Day Trips from Manchester

In Brief. The Western Approaches Museum is located in a bunker underneath an office building in Liverpool town centre, not far from the waterfront .  The focus of the museum is the bunker from which actions in the 2nd World War Battle of the Atlantic were coordinated. The centrepiece is a striking Operations Room, but there are also videos to provide more information, examples of equipment, staff accommodation and reconstructed streets to provide some context.  There is more on the Battle of the Atlantic in the nearby Maritime Museum . The Operations Room. What's Here? The Battle of the Atlantic involved allied convoys traversing the Atlantic Ocean, largely trying to avoid or sink German U-boats, and continued from 1939 to 1945.  The role of the Western Approaches Command, which was based in the bunker, was to coordinate the convoys, their escorts and air cover, with a view to maximising the number of ships making it through.  The museum itself is fully underground...

In Brief. Keighley is a market town just to the north of Bradford that includes among its visitor attractions the Cliffe Castle Museum , the East Riddlesden Hall and a heritage railway , so it's possible to have have a rather full day here. The Cliffe Castle museum is partly visited as a Victorian mansion but also hosts a substantial and diverse museum alongside a well maintained civic park. East Riddlesden Hall, run by the National Trust, is a compact 17th century Manor House with small but pleasant gardens and a well preserved barn. I didn't make it to the railway! The entrance to East Riddlesden Hall What's Here? Cliffe Castle Museum is more a museum than a castle, having been built in Victorian times as the home of a textile magnate. Several of the original rooms are preserved and filled with period furnishings, and the original grounds of the house are now a park. The museum is larger and more diverse than I was expecting; the diversity means that round each corner th...