Southport.

We caught the bus from just near the canal bridge at Scarisbrick Bridge. Somebody had mentioned it and as we have plenty of time to get to Wigan we thought we would have a wander. We got there about 1100 and the sun was just trying to come out. The Main Street is not at the promenade but two roads removed from the seaside. You have to cross a road and then the Marine Lake and Parks and then another road before the the seaside. We headed for the pier and walked to the end. The pier is the oldest iron pier and the second longest at 1112m. (Southend is the longest). It seems a bit of a cheat as the start of the pier is inland and continues over the Marine Lake!

Helen on  Southport Pier, in land.

Tony at the head of the pier. The sea was just about in sight from here. The beach didn't look to inviting as there were signs warning of Quick sand. The tram on the pier was broken down. (Not that we would use it).

On the way to the pier we saw the Crazy Golf green and as it is a bit of a family tradition that we play when ever we are at the seaside. The gauntlet was thrown down.

Just managed to clock up a six to let Helen get ahead of me.

Helen keeping her eye on the ball and managed to beat me by three shots. She gets so competitive with Crazy Golf.

Following fresh air intake we decided on lunch and had a 'chippy dinner'. Haddock and chips, mushy peas and bread and butter washed down with tea. There was a special offer to have apple pie for afters for free but we couldn't manage it. The waitress very kindly put it in a tray for us to take home. How is that for service. We then went and had a walk up Lord Street that has Victorian shops on one side, many of them have glass roofs over the pavement. I can not remember ever seeing so many jewelers shops in one place. Not only that but many had items that were for sale at over £20,000!! There are well over 25 outlets. The next most numerous type of shops were shoe shops.

Wayfarers Arcade.

There are several Arcades off the shopping streets and the Wayfarers is the nicest. It is on two levels with lovely shops. It has been revamped fairly recently and may have been a bit of a catalyst to regeneration as loads of Lottery Funding has been made available to redo the parklands and Promenade.

There are some nice buildings on Lord Street.

The place is very nice for a day visit and I reckon that it will be even better once the work has been completed. There were loads of coach trips coming in all the time. I'm not sure what it will be like in the school holidays. We were back on the boat by 1800 and had a cup of tea in beautiful evening light.

This is the picture of the mystery place on the Leeds Liverpool on the way out of Liverpool. I was intrigued to know what was originally behind the doors. A little research found that behind the wall was the Linacre Gas Works. The gasometers were demolished in 2010/11. I have found aerial photographs of wide beam barges alongside but no confirmation of what the doors were for. The coal for the site seemed to come by railway so I can only imagine that the coke and some coal must have been transferred to the boats by barrow.