Beatles' Childhood Homes

I'll cut to the chase here: there aren't any scones at the Beatles' Childhood Homes. But seeing as Paul McCartney and John Lennon gave us the most influential pop band of all time, as well as 180-odd Beatles songs, as well as all the other music they did, I'm going to let them off.

There are two properties that you get to visit as part of your pre-booked tour: 

• 20 Forthlin Road in Allerton in Liverpool, where Paul McCartney lived from the age of 13 until his dad had to move when Paul became too famous
• Mendips on Menlove Avenue in the nearby Woolton area of Liverpool, where John Lennon lived with his Aunt Mimi from the age of 5

Pre-booking is essential and you meet your driver at a designated pick-up point (in our case, Liverpool South Parkway station). They then drive you to the first property, drop you off, and then pick you up and drop you off again. The reason for this becomes very clear: both houses are on normal residential streets. Even the most tolerant of neighbours probably have a limit on how many people and how much traffic they're willing to put up with.

Our first stop was Mendips. I had heard that John had grown up with his aunt and uncle in quite well-to-do surroundings, after it became clear that his parents weren't able to look after him. It wasn't quite the case - his Uncle George died very suddenly when John was 14 and Mimi took in student lodgers to make ends meet.

In yet more tragedy, John's mother Julia was hit by a car and killed in 1958. What I didn't know was that she had been visiting Mimi and the accident took place only a few yards from Mendips.  

Colin, the tour guide at Mendips, was great. He was a local boy who remembered the very church fete where John Lennon met Paul McCartney for the first time. Unfortunately for Colin he doesn't remember The Quarrymen playing their set at all - he did remember the police dog display though and said it was amazing.

We then hopped back on the bus and zipped off to Forthlin Road. Colin had told us that Mimi was a bit sniffy about John having friends from the council estate but as Paul dressed smartly and didn't "talk Scouse" she let him in the house.

Paul also had tragedy in his life. The family moved to Forthlin Road in 1955 but his mother died shortly afterwards, when he was 14. Music was a big thing for Paul, his brother Michael and his dad. Jim had formed an outfit called Jim Mac's Jazz Band, and Paul's brother Michael later formed The Scaffold (of Lily the Pink fame) with Roger McGough and John Gorman. Lots of Beatles songs were composed in the living room at Forthlin Road.

Paul's brother Mike was a keen photographer and so there are loads of great shots of the family - Paul getting ready to to The Cavern and so on. It really helps to bring the place to life, as do the recordings of both Paul and Mike that get played as you move around the house. 

The National Trust has done a great job of restoring the place. The tour guide explained that the NT had acquired the windows from a house across the road, for example, while the original Belfast sink was found in the garden being used as a flower pot. My favourite story was the front door: when new owners replaced the original, the next-door neighbour retrieved it from the skip knowing that it might be a worth a bob or two one day. 

Unlike Mendips, there's no blue plaque on Paul McCartney's house. This is because English Heritage only give you a plaque when you've been dead for at least 20 years. I can understand that it helps give a bit of perspective but come on: I hardly think we'll forget Paul McCartney. 

Anyway - I highly recommend a visit to the Beatles' Childhood Homes. The tour guides are fantastic and it's a really unique insight into the history of music and the lives of Lennon and McCartney.

Beatles' Childhood Homes: 5 out of 5, 8 days a week
Scones: there weren't any but we knew that
Tour guides: 5 out of 5

Speke Hall

A lot of National Trust properties have a nice little stream or a pond somewhere on their estates. Some even have a lake. 

Speke Hall has the River Mersey. And not just a little dribbly bit of the Mersey either - the actual whole thing. I had read about it before I went, but I still did a double take when I saw it - as you walk through the visitor entrance, before you turn off to the house, there it is; that big, famous river, with the industrial trappings of Ellesmere Port on the other side. I was awestruck. 

Speke Hall is a rare Tudor timber-framed house that was mostly built in the 1500s, although bits of it date back further. It was really only ever owned by two families; the Norris family and the Watt family.

Here's a quick summary of its life and times:

• The Norrises were involved with Speke from 1390 to 1795
• William Norris III built the Great Hall and Great Parlour in the 1530s - I do love a great hall and the one at Speke is fab:

• Edward Norris inherited in 1568 – he was reported for harbouring a Catholic priest and it is believed that the priest hole dates from then; you can just see the ladder behind the panelling in the Green Bedroom:

• In 1736, Mary Norris married Sidney Beauclerk, son of Nell Gwyn and Charles II - he was known as “worthless Sidney”, which isn’t very nice
• His son, Topham, didn’t spend much time at Speke and died aged 40
• His son, Charles, came of age in 1795 and decided to sell the estate 
• It was bought by Richard Watt, a man that had profited greatly from slave labour in his plantations
• Speke Hall was in a sorry state – according to his nephew, Richard Watt III, the Beauclerks had let the house to farmers and other people that had “very much destroyed” it
• In 1856, Richard Watt V took control of Speke Hall and began renovations
• He died aged 30 and his young daughter, Adelaide, inherited
• While she was a child, the place was leased to a Frederick Leyland, who carried out a lot of work in the house until the lease expired in 1877
• Adelaide Watt ran the estate and house until she died in 1921

Adelaide Watt sounds like a very smart cookie. She had no children and she wanted a descendant of the Norris family to take on the house after her death. However, an airfield had opened next to the Hall at the start of the 20th century - it is now Liverpool John Lennon Airport - and she had foreseen other developments that might put off future residents. So she made the proviso that if the Norrises didn't want to move in, then Speke Hall would be given to the National Trust. And that's exactly what happened.

It's a beautiful house, really full of history. Houses built around a courtyard always feel a bit special. There are two yew trees in the courtyard at Speke - they're called Adam and Eve and no-one knows exactly how old they are, but we're talking hundreds of years:

The Speke Hall scones
ANYWAY. I was a bit worried about my trip to Speke today, because they have one of my most favourite things in the whole wide world: the person in charge of baking their scones is on Twitter. And before you get bored and switch off because you don't like Twitter, let me say this; when I'm having a tough day, there is nothing that cheers me up more than a tweet from a National Trust baker saying "just a normal morning's work for me!" with a picture of 800 scones piled up next to some carrot cake.  

But what if I got there and the scones weren't very nice? Or they'd sold out? The FBI will not be smashing the National Trust Scone Blogger's door down in the early hours - this is a corruption-free zone and we never lie.

I needn't have worried; the Speke Hall scone was unequivocally, indisputably up there in the top five National Trust scones of all time. It was the perfect size, it was perfectly fresh, it was perfectly tasty...it was everything you could ever ask for. Whenever I find myself eating the crumbs of a scone I know it's a out-and-out winner. 

The restaurant at Speke is lovely - big and modern with a great choice of food. I rarely have eyes for anything other than the scones but I was very tempted by the Wet Nelly. 

I'm going to end with a shout-out to all the NT bakers across the land, and especially the ones on Twitter - along with Hayley from Speke are Sian at Quarry Bank Mill and Rob at Dunwich Heath. As long as they've got the oven on, we're all going to be alright. 

Speke Hall: 5 out of 5

Scones: 5 out of 5
The Mersey: 5 out of 5