Port Sunlight Museum and Garden Village

Who we are

Port Sunlight Village was founded in 1888 by William Hesketh Lever, arguably most famous for his production of Sunlight Soap, who created a new soap factory and a picturesque garden village for his workers. Port Sunlight is a unique place, created by one of the nineteenth century’s great industrial philanthropists and now a Conservation Area consisting of over 900 grade II listed buildings. It is sited on the Wirral peninsula, a 20 minute journey across the river Mersey from Liverpool and a similar distance from Chester. Port Sunlight Museum is a social history museum and explores the foundation of Port Sunlight village and the vision of William Hesketh Lever; why he chose this particular site for his new soap factory and the provision he made for his workers in terms of leisure activities and cultural pastimes. Port Sunlight Museum provides a wide ranging educational programme for schools, offering a range of interactive workshops on subjects including The Victorians, World War Two and Local History. The education workshops take place in the Lyceum building in Port Sunlight, the original school in the village, built between 1894 and 1896. The workshops offer pupils the chance to explore subjects outside of their usual classroom setting and to have the past brought to life with real objects used by real people in the past. Pupils who visit as part of their World War Two studies can meet a veteran and interview them, enabling them to ask questions of people who remember the Second World War and who were involved in the war effort. School groups can walk around the village on one of the child-friendly village trails and enjoy Port Sunlight’s stunning buildings, which have changed very little since they were first constructed in the nineteenth century. Port Sunlight offers a rare opportunity to feel as though you have stepped back in time to a forgotten era, while still being a thriving modern village. The National Museum of Liverpool’s Lady Lever Art Gallery is also situated in Port Sunlight.