Alexandra Fairclough

Mob. 07956 226699
Email. Alexatours@outlook.com

Alexandra Fairclough – British Guild of Tourist Guides

Hi, it is lovely to meet you, I am Alexandra and I’m a Lancashire lass.   I’d love to show you around my childhood playground of the beautiful Lake District and Cumbria.  I spent every summer of my childhood and more in ‘the Lakes’, which was then within the county of Lancashire, and we still have a place that I call ‘my home from home’ in Cumbria.  Currently, I am based in Manchester but I can meet you in Cumbria or indeed from the local airports or train stations and accompany you to the Lake District from there if needed (but, please note that I am not a driver guide).

I offer tours of the whole county on foot or by coach crossing the fells or lakes, from Hadrian’s Wall in the north or within the Lake District National Park; along the Cumbrian coast, or  around Morecambe Bay in the south.

I have experience in guiding English-speaking visitors and have appropriate DBS checks in place. As a mother of teenagers, I can relate to young people as well as adults and I often take school trips around the county looking at specific aspects of Cumbria education in mind.  I have degrees in geography with geology & archaeology and in architecture and I am an RIBA Guide (Royal Institute of British Architects) for Liverpool and Manchester.  I lecture to undergraduate and postgraduate students ats Manchester School of Architecture and Birmingham City University on architecture with architectural history (church architecture and vernacular buildings) and Conservation of the built environment being my specialist subject areas.

If you want a fun and fully informative, let me know.  There are standard tour routes and town walks  Plus I can develop a bespoke tour for you for a special interest, for retracing the steps of your ancestors or to cover a particular area in more depth, so please give me a call.

Special interest:

• Architectural pilgrimages (including stately homes, monastic buildings and castles and their  gardens);
• Lake artists, poets and writers (including Wordsworth plus Beatrix Potter);
• The rural environment including the geology, geomorphology, the lakes and coastline;
• Prehistoric stone circles, Roman settlements and Hadrian’s Wall;

Testimonial – “Alexandra came to Arnside, Cumbria to speak to our walking group. A party of 39 from Dorset who are predominately in their 70’s and 80’s. Her talk with time for questions lasted 90 minutes and was titled ‘ Welcome to the Lakes’
We found it not only interesting but entertaining. We learnt a variety of little known facts with accompanying slides. She honed into our itinerary for the week giving us focus on places we had already seen or about to see. A definite must for travellers to a new county”. August 2024