Talks & Walks

Anthony Annakin-Smith offers a wide range of talks and guided walks aimed at societies and other groups. Details are given below. If you are interested, please contact Anthony.

The Neston Collieries: An Industrial Revolution in Rural Cheshire

The Neston Collieries – Birthplace of Wirral’s Industrial Revolution. The story of the early collieries at Neston, including underground canals, the region’s first steam engines and tales of sabotage!

Parkgate – Port & Resort

The remarkable story of the popular ‘seaside village without any sea’ and the ships and people associated with it.

The Slave Ships of Neston & Parkgate

A look at the area’s many links to the slave trade, and extraordinary accounts of the voyages of many of the locally-connected ships involved in the ‘triangular trade’. A popular talk that has attracted wide interest.

Cheshire’s Forgotten Salt-makers

IThe previously untold story of local sea salt-making in Tudor times and the progressive local family who made it happen.

The Story of the Wirral Landscape

What had made the Wirral landscape look like it does today? A simple guide to the story of the rocks, fieldscapes, roads and much more that make up our local scenery.

Voices from the Holocaust

A chance to look at and hear about original, genuine letters sent by prisoners in Europe’s most notorious WWII concentration camps. An extraordinary and poignant talk.

1000 years of History in a Wirral Landscape

A look at how Willaston’s past is reflected in today’s landscape. Much of the story can be related to other parts of the Wirral.

Suffer Little Children.

The moving and little-known story of the eighteenth-century Foundling Hospital in Chester which took in and fostered hundreds of London’s abandoned and unwanted children.

Walks

Anthony leads a variety of walks of different lengths and routes to suit the requirements of varied groups.

These include:

Parkgate

Discover the story of the former port and seaside resort and how it is reflected in today’s village.

The Neston collieries

Exploring the sites of the former mines at Neston and the signs of them that survive in this now-residential landscape and along the coast.

Transport & Industry beside the Dee

A longer walk looking at sites of past industries and transport methods along the coast between Parkgate and Neston.