Shropshire Star

Travel: Celebrations in Cheshire

How often do we pack the car and head off to entertain the family at some distant location from our homes here in the Midlands?

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The Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Lunar landings

Yes, it’s nice to explore but with time at a premium there is so much to be enjoyed right on our doorsteps and just a little further afield – a short drive or train journey away. There is also the advantage, with children, of getting to your destination a little quicker and not having complaining little ones in the back seats!

Why not try Cheshire? There’s a lot to be enjoyed and none more so than this year.

‘Cheshire: Where Science Meets Nature’, is a new celebration of arts and culture for all the family themed on the county’s rich natural and scientific assets.

The exciting county-wide programme champions Cheshire’s special role in two landmark moments – the 50th anniversary year of the Lunar Landings and 100th birthday of the Forestry Commission.

Cheshire is home to Jodrell Bank, which captured the first images of the surface of the moon when Apollo 11 touched down in 1969, and Delamere Forest, one the oldest woodlands in Britain.

Visitors to visitcheshire.com/science-meets-nature will be able to pick and choose from three inspiring itineraries of events and attractions – Forests, Festivals & Family Days; Moons, Movies & Memory Making; and Inventions, Ideas & Imaginative Outings – which have been designed to appeal to all ages.

Users browsing online can add events and attractions to an editable, downloadable planner, which generates a list, handy map and advice on journey times and distances.

The experiences are staged in intriguing spaces across the urban and rural landscape, a combination that promises an unforgettable experience.

The unique and innovative collaboration of some of the county’s top creative organisations – Cultural Destinations, funded by the Arts Council – will continue into 2020 and beyond.

Highlights include:

The giant white dish of the Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank will provide the dramatic backdrop for the bluedot international festival of music, science and cosmic culture in this month.

A stellar line-up from the worlds of music, science and cosmic culture will gather on the plain beneath the great white dish of the Lovell Telescope this month to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Lunar Landings.

Chester Visual Arts is hosting the first exhibition outside London of the V&A’s major digital art retrospective ‘Chance and Control: Art in the Age of Computers’ at Chester’s Old Library from now to September.

The Storyhouse theatre company will perform the world premiere of playwright Bryony Lavery’s adaptation of the children’s classic The Borrowers this month and in August at the Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre in its 10th anniversary year.

The Just So Festival, a fun-filled children’s rumpus in the grounds of Rode Hall near Congleton, also turns 10 in August. There’s nothing like the Just So Festival for a fantastical family adventure. The three-day celebration of outlandish arts in the outdoors will take place in the leafy, lakeside grounds of Georgian country house Rode Hall.

The National Trust’s new trail with art installations, The Lost Words, is at Lyme and Dunham Massey in 2019. Join the hunt for lost words through the house and grounds of the Lyme estate.

Luke Jerram’s ‘Museum of the Moon’ will be the centrepiece of the Warrington Contemporary Arts Festival in October.

NowNorthwich

Get set for surprises around every corner in Northwich as the hugely successful family-friendly international dance and street art festival returns for a second year.

Magical Woodland

Step out this autumn in the magical woods on the edge of ancient Delamere Forest. Follow this woodland trail as it comes alive with choreographed sound-and-light shows, interactive illuminations, and luminous pieces of performance art.

Chester Zoo

There’s always something new to do at Chester Zoo. Whether you’re greeting new arrivals, such as a baby black lemur, or finding out how many bones there are in a giraffe’s neck at one of the daily animal talks.

LUMEN: Crewe’s Night of Lights

As the winter nights draw in, the old railway town of Crewe will become a beacon in the darkness once again, with the return of seasonal festival LUMEN. Head to Memorial and Lyceum Squares to see breathtaking contemporary light installations whirl around the urban landscape.

Night Watchman Walkabout Theatre

Venture out with the Night Watchman around the red-brick warehouses, deep locks and mirror canals at the once-bustling basins of Ellesmere Port, now preserved by the National Waterways Museum.

The Silk Museum

Macclesfield once hummed with the sound of silk looms, music to the ears of the mill owners that prospered here in the 19th century. From cocoon to loom, find out how this old market town shot to global manufacturing fame at the Silk Museum and neighbouring Paradise Mill.

Anderton Boat Lift

Marvel at the miraculous feat of Victorian engineering they call the ‘Cathedral of the Canals’. At the Anderton Boat Lift you can see narrowboats tackle the staggering 50-foot drop between the Trent & Mersey Canal and Weaver Navigation.

For more information go to: visitcheshire.com