A Postcard from Port Sunlight

Recently we took a trip to Port Sunlight Village which is about 20 minutes from home.

This lovely village was built by Lord Leverhulme in 1888, for his employees in the Lever Brothers soap factory. The name comes from the famous Sunlight soap. There are 900 listed buildings - each block of buildings was designed by a different architect so the place doesn't look like a housing estate. Until the 1980's all residents were still Unilever employees, but now the houses can be bought and sold privately.

As well as houses he provided a cottage hospital, schools, a concert hall, an open air swimming pool, a church and a temperence hotel. The village is beautifully laid out around central gardens .... and looks idyllic even on a grey winter's day. But for me, the real reason to visit is for The Lady Lever Art Gallery.... this beautiful gallery is one of Wirral's hidden gems.

                                     

 It houses Lord Lever's amazing collections - he was the typical wealthy Victorian  and spent his life acquiring "stuff" - only his "stuff" is exquisite Wedgewood, sculptures, china, all things Napoleon and wonderful furniture. He built the lovely gallery in memory of his wife - and his collections fill the rooms.

                                                

He also bought Victorian paintings - some are decidely average - but there is a fabulous collection of Pre-Raphaelites which I love.

They're all here - Rosetti, Holman Hunt, Burne-Jones, Ford Madox Brown and of course Millais himself.

I love these paintings -  and I love looking for the symbolism and meaning in the intricate details.

Later Lord Lever started buying up works that could possibly be used for advertisements ... this Millais was used in early Pears soap campaigns.

There is a charming collection of Soap adverts:

Cheap prints of this painting could be obtained by collecting the wrappers of Sunlight Soap, and we think loyalty schemes from the big supermarkets are new! Lord Lever was a man ahead of his time!

After all, this was a man who, vexed by the amount of taxes he was forced to pay to use the Manchester Ship Canal, built his own port on the River Mersey! It's not there now, but the early soap factory has grown into the multi national Unilever which is a huge employer in the area.

After a cup of coffee and a slice of cake in the gallery cafe, we headed to the small museum nearby, which shows you everything you need to know about Port Sunlight ... about Lord Lever himself, but more importantly about his workers. It's a fascinating story!

I know all things vintage is a big trend these days, especially in Blogland ...

.... but I don't think I want to swap my washing machine for one of these, do you?