Day Trips from Manchester

In Brief. The Halewood car factory in Merseyside has been manufacturing Ford and, more recently, Jaguar Land Rover vehicles since the early 1960s.  Guided tours of the factory lead small groups through the manufacturing process from pressing of metal sheets into car body panels, through assembly and fitting-out, to final quality assessment and testing.  The factory is large and impressive, with cars made to order following a just-in-time manufacturing process, and the tour provides a detailed and informative run through. The JLR Experience Centre What's Here? Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) provides factory tours  at both its main manufacturing sites, at Solihull and Halewood. Halewood has been making JLR products since the Jaguar X-Type in the early 2000s, and at the time of my visit was making both Land Rover Discovery Sport and Range Rover Evoque models at the site. These share the same underlying platform and engines, and vehicle models can alternate through much of the prod...

In Brief. The British Commercial Vehicle Museum  at Leyland and the Lakeland Motor Museum near the southern end of Lake Windermere host substantial collections of motor vehicles of different types and from different periods. In both museums, the standard experience is wandering past pristine vehicles, and reading a little about them on displays.  The Lakeland Motor Museum also hosts an exhibition on Donald and Malcolm Campbell, and their land and water speed records. A vintage MG sports car. What's Here? The  Lakeland Motor Museum  hosts an eclectic collection of vehicles, including bicycles, motor bikes and cars. For many visitors, this will include vehicles that they recognise, as well as models that are now rarely if ever seen on the road. The vehicles are well maintained, and some are accompanied by some comments on the model or the specific vehicle.  With an emphasis on speed, there are displays on the Isle of Man TT races including bikes that have been ra...

In Brief. Land Rover provide off-road driving experiences using their vehicles at two sites in the North West, at Halewood in Merseyside and near Tarporley in Cheshire.  Recent purchasers of a Land Rover or Range Rover receive such an experience as an opportunity to try out their type of vehicle in the wild, and several options are available more widely. I booked a 1 hour experience, which explored varied tracks in a woodland location, providing an interesting introduction to off-road driving and a chance to experience some of the latest driving aids. Land Rovers at  Peckforton Castle What's Here? I chose the Peckforton Castle centre, in the hope of finding pleasant countryside, and indeed the setting is grand, with the welcome area based inside the walls of Peckforton Castle , a country house that is now a hotel. As pictured, a wide variety of Land Rover and Range Rover vehicles are available, and my experience took place in a full-sized Range Rover D350.  I might ...