Dukey1

Unfortunately may not have a lot of time to do other than just see the passing scenery, but wondered if anyone could suggest a route or at least a few towns/villages along particular routes to at least get some sort of taste for this region.

Will be driving north from Slough and eventually ending up in Lytham. I've been to the website but as always, particular suggestions from others are appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

flanneruk

This is neither easy nor gratifying.

But assuming you mean Lytham St Annes, and want to do it in a day, the least ungratifying is:
- M4 west to the A 404(M)
- north towards High Wycombe (I think it's signposted to Oxford)
- M40 north till it stops, then M42 north
- M6 (Toll) to the Lichfield turnoff
- A515 to Buxton
- A 624 to Glossop, then A57 to Hollingworth
- A 6018 to Stalybridge (good industrial archaeology). Depending on how you're doing for time, detour as you like twixt Buxton and Stalybridge

Now give up. M60, M61, M6, M55 to Blackpool, then Lytham.

If you've got lots of daylight, the A666 to Darwen, then M65, M6, M55 offers a few nicer vistas than the M60. But you might want to just get on to the end.

The M4/A404/M40/M42/M6 (Toll) route is a gazillion times less hideous than the M25/M1 to Chesterfield alternative.

janisj

do clarify -- is this to be a 1-day drive or do you have more time? And do you mean Lytham St Annes?

flanner has given you really the only practical route -- but it would be a hell of a drive in one day. Just the drive (no stopping, meals or other detours) will take close to 6 hours. Maybe more.

Dukey1

Thank you both for your responses and in particular, Flanner for yours..just the sort of information i was hoping to get.

flanneruk

Incidentally:

No-one connected, however tangentially, with US politics should pass Lichfield unvisited.

Its cathedral is dedicated to, and ultimately founded by, St Chad. Best known in the US as the patron saint of bent elections because of both his name and his - err, creative - approach to getting elected, St Chad converted Mercia (the English midlands) in the 7th century to - well it's not altogether clear, though Bede claims Mercians were heathens before. To prove God has a sense of humour, Supertuesday in the 2004 US elections was on St Chad's feast day (he's the only English saint recognised by Catholics, Anglicans and the Orthodox Synaxarion).

Chad's remains stayed in Lichfield till the Reformation when, as happened so distressingly often, the Prod Taliban decided his remains should be humilated. Seized by Jesuits and spirited off to St Omer for safekeeping, they (recently carbon dated to the 7th century) found their way back to the other St Chad's cathedral: the Catholic one in Birmingham. Which is, by a million zillion miles, the finest example of Victorian Gothic anywhere in the universe - and one of the very few English churches to house relics of its patron saint.

Almost worth going back to LHR via the ordinary M6 to stop off and see.