The Saxon Wærings settled here because this was the lowest place on the Mersey where you could hoist your tunic and wade across. Tun is Old English for an enclosure, so Weringtun was the enclosure of the people who guarded the ford. A bridge was first recorded in 1285, about a mile downstream of the old crossing, and the medieval town grew up around St Elphin's Church on Church Street. You can still walk that historic core, which has the densest concentration of older buildings. The 281-foot spire of St Elphin's is the sixth-tallest in Britain. Palmyra Square, a hundred yards south of the Golden Gates, is the prettiest corner of central Warrington, lined with 19th-century buildings around the Pyramid Arts Centre and Parr Hall. Parr Hall houses an Aristide Cavaillé-Coll concert pipe organ, the work of the great French organ-builder, an unlikely treasure for a Cheshire mill town.

Manchester Airport is the easier of the two regional airports, with global connections and an hourly direct train via Manchester city centre to Bank Quay station, taking about 50 minutes. Liverpool John Lennon has good European connections; from there you bus to South Parkway and pick up a train to Warrington Central. The two town-centre stations are about ten minutes' walk apart. Bank Quay sits on the west side and handles the West Coast Main Line. Central sits on the north side and handles the Liverpool-to-Manchester line, with three trains an hour to Liverpool Lime Street via Widnes. Buses leave from the Interchange opposite Central station. Warrington's Own Buses is one of the few surviving municipal operators in England, and route timetables live on the TFGM Greater Manchester website. Driving is straightforward outside rush hour. Avoid the Central station car park for short stops, which is reasonably priced for the day but slaps a £100 fine on quick pick-ups.

Donatello on Orford Lane is the long-standing local Italian, popular for good reason, open evenings through the week and lunchtimes at the weekend. Caffe Caruso on Horsemarket is the lighter, friendlier daytime Italian, with longer hours on Thursdays through Saturdays. For pub food and atmosphere, the Barley Mow on Old Market Place has been a pub since 1561, making it the oldest in Warrington and a contender for one of the oldest anywhere in Cheshire. The Friar Penketh on Friars Gate is the dependable JD Wetherspoons. The Botanist on Time Square is the modern pub-bistro with late hours. For a longer walk, the Trans Pennine Trail comes through town along the St Helens Canal towpath, loops south along the Manchester Ship Canal to Latchford Locks, and heads east through Lymm; you can pick it up almost anywhere along the river. Cyclists looking for a rest stop should aim for the Ferry Tavern at Penketh, on the narrow ribbon of land between the Mersey and the canal.

St Mary's Roman Catholic Church on Smith Street is a Pugin building of 1877, an elegant counterweight to the heavier civic architecture nearby. Victoria Park on Knutsford Road, half a mile southeast of the centre, is a pleasant riverside park with playing fields and the ASICS Stadium athletics track; it hosts the Neighbourhood Weekender music festival each May bank holiday. The Warrington Transporter Bridge, west of Bank Quay station, is the last railway transporter bridge in the world, a Grade II* listed industrial relic with a 200-ft span; it was built in 1915 to move railway wagons between two halves of the Crosfield soap and chemical works. It is mostly derelict but visually unmistakable. Risley Moss east of town is a restored peat-bog nature reserve on the site of a wartime munitions factory. Sankey Valley Park threads south of town along the canal and the river, a long narrow strip good for jogging or cycling, with the old St Helens Canal still recognisable through the trees.

Knutsford is the next stop south for anyone curious about old Cheshire market towns. Quarry Bank Mill in Styal is a preserved cotton mill and estate near Manchester Airport, well worth a half-day. Chester sits about half an hour southwest, with intact medieval walls and a cathedral. And both Liverpool and Manchester are about sixteen miles away in opposite directions, easy day trips by train. But before you leave Warrington, find the Golden Gates outside the Town Hall: ornate Victorian wrought iron, painted bright gold, originally cast for the Sandringham estate, rejected by Queen Victoria as too gaudy, and rerouted here. The town's nickname for itself is the place that bought the gates the Queen would not have.