Port Sunlight

Port Sunlight: Park Road

In Liverpool on a family visit, we took the opportunity to fulfill a small ambition and visit Port Sunlight. I found the directions for this walk on the Guardian website. You could just wander around, but this very well-structured route makes the most of the village.

Port Sunlight is a model village built by William Hesketh Lever, later Lord Lever, for workers at his soap factory. Sunlight Soap was the company's flagship product. The houses are the work of nearly 30 architects and are in a variety of styles, but all the early ones at least have an Arts and Crafts feel to them. The overall feel is of a garden city: wide streets and lots of open space. The houses all have unified front gardens, which creates a very ordered effect.

The walk starts at the railway station, close to the factory, which is still in production, now part of Unilever. This is where building began in 1891. An immediate detour reveals the rather quaint Fire Station.



Turning away from the factory, you are presented with this fine block in a Dutch gabled style.



Round the corner you come on the sprawling picturesque Lyceum of 1896, originally the village school and church, but now used in part as the Social Club (the remainder houses Unilever's archives).



A little further on you reach the bowling green, faced by another splendidly extravagant block.



Passing to the left of the 1901 Hulme Hall, you reach an impressive arch, through which can be seen gardens, the war memorial and in the distance, the Lady Lever Gallery.



The Gallery can be seen much more clearly once you have reached the memorial.



The Gallery was in fact our other reason for visiting Port Sunlight. Its crowing jewel is a fine collection, all in one large room, of 19th century painting: Pre-Raphaelites such as Millais, Holman Hunt, Burne-Jones and Rossetti and classicists such as Leighton and Alma-Tadema.

I was staggered to find that this is the home of Holman Hunt's wonderful "The Scapegoat". Even more wonderful in a way, the gallery also houses the well known painting by Millais called "Bubbles". Leaving aside any artistic judgement, it is amusing to find it here, given that it was used to advertise Pears soap, presumably Sunlight Soap's bitterest rival.

To return, you swing round behind the gallery, walk along Church Road, passing the school with its cupolas.



A loop along Bolton Street and into The Gunnel brings you to the pretty small park known as The Dell, from which you emerge opposite the station.




Rating: Four stars. Wonderfully interesting. Some lovely houses, richly individual and most with beautiful detailing in wood, plaster and terracotta. One can also see aspects of town planning which are still honoured today, albeit at much higher densities.

It is unusual perhaps to include an art gallery on a walk, but it is an absolute delight, thoroughly enriching the experience.

The walk description was very detailed and helpful but would have benefited from giving more street names and being linked to a proper street map. I downloaded one from the Liverpool Museums website.