Day Trips from Manchester

In Brief. The Martin Mere Wetland Centre occupies a substantial rural site in Lancashire, to the East of Southport, run by the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust . This site includes a relatively managed area that hosts the cafe, visitor centre and its own collection of birds (and otters) from around the globe. The bulk of the area, however, consists of habitats for wild birds, including the mere itself and a reedbed, which can be visited from a network of paths and observed in several hides. A Coscoroba swan on an impressive nest. What's Here? The area occupied by the wetland centre has had a complicated history, having once been a large lake that was drained for farmland, and which has more recently been converted into habitats for wildfowl. Thus, like various Royal Society for the Protection of Birds sites, such as St Aidans , the landscape looks like it could be natural, but in fact is carefully managed.  The Mere from Discovery Hide As many of the residents migrate, there are differ...

In Brief. Sheffield hosts two national museums, which are 10 minutes walk apart, just to the north and east of the City Centre. The National Emergency Services Museum is located in a police and fire station dating from 1900, and includes a wide range of displays and artefacts on the history of these and other emergency services. The National Videogame Museum contains a single large space occupied by arcade games, gaming consoles and computers, providing an opportunity to try out computer games from the last 50 years. Not all the characters at the Videogame museum are digital. What's Here? The National Emergency Services Museum has a low-key exterior, in the form of a historic redbrick building adjacent to the recently redeveloped Riverside district. However, the building is deceptively spacious, and the museum uses features of the building as to support its narrative. So, for example, the area on the police focuses on the history of policing, and uses the original cells to review...