LIVERPOOL – MUSIC, ART & HISTORY 15 May 2022

The Music, Art & History of

Liverpool

with Peter Medhurst

5 days from £1,889 • Departing 15 May 2022

To book, phone Sandy Cornish at Tailored Travel on 01227 830624.

She is available most weekday mornings from 0800-1200, and some selected afternoons until 4pm.  She can be reached on this email address: Sandy@tailored-travel.co.uk  or on tel: 01227 830624.  Leave a message if she fails to answer and she will get back to you asp

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The Music, Art & History of Liverpool 15-19 May 2022

Day 1

Our day begins with a morning departure from London’s Victoria Coach Station to Liverpool. En route, we have a planned visit to Knowsley Hall, ancestral home of the Earls of Derby and situated 10 miles from the city centre of Liverpool. Architecturally, Knowsley Hall displays a range of building styles going as far back 1495, but its principal appearance is that of an imposing early 18th century mansion, dominated by a fine profusion of symmetrically placed white painted sash windows. The Hall is set within magnificent parkland that was landscaped by Capability Brown in the 1770s. We have included lunch on arrival, after which we enjoy a private tour of the building. We then continue on to Liverpool and check in to the 4* Hope Street Hotel where we stay for four nights. After a drinks reception, we have dinner in our hotel, or a nearby restaurant.

Day 2

We begin the day with a morning lecture from Peter entitled ‘Liverpool and its musical connections’. After this our specialist guide joins us for the day, and we walk to the nearby Catholic Cathedral for a private tour of the building. Officially known as the Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King, but locally nicknamed Paddy’s Wigwam, the cathedral was designed by Frederick Gibberd, with construction beginning in 1962 and completing in 1967. The interior is a single uninterrupted space, with a ring of outer chapels between the buttresses.

The sloping design of the roof crescendos to a central funnel-shaped tower placed over the central altar and filled with magnificent stained glass. However, beneath the present-day structure survives the crypt of an earlier planned building by the architect Sir Edwin Lutyens. Nothing quite prepares the visitor for the shock of the sharp contrast between the two building styles. We then make our way to the other end of Hope Street for an organ recital at the Anglican Cathedral, one of the most iconic buildings of the city – and Sir Giles Scott’s greatest creation. We follow this with an included lunch and a guided tour of the Cathedral. In the later afternoon we visit the Tate Liverpool. The Tate opened in 1988 and is housed in a beautifully converted warehouse in the historic Royal Albert Dock, the gallery is home to the National Collection of Modern Art in the north of England. The work on display brings together painting, photography, sculpture and installations from national and international assemblages mixing modern classics with cutting-edge contemporary pieces.

Day 3

Today we travel to Port Sunlight Village, a 19th century garden village consisting of over 900 Grade II Listed buildings. It was built in 1888 by William Lever for his soap factory workers and has houses designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, Norman Shaw and Eden Nesfield. After a short excursion through the village we enjoy a guided tour of the Lady Lever Art Gallery, which Lever founded in 1922 in memory of his wife. The gallery displays works collected by Lever throughout his life and among the many treasures are British 18th and 19th century paintings, including works by Gainsborough, Turner, Constable, Millais and Burne-Jones. There is also a fine collection of 18th century furniture, and superb collections of Wedgwood and Chinese porcelain. Our visit is followed by an included light lunch. In the afternoon, we take a ferry across the River Mersey to visit the magnificent Princes Road Synagogue, where we are given a private tour of the building. The Synagogue was built in 1874 to a design by the local architects, William and George Audsley, and is the first Grade I listed synagogue found outside London. The building came into being when the Jewish community in 1860s Liverpool decided to build itself a new synagogue, reflecting the status and wealth of the community. The  synagogue is the height of Victorian elegance and is built of red sandstone and unpressed brick, impressively combining Gothic and Moorish architectural styles. The interior is laid out like a Gothic basilica and the impressive Bimah (raised platform with a reading desk) is magnificently fashioned out of alabaster and marble. We return to the hotel and the evening is at leisure.

Day 4

Today we spend the morning in the Walker Art Gallery, one of the largest and finest art collections in England to be found outside London. The collection dates from 1819 when the Liverpool Royal Institution acquired 37 paintings from the collection of William Roscoe. Since then, the acquisitions have steadily grown to include works by Holbein, Cranach, Rembrandt, Poussin and Degas, as well as a great deal of contemporary art. However, the Walker also contains a comprehensive range of paintings by the Pre- Raphaelites, and on display may be seen masterpieces such as Rossetti’s Dante’s Dream, Millais’s Isabella, and Hunt’s The Eve of Saint Agnes. After an included lunch, we will spend the afternoon at leisure at the Royal Albert Dock, Liverpool’s most visited attraction and situated on the Mersey waterfront. Here may be visited the International Slavery Museum, the Museum of Liverpool, or the Merseyside Maritime Museum. After our return to the hotel, we enjoy a three- course dinner at the 60 Hope Street Restaurant.

Day 5

After checking out of our hotel we visit Crosby Beach to see the intriguing ‘Another Place’ by the internationally acclaimed artist Antony Gormley, also known for his sculpture ‘Angel of the North’. ‘Another Place’ is a large installation of 100 cast- iron life size figures spreading out along the foreshore and almost 1km out to sea. The figures are made from casts of the artist’s own body in a style that has become synonymous with his work. We then continue on to Manchester to visit The Lowry where a private talk introduces us to the complex and the collection. Set in a magnificent waterside location at the heart of the redeveloped Salford Quays, The Lowry houses the biggest public collection of works by LS Lowry, with around 350 paintings and drawings ranging across Lowry’s artistic career. After an included light lunch, we spend some further time at leisure at Salford Quays, after which we return to London, where the tour ends at Victoria Coach Station with time for people to make their onward journeys home.

The Hotel

We stay for four nights at the 4* Hope Street Hotel (www.hopestreethotel.co.uk). Centrally located in the heart of Liverpool’s Georgian neighbourhood near the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, Everyman Theatre and the city’s two magnificent cathedrals, this is one of Liverpool’s best hotels. We enjoy a welcome dinner either at the hotel or in a nearby restaurant on the first evening, a farewell dinner at the Hope Street Restaurant (www.hopestreethotel.co.uk) on our final evening and our remaining two nights are on bed and breakfast basis. We stay in standard rooms and all rooms are en suite and feature air conditioning, TV, tea & coffee making facilities and a hairdryer.

Features

Tour limited to 24 passengers
Lectures with Peter
4* central Liverpool hotel
All excursions, guided tours & entrance fees to non-National Trust properties included
Private drinks reception on Day 1
Farewell & welcome dinners included
All breakfasts & lunches included
Specialist guide on Days 2 to 4
Executive coach throughout
Audio headsets included

Highlights

Knowsley Hall – guided tour & lunch
Metropolitan Roman Catholic Cathedral – guided tour
Liverpool Cathedral – organ recital & lunch
Tate Liverpool
Port Sunlight
Lady Lever Art Gallery – guided tour
Ferry across the Mersey
Princes Road Synagogue – guided tour
Walker Art Gallery – guided tour & lunch
Royal Albert Dock
Antony Gormley’s ‘Another Place’ at Crosby Beach
The Lowry – introductory talk & lunch

Extras to the tour

Insurance (including Covid cover) £29
Single room supplement £199
Entrance fees to National Trust properties (free to National Trust members)
All gratuities
Price based on twin share. Minimum numbers required. Normal booking conditions apply.

Peter Medhurst

Peter Medhurst is well-known in the world of the arts as a singer, pianist, scholar and lecturer, who in addition to his appearances on the concert platform and in the lecture hall, sets aside time to devise and lead tours abroad for small groups of art and music connoisseurs. His particular interests are centred on the music, art and history of Vienna, Salzburg (with its strong Mozart link), Berlin, Halle (Handel’s birthplace), Dresden, Venice, Madrid and Delft (with its Vermeer and 17th century Dutch School connections). He did his training at the Royal College of Music and at the Mozarteum in Salzburg as well as privately in London.