When winter beckons and Christmas is just around the corner, what could be better than spending time in England, the country that virtually invented Christmas! For our 2025 tour we’ll be based at Knowsley Hall, the enormous Lancashire country house that has been home to the Stanley family since 1385. Here we will be the only guests of our hosts, Edward and Caroline Stanley, the 19th Earl and Countess of Derby, whose great house will be glistening with Christmas set within an unparalleled collection of art. 

From Knowsley we’ll venture to Liverpool to see Impressionist paintings, ancient Roman sculpture, and the world’s finest Wedgwood in some of the best museums in Britain. There will also be visits to the Beatrix Potter Gallery, where we’ll see the famous artist’s original artwork, and the Royal Liver Building, once the tallest in England and one of the first buildings in the world to be built using reinforced concrete. 

And, of course, we will visit exceptional country houses decked out with festive fayre! Fortified by invigorating warm beverages and Christmas nibbles, we’ll experience Lyme Park, Colin Firth’s Pemberley; Heaton Hall, James Wyatt’s Neoclassical masterpiece; the Cavendish family’s Holker Hall; and Little Moreton Hall, one of the most important timber-framed moated manor houses in England.