Out of Town

Sefton Park is arguably the best known and most loved park in the city. This magnificent 200 acre park looks like a natural landscape rather than a manmade park, and is always a popular spot with students. Whether relaxing on the grass, playing sport or just taking a leisurely stroll around the boating lake, Sefton Park has something for everyone including the Grade 2 listed Palm House, a lakeside cafe and a children’s playground. The park is also home to annual festivals such as Africa Oye and the Liverpool International Music Festival.

With beautiful views across the River Mersey, the promenade is an ideal place to go for a stroll, walk the dog, cycle or just relax. It also has a children’s playground, hills and parkland which is a favourite place for kite flyers, as well as bars and restaurants (The Otters Pool and The Britannia Inn). Otterspool is also home to Active Adventures, an outward bounds centre which boasts a high ropes course, a 15 metre powerfan, a climbing and abseiling wall, a military style obstacle course, a maze, combat fitness classes and the award winning Otter’s Café and Bistro.

A grade 2* listed historic park at the end of Princes Avenue, in Toxteth, Princes Park is a real green haven just outside the city centre. The park is probably the only one in town with a donkey’s gravestone; commemorating ‘Judy’ who, during her 21 years service, gave rides to many local children.

Whether it’s a walk in the pine woods, a stroll across the sand dunes, relaxing on the beach or maybe even catching a glimpse of the rare red squirrel, it’s all on offer at Formby. Owned by The National Trust, this beautiful and well looked after part of the coastline is well worth a visit.

Crosby beach is the permanent residence of Antony Gormley’s ‘Another Place’; 100 cast-iron, life-size figures made from casts of the artist’s own body are spread out along three kilometers of the foreshore. Stretching almost one kilometre out to sea, they appear to be staring at the horizon. The work is seen as a poetic response to the individual and universal sentiments associated with emigration sadness at leaving, but the hope of a new future in another place.

With attractions including a fun fair, beaches, indoor water park, marine lake, miniature railway and not forgetting the British Lawnmower Museum, Southport has something for everyone.

The newly restored Liverpool Festival Gardens site opened fully to the public last summer – for the first time in almost 30 years. Managed by the Land Trust, the south Liverpool riverside site closed to the public in 1985 and afterwards fell into neglect and decay. Developers led a restoration project at the 90-acre site on the banks of the River Mersey. The restoration of the Festival Gardens has taken painstaking effort from the many teams and specialists involved and includes two restored pagodas in the oriental gardens, the restored Moon Wall, as well as new lakes, waterways and waterfalls. Summer opening times: 8.30am – 9pm.