As part of the tour, we are promised a privileged tour of Lea Hurst, where Florence Nightingale grew up and where Elizabeth Gaskell wrote part of the novel North and South in October 1854. The novel was being serialised in Dickens’s journal Household Words. Lea Hurst was the summer home of William Nightingale and his family. Several letters, describing Gaskell’s precise location in the house and the visits she made whilst staying there, were also written, including those to Marianne, Anne Gaskell  and Parthenope Nightingale.

Pick up at: Manchester Chorlton Street Bus Station 9.15am

Knutsford Bus Station 10.00am

Macclesfield Queens Hotel 10.45am

For further information please ">contact Mrs Pam Griffiths as soon as possible –  01565 651761