Easter is when Southport properly wakes up. The beach car parks open again, the pier gets busy, the Botanic Gardens are at their spring best, and the town has an energy that's been absent through the quiet winter months. I've spent every Easter of my adult life in this town. Here's what's actually worth doing over the bank holiday weekend.
📅Easter 2026: Good Friday 3 April, Easter Saturday 4 April, Easter Sunday 5 April, Easter Monday 6 April. School half term runs either side. Book restaurants and accommodation early — it fills up fast.
Ainsdale Beach
Easter weekend marks the start of the beach season at Ainsdale. The car park reopens in April and the conditions at Easter are, in my experience, some of the best of the year — cooler than summer, fewer crowds, proper light on the sand. The beach is wide, flat and excellent for kids. Take the dog. Take a kite. Take layers, because it's April and the west wind off the Irish Sea hasn't got the memo about spring yet.
Low tide at Ainsdale gives you hundreds of metres of flat sand. The dunes are accessible for a proper scramble. There's parking right there — PR8 2QD. Early Easter Monday, before the bank holiday crowds arrive, is genuinely one of the best times to be on this beach.
Southport Botanic Gardens, Churchtown
The Botanic Gardens in Churchtown are free to enter and in April they're at their best. Daffodils and early spring colour, the Victorian fernery, the lake, ducks on the water with their ducklings if the timing is right. It's one of those Southport places that residents take for granted and visitors discover and love. With four kids and a bulldog, I've done this walk more times than I can count. It takes 45 minutes if you're unhurried and it's reliably excellent.
🌿Southport Botanic Gardens, Churchtown PR9 7NB · Free entry, open year-round · Dogs welcome on leads · Café on site (usually open Easter weekend)
Southport Pier
The pier is a straightforward thing: walk to the end of the second-longest pier in England and look out at the Irish Sea. It takes about 20 minutes each way. There's a tram if your legs aren't feeling it. Easter weekend the pier is open and it's one of those experiences that sounds underwhelming until you're actually at the end of it on a clear day and you can see Wales. It's free to walk. The tram costs a few pounds.
The Atkinson
If Easter weekend brings the rain — and it often does — The Atkinson on Lord Street is the answer. Gallery, museum, café. There's almost always something on over the bank holiday weekend, and the building itself is worth the visit. The café does a decent lunch and it's warm and the kids can usually find something to look at in the gallery.
Check their website for Easter weekend programming — they usually have something specific. It's the kind of place that makes you proud to live here.
Eating out over Easter
Every decent restaurant in Southport gets busy at Easter. Book ahead. I mean actually book — don't turn up on Saturday evening expecting a table at Warehouse Kitchen or Chez Moi and find one. The Bold needs a reservation at the best of times. At Easter, assume everywhere worth going to is full unless you've called.
- →Southport Market on Market Street is walk-in friendly and a good option if you haven't booked anywhere.
- →Birkdale village (a 10-minute drive south) has a handful of restaurants that are slightly less manic than the town centre.
- →Lunch rather than dinner has shorter queues, better tables and more relaxed staff.
Full restaurant directory for Southport — every decent place with honest reviews:
Find somewhere to eat →Terry
Chief Editor, SouthportGuide.co.uk — Lives in Churchtown with his wife,
four kids, and Frank the bulldog.
