Enjoying retirement
In The Red Rose County
Meols Hall is only open a few days each year so we decided to take advantage of our HH membership and drive over to Southport (just over an hour away). We were so glad we did - it was an extremely enjoyable day. Rather strangely this is a 1960's house in essence - rebuilt by Roger Hesketh scion of the family who have lived here for hundreds of years. He himself acted as architect and surveyor, and using materials salvaged from two other Lancashire country houses that had been pulled down, Bold Hall and Lathom Hall, transformed what had become a run-down farmhouse into a Palladian mansion. The inside of the house was given a huge amount of thought and rooms were designed around the family pictures and furniture, and conversely the placement of everything influenced by the rooms themselves. Unlike most houses where you get some boring information about say a painting, the cribs were very detailed and very very interesting. The staff were friendly and informative too. The library was designed around this fantastic painting of a horse 'Portrait of a Favourite Hunter'. Very imposing indeed. Two matching Chinese lacquer cabinets are actually on Engish legs as you can see from the clawed feet, so the pieces are 'marriages' - the sort of detail that the cribs are full of. In fact this is an example of what was really good about this house.....all the time you are forced to look with fresh eyes, no bad thing. The back of the house reveals how Roger Hesketh used the Georgian bricks of the other houses to create a Georgian illusion. The pavilions on either side of the lawn were lovely, each with a painting or two, and the grate for a very small fire. What a charming place to sit and read on a winter's day. Churchtown where Meols is located is part of Southport but is like a small village full of interesting buildings, including The Hesketh Arms which is where I often ended up after a pub crawl with relatives in Southport, so remembered well. The Botanic Gardens are also located over the road, with some handsome aviaries.
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Keith & Frances SmithArchives
August 2023
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