly extensive but the most popular way to order is to simply tell the waitress what you like and let her design a bespoke banquet for you.

I take her advice and tuck into a mixed place of fried and steamed dim sum as an entree, small bowls of wanton soup, followed by spicy duck with fried rice and Chinese pak choi vegetables.

The food is excellent with the softness of the steamed dim sum complementing the tangy spice of the duck.

For breakfast the next morning, served in the low-lit Oku Bar, I go continental with fresh fruit, muesli served with Green yoghurt and pastries, accompanied by fresh juice and coffee. The menu may be less traditional but the service doesn’t disappoint – attentive, not overbearing, I feel looked after rather than pressurised to finish.

Future plans

The Yang Sing may be the new kid on the block but it is already carving its niche.

It feels like a business hotel during the week and local businesspeople seeking to brush up on cultural tips before a working trip to China are a natural audience. At the weekend, however, it has a more relaxed feel and, despite the elaborate surroundings.

So is this the start of a new chain of hotels buoyed by the post-Olympic glow and burgeoning fascination with the motherland?

The Yang Sing Oriental’s owner, Hong Kong-raised and Manchester-based businessman, Gerry Yeung, certainly thinks so, and harbours plans to roll out a portfolio of hotels across the UK and Europe.

“I see myself as a cross-cultural person and the style of the hotel reflects this,” says Gerry, who cites The Peninsula in Hong Kong and Raffles Hotel Singapore as his favourite destination hotels.

“Yang Sing is east meets west, service meets style. It’s modern, classical and yet oriental.”

* This story was first published in the Daily Express in 2008 – the hotel has since closed. Liked this? Try this story published this week: A literary tour of Manchester.

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Story of the week: Exploring the maritime heritage of Unesco-listed Liverpool

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The Telegraph Cruise Show (October 11-12) comes to Liverpool’s Echo Arena, located on the city’s Unesco World Heritage-listed waterfront, next month.

Taking the show out of London reflects Liverpool’s renaissance as a cruise destination for first time since the golden age of cruising from Liverpool in the 1950s.

In May next year Liverpool will play host to the three largest Cunard ships ever built to mark 175 years since the inauguration of Cunard’s transatlantic service from Liverpool.

Indeed, since the £19m Liverpool Cruise Terminal began operations in 2007, cruise traffic has grown exponentially since then with 47 vessels and 54,595 passengers docking at the Pier Head in 2014, including Princess, Royal Caribbean and Fred Olsen.

Liverpool has plans to develop the cruise terminal further, accommodating ships with up to 3,500 passengers, within the next few years.

For day excursions, Liverpool offers a world-class combination of maritime-heritage architecture, cutting-edge cultural attractions and local delicacies.

These are all, handily, within a one-mile sweep along the River Mersey from the Cruise Terminal (Princes Dock) to the Echo Arena (Kings Dock) via the Albert Dock museum quarter and the Pier Head, home to Liverpool’s iconic Three Graces [pictured above], namely The Royal Liver Building, The Cunard Building and the Port of Liverpool Building.

Historical perspective

Head left out of the Cruise Terminal, passing the Titanic Memorial, and the first major attraction is the Museum of Liverpool (liverpoolmuseums.org.uk).

Opened in 2011, the angular, glass-fronted building tells the story of the city and its people. Liverpool was one of the world’s major trading ports in the 18th and 19th centuries, and a hub for the mass movement of people from northern Europe to America.

In 2004 Unesco granted six areas of Liverpool, including a couple along the waterfront, World Heritage status as a maritime mercantile city.

The Great Port gallery explores the development of the docks and the tidal River Mersey while the Global City gallery examines Liverpool’s pivotal role in the expansion of the British Empire.

Look out for the evocative poem, The Gateway to the Atlantic, by the Liverpool-born poet Roger McCough, by the entrance to the former.

Artistic endeavour

Next cross the bridge to the Albert Dock, where Tate Liverpool (tate.org.uk/liverpool) has been bringing world-class exhibitions, including the Turner Prize, to the Liverpool waterfront since the regeneration of the docklands in the late 1980s.

It’s not too late to catch the Liverpool Biennial 2014, the UK Biennial of Contemporary Art, which runs until October 26 with Tate hosting the main exhibition, A Needle Walks into a Haystack.

Look out for Patrick Caulfield’s pop-art graphics and the wool rugs designed by the young artist Frances Bacon while he working as a junior interior designer in London.

Susan Hiller’s Belshazzar’s Feast, the Writing on Your Wall, is an intriguing walk-in installation of a living room complete with armchairs, sidelights and a TV set.

While you’re browsing the minimalist gallery space, stop by the floor-to-ceiling windows to catch glimpses of the cityscape at different angles along the waterfront.

Museum quarter

Located just across the Albert Dock from Tate Liverpool is the Merseyside Maritime Museum, incorporating the International Slavery Museum.

The latter explores Liverpool’s role in the transatlantic slave trade, opening the visit with powerful quotes, such as Abraham Lincoln’s 1862 speech:

“In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free.”

The former traces Liverpool’s rich maritime heritage. When the city celebrated its 700th birthday in 1907, Edwardian Liverpool was at its zenith as a world trading port.

The tragic loss of three ships from 1912-1914, the Titanic, the Lusitania and the Empress of Ireland marked the end of this golden period. You can also still catch the temporary exhibition of vintage cruise posters, Sail Away: Liverpool Shipping Posters, until 2015.

The last of the cultural triumvirate is the Open Eye Gallery (openeye.org.uk), dedicated to photography.

The current exhibition, Not All Documents Are Records, features works of international photo-reportage and runs until October 19. There’s also a great little shop selling vintage cameras, European art magazines and art books by the likes of Martin Parr and Wolfgang Tillmans.

All three museums are free to visit.

First-class berth

Two new hotel openings this summer continue the maritime theme.

The hotel 30 James Street (rmstitanichotel.co.uk) is located in Albion House, the former headquarters of the White Star Line.

It had a soft opening in April with all 64 crushed-velour-motif rooms, the spa and the waterfront-facing Carpathia Champagne Bar and Restaurant, named after the ship that saved passengers of the ill-fated Titanic, open from September.

The Great Hall function room has a collection of White Star Line memorabilia, including black-and-white footage of the announcement of the Titanic disaster from the balcony of room 22 on April 15, 1912.

The other new opening is the Titanic Hotel Liverpool (titanichotelliverpool.com), five minutes in a taxi along Great Howard Street from The Three Graces in the less developed Stanley Dock area.

Opened in July, it combines 153 apartment-style rooms and a spa with a huge, open-plan dining area, Stanley’s Bar and Grill, all converted from an erstwhile rum warehouse on the Leeds Liverpool Canal.

Local flavour

The busiest pub along the waterfront remains the Pumphouse in the Albert Dock.

Avoid the crowds spilling out of the Beatles Story visitor attraction, and enjoy a traditional taste of old Liverpool, by crossing over the thoroughfare Strand to the authentic old pub, The Baltic Fleet (balticfleetpubliverpool.com). There has been a lively waterfront hostelry on this site since at least the 1850s.

Today the Grade II-listed building is the only pub left in Liverpool to brews on its own premises.

Tuck into a plate of traditional Liverpool scouse, a stew of carrots and mutton, adopted by seafaring Scousers from a traditional a Norwegian dish, and wash this down with a dark pint of Wapping Smoked Porter or a Liverpool Wit wheat beer, raising a glass to Liverpool’s second coming as a cruise destination.

See Visit Liverpool

* This story was first published by the Daily Telegraph. Liked this? Try this: Vintage cruise posters at the Merseyside Maritime Museum.

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Story of the week: 50 years of Coronation Street in Manchester

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The TV flickers into life.

I settle down to watch a compilation of clips of Coronation Street through the decades, starting with a black-and-white sequence of Florrie Lindley’s corner shop from the first-ever episode.

To my left a display case has a 40th anniversary Monopoly set and signed scripts from the show. Sadly, Hilda Ogden’s curlers have been returned to the Granada archive.

I’m at the Museum of Science & Industry (MOSI; pictured above), where the Connecting Manchester Gallery tells the story of communication from the evolution of a 1930s Baird Televisor to the early days of Granada Television as a maverick new kid on the block in 1956.

“The gallery is a great place for people to reminisce about watching Coronation Street during their childhood,” says Curator for Community History, Meg McHugh.

“Coronation Street was a ground-breaking programme when first commissioned as it actually reflected everyday life.”

Sure enough, the compilation of classic footage brings memories flooding back.

I’m too young for the 1961 confrontation between Elsie Tanner and Ena Sharples, the latter resplendent in her spider-web hairnet, and I was in short trousers for an episode celebrating the 1977 Silver Jubilee with Annie Walker, Bet Lynch and Alf Roberts.

But I do remember Hilda Ogden’s leaving party from 1987 with Vera Duckworth and Mavis Riley in attendance. It remains the show’s most-watched episode and I was one of the 27m viewers that night.

Birthday party 

Coronation celebrates its 50th birthday on December 9.

ITV will mark the landmark with the most expensive shoot in soap history, a dramatic denouement to a storyline involving a tram crash, which will claim the lives of several key cast members.

I’ve come to Manchester to explore the cult of Corrie. I want to see how the story of Britain’s favourite soap opera reflects Manchester’s urban renaissance since those gritty, monochrome days of industrial decline in the early Sixties when three TV producers first cooked up the idea for a new TV series – then named Florizel Street.

From my room at the city’s ABode hotel, which blends the original features of the erstwhile cotton warehouse with funky, modernist furniture, I can see how the cityscape has evolved from industrial powerhouse to cultural capital of the north.

Following the 1996 IRA bombing of the city, the subsequent regeneration helped Manchester to secure the 2002 Commonwealth Games. The city was reborn.

Today the Beetham Tower, Europe’s tallest residential building, is the new symbol of Manchester, MediaCityUK at Salford Quays will generate a life of its own when the BBC moves into new premises in May next year and the Manchester International Festival returns next summer, attracting a global audience to its high-profile cultural events.

Walking tour

For devotees making a Coronation Street pilgrimage, the Castlefield area of the city, birthplace of Manchester in Roman times, and an area whose canals and railways were crucial to the Industrial Revolution from the late 18th century, is the spiritual home.

The area features heavily on the itinerary of walking tours arranged by Ed Glinert of New Manchester Walks. Ed leads guided walks around key locations, often accompanied by excited groups of Street fans from Canada and New Zealand, where the show is equally popular.

“Coronation Street doesn’t really reflect how much Manchester has changed. The show still feels vaguely northern but Weatherfield (the make-believe suburb where it is set) is a rather cosseted world,” says Eds.

“It’s still compulsive viewing but I yearn for the great characters.”

We meet at the Midland Hotel, where Messrs Rolls and Royce first came together to talk torque in 1904.

For fans of the Street, the stately old hotel is best known as the place where Mike Baldwin arranged two of his weddings, and where Stanley and Hilda Ogden went for their Silver Wedding dinner.

In real life, the actress Jean Alexander (who played Hilda Ogden) would eat fish and chips every Friday night in its restaurant, The French.

At each stop, Ed regales us with some with some juicy nugget of Corrie-inspired trivia, relating the development of the show to the urban regeneration of Manchester and revealing showbiz secrets from what he describes as the “golden age of Coronation Street” – that’s 1975 to ’85.

For example, when the actress who played Elsie Tanner (Pat Phoenix) was buried at the Catholic Church of The Holy Name of Jesus on Oxford Road in the mid Eighties, a fledgling young Labour MP, one Anthony Blair, was amongst the mourners.

But as we approach the current TV studios with its Art Deco-style Granada sign, it becomes quickly apparent that Granada Studios operates under a security regime more rigorous than Berlin’s Checkpoint Charlie at he height of the Cold War.

The set is completely blocked off to the public. The only way to currently steal a glimpse of storylines being filmed on set is to book out room 29 at the nearby Great John Street Hotel, which overlooks the set.

The former Granada Studio Tour has long since stopped, but there is speculation that Granada may relocate to new premises at MediaCityUK and reinstate on-set tours. For now, Ed’s walking tours are the only way for Corrie fans to get close to their favourite characters.

Swift half 

We finish just off Deansgate at The Old Grapes, the pub co-owned by Liz Dawn (the actress who played Vera Duckworth). Over pints of local ales, we peruse the memorabilia from framed magazine covers to pictures of her and on-screen husband, Jack (Bill Tarmey), with various visiting dignitaries.

Back at the Connecting Manchester Gallery, I’m watching an interview with William Roach, the actor who plays Ken Barlow, and the only original cast member still in the show after 50 years of kitchen-sink dramas.

In 1961 he attracted 83 complaints for uttering the first expletive on the Street – “bloody”.

He says, as more fans join me for a trip down the memory lane of Coronation Street through the ages:

“Acting isn’t pretending. It’s believing,”

“For me, Coronation Street,” he adds, “is acting in its purest form.”

* This story was first published in the Daily Express in 2008. Liked this? Try A city guide to industrial-heritage Manchester.

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