A marvellous example of an Elizabethan half-timbered hall, Speke Hall is filled with gorgeously timbered and plastered rooms. The house contains several 'priest's holes', where the hall's sympathetic owners hid Roman Catholic priests during the anti-Catholic 16th and 17th centuries. Speke Hall is about 7.5 miles from central Liverpool; the bus will drop you about 0.62 miles from the entrance.
This diagonally patterned Tudor house dates from 1490–1612 and was once surrounded by thousands of acres of land, but these days all that remains is the drive and an oasis of meticulously maintained gardens; the hall's Chapel Farm became the nucleus of nearby Liverpool Airport.
The afternoon tours to Paul McCartney's and John Lennon's childhood homes leave from Speke Hall.
