A Postcard from Speke Hall

Last week we took a little trip out to Speke Hall, on the banks of the River Mersey in Liverpool. 

Speke Hall is a wonderful timber framed wattle and daub manor house built in Tudor times for the Norris family, and is now run by the National Trust. As always, you can't take photographs inside, so I can only show you a little bit of it. Although the house dates from 1530, most of the furniture is Victorian, so it's all a little mixed up, with Tudor panelling and fire surrounds.

The two ancient yew trees in the courtyard are known as Adam and Eve, and are said to be over 500 years old.

Original features in the house include a priest-hole, and an eaves drop (so a servant could listen to conversations of visitors before they entered the house), both necessary safety features for a Catholic family in dangerous times.

When I was a child there was an infamous ghost story told in one of the rooms, involving a distraught wife throwing herself and her baby out of the window into the moat below. I remember being terrified and my mum tripping on the carpet in her hurry to leave the room. Apparently, it was a load of nonsense, because the wife and baby lived to a grand old age.

However one of the guides told us a few spooky tales of things that have been seen and heard that can't be easily explained, and the house has been featured on numerous "Haunted" TV shows. 

My companions for the day ...... my son and his lovely girlfriend from uni. 

It's a very rare treat to spend time like this with my boy. He's usually out with his skateboarding friends, and wouldn't normally dream of a day out with his mum. What a difference a girlfriend can make! He's been keen to show her around our local area, as she's from the south. 

He had to duck to get through this arch, where the old moat had been. To think, he used to be the smallest in his class, where does time go?

Off to the tea-rooms, where all good days out should finish. Time for tea and a slice of cake!