Stained Glass at Chester Cathedral

Most of the day was spent at Port Sunlight, on the Wirral estuary. It's about 2O mins by car/train  from Chester, near Ellesmere Port. 

There is no visible port. The village was created by Lord Leverhulme in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, whoen he cleared some marshy land and drained two creeks so he could create a new  site for his Sunlight soap company. He also instigated the building of substantial Arts and Crafts-style houses for his workers, along with churches, a pub, social clubs, recreational facilities, and so on. He desired that his workers should enjoy a healthful living environment, with plenty of green soaces. We visited the excellent museum, a 1930s- themed house, the Lady Lever art gallery, and the pub. Also took a self guided walking tour around the site. It was warm enough to have a coffee from the caravan and sit outside to drink it before we set off for 'home' again. 

 I've wanted to go to Port Sunlight for ages, having lived in the 'model town' of Zlin in Czechia, which housed the former Bat'a shoe factory. It was still making shoes when I lived there in 1992. The communists disliked Bat"a and arranged for him to have a plane crash, but his town lives on, with trees in the street. The communists nationalised the factory and called it Svit, and renamed the town Gottwaldov, but you won't see those names on maps any more, unless your  map collection is ancient! You will see Bat'a shoes sold in developing countries. And as for Lever, have you ever heard of a company called Unilever? Thought so. 

Lord L did have factories in the Congo where conditions were not as rosy, and there is evidence that his workers there were recruited by force. These inglorious colonial  working practices are being studied, as Liverpool  and the UK comes to terms with its role in the slave trade. 

In the evening, we dined at Made in Italy in Hoole. Plenty of Italians came in to eat and socialise there, and one of the staff was building a kind of 'wall' of boxed pannetones in the window.

Tomorrow, E and I go out separate ways again.