Susie Stubbs

A Northern Quarter tea room with a vintage flavour. Dining out in Manchester? One of our fave places for afternoon tea is the retro-styled Sugar Junction

A super cool cafe at the top of Bold Street, Bold Street Coffee in Liverpool serves a range of specialist coffee, cakes and sandwiches.

This red sandstone neo-Gothic building was created on a grand Mancunian scale and houses a collection of rare books that spans five millennia – including an original Gutenberg Bible.

Once a school, it’s now one of the city’s liveliest arts hubs, an art gallery showing work by major inter/ national artists and a space for performances with a café and outdoor garden.

A regular venue for gigs and one-off cultural events, Manchester Cathedral is nevertheless a working place of worship – open all year round.

Open Eye Gallery is a dedicated photography gallery, archive and shop on the Waterfront.

Liverpool’s flagship art gallery, housed in a converted Victorian warehouse on the waterfront.

The Bluecoat Display Centre in Liverpool is a contemporary craft shop – and it’s been doing its thing for over 50 years – despite funding cuts and recessions.

From its charming Art Deco interiors to a quirky, highly original creative arts output, our theatre is firmly established within the city’s famously vibrant cultural scene.

Ordsall Hall is a spectacularly-preserved Tudor mansion and museum – one of only eight such houses in Lancashire – and is supposedly haunted by the broken-hearted White Lady.