William Hesketh Lever

It is 20 years since we visited the Lady Lever Art Gallery and Port Sunlight.

The Art Gallery itself is excellent. One of the things that is fascinating about it is how it showcases the tastes of one (extremely rich) individual. He collected over 20,000 objects, focussing on British arts, and there are some very well known paintings here. But he also had a thing about China. And there are other fine things from elsewhere. A world class collection.

He built the museum at the heart of the garden village he had built to house the workers at his nearby soap factory. There must have been a lot of money in packaging soap !

Pictured - top left, the man himself surveying his main gallery, Bottom right, the gallery again reflected in the glass covering a painting of ..... well, that can be seen.

And a couple of examples of the many houses. They do not build them like that these days. Unfortunately.