In 1879, the Museum moved to a new larger building next to Mowbray Park including a library and winter garden based on the model of the Crystal Palace. US President Ulysses Grant was in attendance at the laying of the foundation stone by Alderman Samuel Storey in 1877, the building opened in 1879.
During World War II, Winter Garden was damaged by a parachute mine in 1941 and demolished the following year. A 1960s extension took its place, but in 2001, a lottery funded refurbishment of the museum created a new Winter Garden extensionand improved facilities.
Built in 1879 by local architects J & T Tillman, the museum building is Listed Grade II and was the first civic museum to be purpose-built outside of London.
I have been unable to find any attribution for the 1960s extension, built in the Festival of Britain style.
The panels, on the rear elevation, were by Walter Hudspith, then Senior Lecturer at Sunderland College of Art. They were the first examples of public art to be commissioned in Sunderland and were made for the building’s 1962-64 extension; they represent music, art and literature. The panels were restored by Lesley Durbin at the Jackfield Conservation studio in 2000-01.
The William Mitchell concrete panels are of a modular design, rotated to form distinct groups of horizontal and vertical rhythms. A number of the buildings elevations are clad in linear, diagonal and vertical forms, though the majority are curvilinear and organic.
Local Image Collection 1972
The Ellen Wilkinson building, home to Education and Communication, is one of the few buildings on campus named after a woman. She gained the nickname of ‘Red Ellen’ in her political career, due to her socialist politics and vibrant red hair colour.
Wilkinson was a successful Labour party politician and feminist activist, and a passionate and bold personality in the Houses of Parliament. She was made Minister of Education under Clement Atlee’s government, making her the second woman to ever get a role in the British cabinet. She was brought up and educated in Manchester, making her legacy on the Manchester campus even more significant.
Ellen Wilkinson is a large sized building with three blocks. There are six floors in C Block, five floors in B Block and seven floors in A Block.
There are three lifts and six main staircases within the building.
The floors are signed as Ground, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. This is slightly different inside the lifts where control buttons are marked as 0 instead of Ground.
There are link passages from A and B Block to C Block on levels Ground, 1 and 3.
This scheme pre-dates Wilson Womersley’s appointment as masterplanners for the Education Precinct but exists harmoniously with the later series of buildings. This is most likely due to the method of development before any ‘grand concept’. The incremental expansion of the University, following WWII, was largely dictated by the progress of compulsory purchase orders; this group was no exception. At the planning stages, the lack of a masterplan led to organising the wings of the buildings in an open, orthogonal arrangement. This would allow expansion in a number of directions, according to the next available site in ‘the dynamic situation’. The result was the creation of a small courtyard flanked by two five-storey blocks and a two-storey structure. All three buildings use the same pink-grey concrete. The plastic qualities of concrete were explored in both cladding and structural panels and the textural qualities exposed in the bush hammered columns, to reveal the Derbyshire gravel aggregate. The sculpted and moulded panels on the two-storey block and on the gable ends of the larger blocks were designed in collaboration with William Mitchell. The only other materials in the external envelope were the windows of variously clear and tinted glass. The window modules were set out against a basic geometry in three standard patterns and applied across the façade. This resulted in a clever interplay of vertical and horizontal expression. Phase II, a seven-storey teaching block, was not as refined in its details.
The Roscoe Building is to the University of Manchester what the Renold Building was to UMIST; its purpose was the unification of disparate lecture rooms into one building. In this instance it was a central hub for the Faculty of Science. Both buildings are by Cruickshank and Seward and share traits, though the Renold has arguably more flare. In the Roscoe Building the ground floor houses the smaller of the two main lecture theatres, the larger is an appendage to the main building, but both are accessed from the main foyer. As one ascends, the five upper floors are served by a central corridor flanked by smaller offices and laboratories on one side and larger flexible teaching and seminar rooms to the other. The glazed stairwell is expressed as a separate element.
The appraisal of the scheme in the AJ Building Study made claim that, ‘aesthetically the relationship of this staircase with the main tower is scarcely resolved, but the design has achieved the aim of making this an exciting staircase to use’.
This was the aim of the architect – if all the seminar rooms and lecture theatres emptied at the same time, there was not enough capacity in the two lifts to move everyone. The climb up the stairs is rewarded with a good view of the city centre, a photograph of which was illustrated in the same pages. The clear expression of the component parts of this building is a functional response to the demands, but also the part of the formal language developed through Cruickshank & Seward’s practice. Strong volumetric forms became something of a motif in the work of both John Seward and Arthur Gibbon.
The open entrance area has subsequently been compromised.
Photo: Richard Brook
Performance Electrical Limited was employed to carry out the full electrical refurbishment to the new reception at the University of Manchester’s Roscoe Building on behalf of Armitage Construction.
In common with the Renold Building the Roscoe has an elegant glazed staircase.
I was invited by Richard Brook to tick off the names of those attending the launch of his book.
The book was launched at the City Tower, part of the Piccadilly Plaza development.
We began at the top – up in the lift to floor twenty eight the Sky Lounge.
On display were the architectural drawings of the Piccadilly Plaza scheme – including my favourite spiral car park ramp.
Back to the ground floor to administer the entrance of exactly eighty eight participants.
Who were subdivide by coloured dot, into sub groups for the forthcoming tour – a tour of the sub basement.
Former home of the diesel boilers – temporary home to eighty eight and a bit Modernists.
A talk or two later and it was almost all over, biggest thanks to Richard, Manchester University Press, The Plaza and the Modernists.
Testament to one man’s healthy preoccupation with Manchester’s modern history and the legion of fellow travellers that have supported and encouraged him down the years.
Health and safety regulations state that markings should be placed around obstacles or dangerous locations. This includes where any of the following present a risk:
people tripping or falling
objects falling
people or vehicles colliding with objects
These markings should be made up of alternating red and white or yellow and black stripes of equal size at a 45 degree angle. Barricade tape can be used to satisfy this requirement as long as the tape is “commensurate with the scale of the obstacle or dangerous location in question”
I hereby lay claim to this symbol, sign, icon, the combination of black and yellow, wherever it may appear, in this or any other world, in whatever shape, form, pattern or composition, be it civil or military. I hereby claim to be its originator and owner.
Designed by Ben Kelly, upon recommendation by Factory graphic designer Peter Saville, upstairs consisted of a stage, dance area, bar, cloakroom, cafeteria area and balcony with a DJ booth.
The Haçienda was opened on 21 May 1982, when the comedian Bernard Manning remarked to the audience:
I’ve played some shit-holes during my time, but this is really something.
His jokes did not go down well with the crowd and he returned his fee.
The black and yellow stripes on Manchester City’s away shirts were meant to be an uplifting homage to Manchester’s cultural heritage, but the choice of design now risks becoming a chip on the team’s shoulders.
The team’s jersey is embroiled in a controversy after Ben Kelly, the man who originally designed the stripes for famed Manchester nightclub the Haçienda, complained in a recent interview to Gaffer magazine that he was not credited or consulted by the creators of the football apparel.
When Manchester City and Puma launched the team’s 2019/20 kit last July, they said in a press release that the uniform paid tribute to the “Madchester” years of the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the city in north-west England became a hub of alternative music and dance culture.
I was cordially requested to produce tram based walk, by the good folk at the modernist – travelling from Victoria Station to Bury. Alighting at each stop and seeing what could be seen, by way of modern buildings along the byways.
By the way, I do have previous experience, having undertaken a similar task travelling to Ashton.
So I set off as instructed, clutching my GMPTE senior concessionary travel pass.
Queens Road
Turn right on leaving the station, right then left – you have reached The Vine.
Glendower Dr, Manchester, Greater Manchester M40 7TD.
Head for Rochdale Road and turn right back toward the city centre, you have reached Eastford Square.
Turn left from the station along Bury Old Road until you reach Heywood Road on your right.
Heywood Road, Prestwich, Manchester M25 2GT
1954-5 by the Manchester City Architect’s Department, Chief Architect Leonard C Howitt, for the Manchester Corporation Waterworks. Alan Atkinson, engineer. Incorporates large relief by Mitzi Cunliffe, signed and dated 1955.
After months of public consultation, the joint venture has firmed up its proposals for the redevelopment of the Longfield Centre and is aiming to be on site before the end of the year.
Muse and Bury Council have submitted a hybrid application to transform six acres of Prestwich town centre.
The Strategic Regeneration Framework is the guide that is shaping the direction of Radcliffe’s growth over the next 15 years with a series of realistic short, medium, and longer-term actions. It is also shaping the direction of future council investment, supporting bids for central governmental funding and providing certainty for third parties wanting to invest in town.
Work has begun on Strategic Regeneration Framework’s priority projects, these include:
A new civic hub in central Radcliffe, which will bring together a mix of functions at the heart of the town
Refurbishment of the market basement and the revamping of market chambers
New leisure facilities
A secondary school on the Coney Green site
A “whole town approach” to housing, bringing forward a comprehensive approach to residential development in Radcliffe
A transportation strategy, which will consider matters such as active travel and car parking
I began walking when quite young, then like Felix, I kept on walking, walking still.
The photograph was taking during the Whit Walks in 1958 – aged three, I was engaged in religious pilgrimage, as we know there are many reasons for walking, this is but one.
I was fortunate to grow up at a time when youngsters were permitted to roam freely, less traffic, less anxiety, gave me access to a wider axis of exploration.
The photograph would have been taken I assume, by my mam, on the Brownie 127. When aged nine I wandered alone through the local woods and exposed twelve frames of 44mm 127 film, the prints are long gone, yet I remember each of the photographs and locations clearly.
I went to school, then I didn’t, then I went to Art School, eventually becoming a teenage Constructivist, tutored by Jeffrey Steele, a leading light in the British Systems movement.
The rigidity of the grid, symmetry and orthogonal framing have stayed with me.
Then I went to work for a very long time indeed, then all of a sudden I didn’t. Taking early retirement aged 59 some ten years ago, subsequently taking to the roads, streets and hills of Britain in search of nothing in particular.
In recent years there has been a rapid development in the culture of walking, theories, films, guides, songs and literature. I am fully cognisant of such, yet believe at heart that walking can be free of such baggage, we can stride unhindered, atavistic and carefree/less.
Walk tall, walk straight and look the world right in the eye.
Getting lost is about the unfamiliar appearing.
In my own small way, I have become part of that baggage, having been asked to lead a walk around Stockport by the the modernist neé Manchester Modernist Society.
The photograph depicts Alan Boyson’s concrete screen wall, attached to the former Cooperative super store designed by Philip Andrew. The two worked to gather on the Hull Cooperative store, which is adorned by Alan’s huge Three Ships mosaic.
Philip was a childhood friend of Alan Boyson and it was Alan’s father, manager of the Marple Co-operative Society, that recommended Philip for an apprenticeship job in 1951 to the chief architect at the CWS in Manchester HQ.
In preparation for the tour, I visited the town’s Local Heritage Library and read extensively from serendipitous charity shop finds.
The two hour route was designed around an economy of distance and elevation, allowing time for others to take in, what may be for them unfamiliar surroundings. A group of around twenty or so folk became sociable and engaged, with a suitably concise and apposite contribution from myself. There are those who busied themselves taking snaps along the way, chatting amiably or simply gazing in amazement.
The service building above the former Debenham’s store.
Famed as an imaginary TV police station, this civic building is a civic building I simply can’t resist. I return on a regular basis to wander and snap. This is an open public space that seems little loved and has few visitors.
From then onwards I have been taking folks on Modernist Mooches on a regular basis, two or so a month, during the less inclement times of year.
At about the same time I was asked to exhibit my photographs in Stockport, I chose to mooch about at night. Walking around an almost deserted town, avoiding the glare of streetlights, there is a mild frisson to be about when nobody else is about. The air feels different, exposures are longer, the almost waking world feels arrested, by the low available light.
My local shopping centre and as such part of my weekly walking and shopping life.
NCP Car Park located on Stockport Station approach.
Regent House
Asda superstore
I found a copy of Charlie Meecham’s book Oldham Road in a charity shop.
Inspiring me in 2014, to walk in mostly straight lines, though often as not zig zagging along the main arterial roads of Manchester.
Taking pictures on Sunday mornings, in order to avoid traffic, mildly amused to be ignoring the primary function of the routes.
This is one of the more familiar roads, having walked up and down several times over several years. It was to have been an extension of the Mancunian Way, forming a trans-pennine motorway. Much of the property lining the route was cleared in preparation, it was never built, and for years a strange semi-deserted ambience hung over the A57.
Bus Depot
Railway Bridge
The car showrooms which later became an African Evangalist church.
Having cleared away both Victorian and Sixties housing, new architectural forms arose in West Gorton.
Now, everywhere I go, I see launderettes – so arriving in Hanley with time on my hands, wandering around I found this exemplary example.
Having a blog entitled Manchester Estate Pubs, the national media became interested in my photographs. I had spent quite some time, wandering around in search of this endangered architectural typology.
This was Billy Greens in Collyhurst, named for a local boxer, now demolished.
Which in turn became the second modernist calendar.
Followed the following year by fish and chip shops.
So building a vocabulary for my mooching, discovering yet another chippy, laundry, pub, Burton’s, telephone exchange, glazed stairway or underpass.
These things find you, yearning for some small amount of attention and affection.
The Trawl – my favourite peg board menu, my favourite Bridlington chippy.
We are now coming to the end of the car park year – seen here on the wall of my command centre.
Home to William Mitchell’s Totem, the homes long gone and the Council pledged to move the totem too.
The state of play this week, the detritus removed and the base filled in, repaved and safe for a while.
Off now to the Weaver Valley another day another river, passing under Weaver Viaduct
The looking toward KouraGlobal – leader in the development, manufacture, and supply of fluoro products and technologies, opened a new HFA 152a production facility at their Runcorn site in the UK.
Further rural Modernism as we pass under and traverse the M62, whilst walking around the Piethorn Valley
The newest of the Modernist Mooches was to Burnley where we visited the Keirby Hotel.
The former GUS Offices with a mural by Diane and William Morris.
Plus the Charles Anderson concrete relief at the Crow Wood Hotel.
Finally a little light relief – a visit to the Boots factory in Nottingham.
Having innocently board a bus outside the station with a Boots head code , I alighted within the factory gates. Then innocently walking around taking snaps, unheeded until the men in the van stopped me in my tracks.
Who are you, what are you doing?
I am the Modern Moocher going about my business – well it turns out this was not permitted and I was red carded by the earnest security guards and asked to leave forthwith. Suitably rebuked, I politely bade them farewell and headed for the gates.
Along with the Renold Building– which is already home to start up tech businesses.
The city council has approved Bruntwood SciTech’s change of use bid to transform the 110,000 sq ft Renold building into a tech and science hub.
In a joint venture with the University of Manchester, Bruntwood will create 42,000 sq ft coworking and business incubator spaces for businesses in the sector at the Altrincham Street building.
Sister is Manchester’s new innovation district. A £1.7bn investment into the city, its setting – the former University of Manchester North Campus and UMIST site – is steeped in science and engineering history. Home to the UK’s most exciting new ideas and disruptive technologies, Sister is a worldclass innovation platform in the heart of one of the most exciting global cities. It stands as the city’s symbol of a new era of discovery that promises progress against humanity’s greatest challenges.
So it is with a bitter sweet feeling that I took a group of Modernist Moochers around the site this Saturday – a number of whom had been students there.
As a former UMIST student 1990-1997, I had a wander round the old site recently, sad to see it so empty and run-down.
So let’s take a look at the current state of affairs.
To begin at the beginning, to begin at Baitings Reservoir.
Wakefield Corporation Waterworks started impounding the valley of the River Ryburn in the 1930s, with Ryburn Reservoir being completed in 1933. Construction on Baitings took place 20 years later with completion in 1956. Baitings Bridge, on an old road linking Yorkshire and Lancashire, was to be flooded under the reservoir so a concrete viaduct was built. During spells of very hot weather and drought conditions, the old packhorse bridge is revealed.
Wakefield Express: 31st August 1955
The dam head is a curved structure that is 1,540 feet long and over 160 feet high. The reservoir covers 59 acres and has a catchment of 1,830 acres , and when it is full, it holds over 113,000,000 cubic feet of water. The dam took eight years to complete at a cost of £1.4 million, and is located at 840 feet above sea level. A tunnel connects reservoirs in valleys to the north with Baitings to allow for the transfer of water. Manshead Tunnel is 8,000 feet long and was opened in 1962.
Inconveniently, the footpath to the lower Ryburn Reservoir was closed – we were diverted over the dam.
We took the pathway to Booth Wood Reservoir – over Pike End and beyond.
We dropped down beneath the Booth WoodDam.
Booth Wood Reservoir is a man-made upland reservoir that lies north of the M62 motorway and south of the A672 road near to Rishworth and Ripponden in Calderdale, West Yorkshire. The reservoir was approved for construction in 1966 and completed in 1971.
It supplies water to Wakefield.
The reservoir dams the Booth Dean Clough watercourse and takes water directly from the surrounding moorland. It has a plain concrete crest on the dam head which is straight and extends to a length of 1,150 feet and a height of 157 feet.
Below is a dinky pumping station, tucked beneath the dam.
We took a precipitous path through the wood – up to the level of the reservoir.
Under the the M62 and past the infamous Stott Hall Farm.
Stott Hall Farm is a farm located between the eastbound and westbound carriageways of the M62 motorway in Calderdale. It is the only farm in the UK situated in the middle of a motorway and was built in the 18th century on Moss Moor. It lies south of Booth Wood Reservoir where the carriageways are separated between junctions 22 and 23. The road divides for much of its length between the Windy Hill and Deanhead cuttings because of the surrounding geography; but a myth persists that it was split because Ken and Beth Wild refused to sell. However, the farm was actually owned by Yorkshire Water at the time the M62 was built.
We walked over the upland moors to meet with the Catchwater, which formerly fed the Ringstone Edge Reservoir, prior to the construction of the motorway cutting.
Climbing again over Cow Gate Hill to meet the Saddleworth Road.
Crossing the motorway and dropping down to meet the Scammonden Dam.
Scammonden Dam is part of the M62 motorway between junctions 22 and 23, the only such structure in Britain. Its construction by the Ministry of Transport and Huddersfield Corporation Waterworks required the passing of the Huddersfield Corporation Act 1965. The motorway dam spans the Deanhead Valley in the Pennines between Huddersfield and Rochdale and the main contractor for the project was Sir Alfred McAlpine & Sons.
It was designed by Rofe, Kennard and Lapworth
Surveying began in November 1961 and the route of the carriageway was determined in mid 1963. Excavation in the Deanhead Valley commenced the following year and for the dam in 1966. This required the removal of 25,200,000 cu ft of peat bog to reach the solid rock base nearly 43 ft below ground level. Material excavated elsewhere on the line of the motorway, clay from cuttings between Lofthouse and Gildersome, and 3.4 million cubic metres from the Deanhead excavations was used to build the dam’s embankment which is 2,051 ft in length and 207 ft above the original valley floor. The embankment is 1,427 ft wide at its base and 180 ft at road level.
Scammonden steps comprises five flights of steps up the hillside from the valley below. Totaling 458 steps, the cumulative step count when ascending each of the five flights is 95, 200, 287, 363 then 458.
At the base of the dam is this delightful Pumping House.
The motorway, which was dependent on the completion of the dam, was opened to traffic on 20th December 1970 and officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II who unveiled a plaque near the valve tower of Scammonden Water on 14 October 1971.
Ascending and looking back toward Scammonden Bridge also known locally as the Brown Cow Bridge – after the nearby Brown Cow Inn, now closed, spans the Deanhead cutting carrying the B6114.
The bridge was built for the West Riding County Council to the designs of the county surveyor, Colonel S Maynard Lovell.
It opened to traffic on Monday 18 May 1970 by Major Bruce Eccles – Huddersfield Transport ran buses to see the bridge.
Blackpool Council says it remains committed to the Blackpool Central project amid the potential collapse of the developer leading the works.
But warning alarms sounded this week when Nikal – which was hired to oversee the project – filed a notice of intent to appoint administrators.
The £300m Blackpool Central development is billed as the biggest single investment in the town in more than a century and is planned to involve a “world-class leisure development” which would create 1,000 new jobs, bring an extra 600,000 visitors per year, and boost annual spend in the town by around £75m.
A spokesperson for Blackpool Council told the Blackpool Lead:
We have been working on the enabling phase of Blackpool Central over the last few years. The new multi-storey car park opened earlier this summer and we are currently completing preparations to demolish the old police station and courts building early in the New Year.
The proposals for the Bonny Street area can be seen here.
Plans for the area have hit further problems.
A new £40m magistrates courthouse is facing building delays after the project’s main contractor collapsed.Blackpool’s magistrates court was one of twenty two projects belonging to construction giant ISG, which was working on the scheme for the Ministry of Justice.
But the firm went into administration in September, leaving two thousand two hundred workers at risk of redundancy, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.
Work was due to start early next year with a completion date expected in 2026.
The town needs all the help it can get, time has not been too kind, whilst efforts have been made to invigorate the area around Blackpool North and the promenade, the back streets reflect the legacy of years of deprivation.
Blackpool ranks as one of the most deprived areas in the UK. Many people were already in poverty, and the cost of living pressures are having the biggest impact on this group, who need to spend a greater proportion of their incomes on household essentials. It is also affecting people on low and middle incomes, often surviving by having several jobs, who are being pushed into poverty. More people are turning to services for support, and as the winter progresses this is a serious concern.
I have no wish to poor scorn on the area – but a short walk around the streets approximate to the coast tells a tale of failed businesses, decay and decline.
Happily there are the seeds of recovery in evidence, in the form of newly built housing.
The executive report outlines an area of regeneration to the South of the town centre. It lies broadly between Chapel Street and Rigby Road, and the Promenade and Central Drive. These have been identified as the initial areas of focus for detailed scheme development, community engagement and property acquisitions in preparation for future development.
The concrete and the clay beneath my feet Begins to crumble But love will never die
Doomed to face the demolition crew – the anti-social intrusions and falling masonry have enforced a fence, an impenetrable fence.
My requests for unforced entry were politely rebuffed by the hi-vis vest security guards.
A former police station could finally be demolished this autumn after closing six years ago when officers moved to new headquarters.
Blackpool Magistrates’ Court, which is part of the same complex, will also be bulldozed after crumbling concrete was discovered in the building in January.
In recent months, the empty Bonny Street police station has become a target for anti-social behaviour.
Clearance of the site will pave the way for investment in leisure facilities including hotels and indoor theme parks by developer Nikal.
Denys Lasdun was chosen by a jury, which included actor Sir Lawrence Olivier, to design the building. In spite of Lasdun’s fine modernist credentials he was to many a surprising choice – he had never designed a theatre. Within the National Theatre are three separate and very distinct auditoriums. Symbolically and practically they are loosely modelled on theatre designs from the three greatest periods of western drama: the Olivier on classical Greek theatres, the Lyttelton on the proscenium-arch theatres of the past three centuries, and the Cottesloe on Tudor inn-yards. The building has become a national landmark in Great Britain and has been listed Grade II* since 1994.
I have several Brutalist badges, yet feel disinclined to badge myself a Brutalist, with or without a capital B.
Me, I’m a little more Polyarchitectural by nature.
Less seduced by Edmund Burke’s ideas of the sublime than others.
The passion caused by the great and sublime in nature, when those causes operate most powerfully is Astonishment, and astonishment is that state of the soul in which all its motions are suspended, with some degree of horror … No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear. For fear, being an apprehension of pain or death, operates in a manner that resembles actual pain. Whatever therefore is terrible, with regard to sight, is sublime too … Indeed terror is in all cases whatsoever, either more openly or latently, the ruling principle of the sublime.
Furthermore, whilst the exterior of the National Theatre may well induce fear, and in some loathing, the interior feels both human and secure. When I explored the ins and outs of the public spaces, the monumental seems to be held carefully in check, despite the challenging contrasts in mass and volume. The exposed concrete surfaces and angular forms are softened by sensitive lighting and the presence of people, in motion and at rest.
So at a loose end on a showery day on the Southbank I caught shelter and solace within.
Previously on Modern Mooch – we encounter Mr Lasdun in Leeds and Liverpool
The M62 is a 107-mile-long west–east trans-Pennine motorway, connecting Liverpool and Hull via Manchester, Bradford, Leeds and Wakefield; 7 miles of the route is shared with the M60 orbital motorway around Manchester.
The motorway, which was first proposed in the 1930s, and conceived as two separate routes, was opened in stages between 1971 and 1976, with construction beginning at Pole Moor near Huddersfield and finishing at that time in Tarbock on the outskirts of Liverpool. The motorway absorbed the northern end of the Stretford-Eccles bypass, which was built between 1957 and 1960. Adjusted for inflation to 2007, its construction cost approximately £765 million. The motorway has an average daily traffic flow of 144,000 vehicles in West Yorkshire, and has several sections prone to gridlock, in particular, between Leeds and Huddersfield and the M60 section around Eccles.
We were walking along Tunshill Lane on our way to the Piethorn Valley, our crossing of the M62 facilitated by this elegant road bridge.
A notable structure between junctions 21 and 22 on the uphill section towards Windy Hill is the Rakewood Viaduct which carries the road over the Longden End Brook.
The viaduct is 280 yards long and 140 ft above the valley floor. It was built in 1966 by Reed & Mallik and opened to motorway traffic in October 1971. It has a sister bridge, the Gathurst Viaduct in Wigan, which carries the M6 motorway over the Leeds & Liverpool Canal, the Manchester-Southport line and the River Douglas and was constructed before the Rakewood Viaduct.
The steelwork deck was subcontracted to Robert Watson Steelwork of Bolton.
Westmorland and Furness Council said Portland Walk car park will close from the start of July.
In a statement the council revealed the rooftop car park will permanently close from July 1 following a review which found said it had ‘very low usage’.
British Telecom Telephone Exchange Abbey Road Barrow in Furness LA14 5QZ
I took a train in the rain to Barrow in Furness.
I alighted, bathed in bright sunlight.
I espied a telephone Exchange.
The original building was designed by MOPBW senior architect M Williams and job architect P Chilton around 1966-67. Senior architect RN Dixon – of modernist talk fame, and job architect P Joyce were involved with some detailing around 1968, before Dixon designed an extension in 1972.
William Thompson was born at Richmond Yorkshire, the son of John and Catherine Thompson. William came to Burnley in 1908 and gained a place at Burnley Grammar school. Later he learned the trade of cotton weaving at his uncle’s shed. In time he was to become the managing director of this firm. William lived at Oak Bank Todmorden road, where in spite of his great wealth, he led a remarkably simple life. He had neither television nor radio, and his greatest pleasure appeared to be strolling in the nearby Towneley Park. About 1970, ill health forced William to move to his sister’s house at Ingleton Yorkshire. His illness became worse, and he was removed to a nursing home at Silverdale, near Lancaster, where after a prolonged infirmity he died on 18, August 1972. It was William and his sister, Sarah Witham who donated the £333,000 that was eventually used to build the Thompson Recreation Centre. William was never to see the gift he bestowed upon the town, for his death came just a few days before the official opening of the centre. It was his sister, Sarah who performed the opening, and she too was to die a short time afterwards on 8, December 1975. She was the last link in the Thompson family of Burnley.
Many thanks to local historian and author Jack Nadin
The Thompson Recreation Centre was decorated by a large concrete frieze by Scottish artist Charles Anderson.
Town Architects 1975
Formed from precast concrete panels against expanded polystyrene moulds – it stands 150ft long and 9ft high.
It was gifted from funds provided by the estate of local Cotton Manufacturer and major town benefactor, William Thompson. The building was a flagship symbol of progress for Burnley in 1973, it was demolished in 2006.
Fortunately, the frieze was carefully dismantled, stored and reinstated by Andrew Brown.
Mr Brown said:
This frieze has a massive place in our community. It gives me enormous pleasure to give this magnificent artwork a new home. It breathes new life into the legacy of William Thompson who did so much for Burnley.
Charles Anderson designed the sculpture over months at his studio in Paisley said:
I was a young man of 34 when I was approached by Burnley Council to design a frieze for the centre.
It’s one of my proudest pieces of work and definitely one of the most challenging. I was inspired by the sculptures of the Parthenon so perhaps this is Burnley’s own Elgin Marbles. It features the Three Graces from Greek mythology as well as sporting scenes such as wrestling, weightlifting, fencing, archery, football, tennis and cricket.
I walked from the town centre along Princess way in search of the work – it’s at the rear of the site, just turn right before you reach the hotel.
They have campaigned tirelessly to save the building which is under threat, the local authority wishing to demolish the site.
There has long been a split in Shropshire Council between councillors who want to keep Shirehall and this that want to demolish it and move to the town centre. Last December, the council agreed to dispose of the building in the next few years after work on Civic Hub in the town centre is completed. That Civic Hub is still in the ideas stage and there is no clear idea of where the money will come fund it. Unless the council sells the 3.5 hectare Shirehall site for housing boosting its capital reserves which were depleted by the £51m purchase of the shopping centres in Shrewsbury town centre.
The budget plans agreed two weeks ago days propose that Shirehall is sold before April 2025 to make a saving of £325,000 in 2024/25.
The University of Leeds has a long established collection of public art, this has now been formalised into an Art Trail around the campus. Each of the pieces on this largely accessible display, has a QR code with a supporting audio tour, along with an information panel.
Printed guides are also available from the Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery, or online here.
Burton’s – The Tailor of Taste, have long been benefactors of the collection – here’s a little of the company’s history.
Sir Michael Sadler, University Vice Chancellor 1911-1923, was instrumental in developing an interest in Modernist art, through his own collection.
Sadler felt that a student’s education was greatly enhanced by a cultured and harmonious environment. He set about creating such an environment through the public display of pictures from his collection.
Take some time to wander around and consider the works in context, set against two centuries of architectural style and fashion, along with generous open and green spaces.
You can devise your own route around the trail, this is mine.
#4 Christ Driving The Moneylenders From the Temple – Eric Gill
The trustees operate within these two positions: we absolutely condemn Eric Gill’s abuse of his daughters with no attempt to hide, excuse, normalise or minimise, yet we also have a duty to protect, display and interpret the art work we hold in our collections.
Modern Mooch 