Landscape – Page 14 – Modern Mooch

Ford Lane Didsbury – Manchester

Posted on May 27, 2018May 27, 2018 by modernmoocher

This a tale of a lane, a shady lane in south Manchester.

This is a tale of several Manchesters, layer upon layer of history.

Shady history.

Ford Bank House occupied much of what is now the Ford Bank Estate and prior to that it was believed to be farm land. Ford Bank House, probably the largest house erected in Didsbury was built in about 1823 by Joseph Birley a cotton manufacturer. The extended Birley family had a widespread influence on Manchester history even going back to the Peterloo massacre where one of the Birley ancestors led a contingent of the mounted soldiers who attacked what was a peaceful protest gathering.

Ford Bank Residents

A tale of emergent capital and political control, rendered corporeal in brick, stone, wood, glass and slate. A cotton-rich mercantile class seeking to suppress the democratic demands of a burgeoning proletariat.

Ford Bank House was sold to Thomas Ashton in 1858, when he died in 1898. In 1919 the remaining estate was sold to Dr Herbert Levinstien who worked on mustard gas research during the first world war. In 1934 the estate was sold to Ford Bank Estates Limited who developed and built what is now the Ford Bank Estate.

A tale of a growing and aspirational professional middle class, seeking inter-war semis in a leafy Didsbury glade – and the timely response of speculative builders.

Looking cheekily over the hedge in search of a monkey puzzle.

The ford of Ford Lane crosses the nearby River Mersey – thought to be the route of retreating Royalists following the siege of Wythenshawe Hall in 1644.

In 1901 a bridge was opened at the behest of local emigres engineer and social benefactor Henry Simon – a German born engineer who revolutionised Great Britain’s flour milling industry and in 1878 founded the engineering companies Henry Simon Ltd and Simon Carves.

He and his family were a serious reforming political force in the area – instrumental in the founding and development of the Halle Orchestra, Wythenshawe Park and housing estate.

For many years this was my route to work – cycling from Stockport to Northenden, each and every day forever. Witnessing the rise and fall of the river and the vacillating fortunes of Manchester’s economic regeneration.

This is south Manchester where the years of austerity, central government fiscal prudence and free-market economics, have had a far from adverse effect.

In stark contrast to the malaise of the north and east of the city, here we see a constant parade of skips and scaffold, free from the fickle trick of trickle down. As extensions and mortgages are extended at an alarming rate.

The round windowed gaze of the asymmetric homes, seem endlessly surprised at the good fortune that has befallen the residents of Ford Lane.

Owner occupiers preoccupied with owning.

Semi-detached.

Heaton Mersey Vale – Stockport

Posted on May 16, 2018May 16, 2018 by modernmoocher

A mighty river valley was formed in the second Ice Age, as the glaciers receded and rushed seaward.

The mighty River Mersey was formed on the eastern edge of Stockport, at the confluence of the Tame and Goyt/Etherow rivers.

Thousands of years in the making, as the water-powered mills of the adjacent Pennine Hills migrate to the lower reaches of the towns, in search of water, workers and steam, the full force of the Industrial Revolution takes shape in the west.

The mixed farming of the alluvial valley, which opens up onto the Lancashire and Cheshire Plains, meets and greets the incursion of dye and brick works, mills and manufacturing.

Fred Schofield’s farm 1930

View towards Stockport from Heaton Mersey Park

Serviced by a complex and competing rail system based around Heaton Mersey Shed.

Opened in 1889 and served until May 1968 operating steam locomotives to the end -Coded 9F.

Here we were at the centre of a rail hub spreading out in all directions, to and from the ports, cities and resources of the country and beyond.

Great movements of steel, cotton, coal, people and manufactured goods.

Fireman Eddy “Ned” Kelly

Heaton Mersey railway station was opened on 1 January 1880 by the Midland Railway and lay on the newly opened line which ran from Heaton Mersey East Junction to Chorlton Junction and on to Manchester Central station.

The station was situated at the southern end of Station Road which still exists. The station was later operated by the London Midland and Scottish Railway and was closed by the London Midland Region of British Railways on 3 July 1961.

The area was criss-crossed by railways – its bridges traversing the roads, fields and river, dominating the landscape in a wild flurry of steam and smoke.

Further photographs from Grip 99

Crossing the Mersey – the link between Gorsey Bank and the Shed

Surviving until 2007

B&W photographs Stockport Image Archive

The end of steam – as drivers, fireman and staff were transferred to Newton Heath, was followed by the slow demise of the rail network, freight moved to road and passengers purchasing their first cars and a passport to illusory freedom.

The mighty Mersey is now flanked by newer neighbours, a shiny blue administrative pyramid, business park, car showrooms and nature reserve, the only certainty is change.

Great volumes of earth are moved to from a new topography a topography of leisure – the gentle stroll, jog and cycle replaces the clank of fire doors and shovel on coal.

But take a look around you and you will see the remnants of the industrial age, shrouded in fresh hawthorn and enshrined in birch and beech.

To walk this landscape is to traverse geological, agrarian, industrial and post-industrial time – they all coexist and coalesce. Have an eye, ear and heart open to their resonance and presence, transcend time and space in the Mersey Valley today, you’re part of the leisured generation.

Farewell Grand Central – Stockport

Posted on May 10, 2018May 12, 2018 by modernmoocher

O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!

And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and hell, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

We have seen things come and go in, on and around Stockport Station’s little acre.

From coal drops to tear drops.

Before

During

Archive photographs courtesy of John Eaton

After

The post-industrial leisure complex has come almost full circle – overwritten by the complex needs of the modern day service-worker – Holiday Inn, Espresso Bar and Mini-mart complement the hot-desked, twenty-four hour online access all areas open-plan office operative.

Gone now the Laser Quest, Super Bowl, Multiplex, Theme Pub days of old.

Photographs from Stockport Image Archive

Time has been called on the post-modern film-set, cast and clad in plastic, brick, steel and concrete.

The future is here today and it means business.

Motorway Footbridge – Stockport

Posted on May 4, 2018May 5, 2018 by modernmoocher

A Moebius Band of motorway formerly known as the M63 wraps and warps itself around the city, ever so conveniently linking the traffic of Greater Manchester with itself.

Ever so conveniently it passes through Stockport – only moments from my home.

Before the white man came.

The view from Princes Street along Hatton Street – towards Heaton Norris Rec.

1945

1960

A boon to the modern day motorist, though happily the modern day pedestrian is also catered for in the form of the Hatton Street Footbridge – linking Great Egerton Street below, with Heaton Norris Recreation ground above.

Images TS Parkinson – Stockport Image Archive

For the past two years the footbridge has been inconveniently closed, during the development of the Redrock Leisure Facility, built on the site of the former car park, in the foreground of the image above. Thus prohibiting the passage from the Post Modern world of the big brash entertainment box, to the leafy cobbled street beyond.

The Hatton Street footbridge has two spans of in-situ u-section deck, is at ground level on the north side, but is reached by steps or ramp from Great Egerton Street on the south.

William B Ball

I’m ever so pleased that access has been reinstated, from me it is both fully functional yet imbued with an elegant concrete sculptural grace, worthy of Niemeyer or Lasdun.

So take a walk on the slightly higher side, either way you win.

Bus Station – Stockport

Posted on April 10, 2018May 11, 2018 by modernmoocher

From the early part of the Twentieth Century trams and then buses stopped and started in Mersey Square, affording limited succour, space or shelter for the weary traveller.

View from the Fire Station Tower.

View from the Plaza Steps.

The land where the bus station currently stands was then owned and used by North Western Buses – a rather large and uncultivated plot.

Work began in April 1979 on a brand new bus station, the first stage finally opening on March 2nd 1982.

Slowly emerging from the rough ground – a series of glass and steel boxes worthy of that master of minimalism Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, a Neue Nationalgalerie in miniature.

Photographs from Stockport Image Archive

It has stood and withstood the winds of change and perfidious public transport policy, the privatisation of the service, snatched greedily from local authority control.

Passengers have met and parted, whilst buses of every hue and stripe have departed from these draughty boxes.

Photograph from Victory Guy

There are now plans for imminent demolition and rebuilding – shaping a transport hub fit for the Twenty First Century – Space Age forms for a brave new world.

A new £42m transport interchange in Stockport town centre has taken a step forward after the local council agreed key measures to back the project.

April 9th 2017 here is my photographic record of the Bus Station, I’ve been, gone and come back again countless times through the years.

Shopping Precincts – UK

Posted on March 28, 2018March 28, 2018 by modernmoocher

I was brought up with Sixties’ shopping precincts and centres, they are so very dear to my heart, I spent my teenage years here in Ashton, Stalybridge, and latterly in Stockport’s Merseyway.

I’ve visited Hanley, Preston, Salford, and Coventry in search of a certain something – that exciting sweeping swoop of concrete, brick, glass and steel. Underpasses with overarching designs and luxurious layouts of leisurely interlocking levels. Each one different in a different way yet essentially similar – embodying a sense of civic pride, a sense of the future realised.

1571 – The Royal Exchange, a trading market in the City of London, is officially opened by Elizabeth I. Above the open-air piazza where dealers buy and sell commodities, there is a two-storey shopping mall, with 100 different kiosks – making it Britain’s first shopping centre.

1964 – It was a monument to provincial pride in reinforced concrete and glass. When the Duke of Edinburgh opened the Birmingham Bull Ring in May 1964, it was the largest indoor shopping centre in Europe, with a total floor area of 23 acres. Inspired by American suburban malls, the Bull Ring promised coatless shopping in an air-conditioned, temperature-controlled hall maintained at late-spring level.

2017 – Many are now no more, or redeveloped beyond recognition. The integrity of the architecture, street furniture, public art, space and usage a thing of folk memory.

So come with me now on a whirlwind picture postcard tour of this Nation’s saving grace – it’s modernist shopping spaces.

Aberdeen

Barlaston

Bedford

Bracknell

Brentwood

Brighton

Burton on Trent

Butts – Reading

Chelmsford

Corby

Coventry

Cowplain

Crawley

Crewe

Croydon

Cwmbran

Dudley

Elephant and Castle

Great Yarmouth

Hanley

Harlow

Hartlepool

Hebburn

Immingham

Irvine

Leamore

Letchworth

Leyland

Liverpool

Mexborough

Milton Keynes

Nantwich

Norris Green

Plymouth

Runcorn

Sleaford

Southampton

Stockport

Swanley

Telford

Wakefield

Walton on Thames

Westway – Frome

Wolverhampton

Worksop

ICL Tower – Gorton Manchester

Posted on March 19, 2018February 25, 2025 by modernmoocher

Designed by architects Cruickshank and Seward in the Sixties, to house the cutting-edge computing power of the time, the ICT later ICL Tower, towered over Wenlock Way, Gorton in East Manchester.

A landmark for many from bus, train, car, Shanks’s pony or low flying VC10.

A place of work for thousands.

At a time when modern technology looked a little like this:

Sadly ending like this:

Two weeks into the demolition process the east elevation is no more, revealing a concrete honeycomb of torn steel and fresh air.

A few weeks time and it will be little more than so much dust and memories.

Humberston Fitties

Posted on March 6, 2018March 6, 2018 by modernmoocher

Betwixt and between the two world wars, the shortage of housing for the homeless, hopeless and dispossessed lead to an acceleration in the building of an informal architecture – the so-called Plotlands.

One such area and precious survivor from the last century is the Humberston Fitties – situated to south of Cleethorpes, preserved in time by the happy homesteaders.

Though under threat from Local Authority negligence or intervention, three hundred and twenty chalets prevail – against the incursion of planning regulations, building specs and a lack of respect.

I feel a real affinity for all Plotlands, having spent many summers in the converted Pagham railway carriage, belonging to my Aunty Alice and Uncle Arthur. They relocated to the south coast seeking cleaner air for Arthur’s ailing, industrialised northern lungs, thus prolonging his life.

Tamarisk – Pagham

So here are the photographs I took on a visit to The Fitties in July 2008, I walked the home made roads, amazed by the vigour and variety of shape, size, personal affectation and practical pragmatism, of this all too human architecture.

This is a particular form of independent minded Modernism – hand-forged from the vernacular.

It is better to have your head in the clouds, and know where you are, than to breathe the clearer atmosphere below them, and think that you are in paradise.

Henry David Thoreau

Strangeways Manchester #2

Posted on February 13, 2018February 13, 2018 by modernmoocher

Way back in the Twentieth Century – Cheetwood Industrial Estate was built.

The future was functionalist flat-roofed, concrete, steel and brick boxes.

Adorned with the flowing scripts and signage of the multi-nationals, nationals and local companies, intent upon rendering corporeal the post-war optimism, attendant full-employment and the buoyant business of business.

Fast forward to the future – the roofs have been pitched up, the windows bricked up or shuttered or both, walls encased in sad cladding.

The semi-permanent signage replaced with terminally temporary vinyl.

Joe Sunlight’s neo-classical pediments have been painted a funny colour.

Strangeways Manchester #1

Posted on February 5, 2018February 5, 2018 by modernmoocher

Strangeways?

– How strange.

The Strangeways family themselves are certainly recorded in antiquity at the site, although the name appears differently over time; Strongways in 1306, Strangewayes in 1349 and Strangwishe in 1473. In the late 1500s in records at Manchester Cathedral the surname is spelt Strangwaies.

My thanks to Thomas McGrath for his – Long Lost Histories: Strangeways Hall, Manchester

Before panopticon prisons entered the public imagination, and incarceration was the order of the day for the disorderly, it was all fields around here – with the odd house or baronial hall.

Swire’s map of 1824

Strange days, over time the prison is built, the assizes appears and disappears and tight groups of tired houses cluster around the incipient industry. The fiefdom’s of old become tie and tithe to successions of industrial plutocrats.

Broughton Street 1910 – Photograph J Jackson

Kelly’s map of 1920

The area becomes the centre of the city’s rag trade, a large Jewish Community, the largest outside of London, grows up around Strangeways, Cheetwood and Cheetham Hill – houses, mills, wholesale, retail, warehouse, ice palace, beer-house, brewery. The area is home to several of Joe Sunlight’s inter-war industrial developments – his Jewish family were named Schimschlavitch, his father a cotton merchant. The family emigrated to England in 1890 and settled in Manchester.

So much for Joe Soap – the area was also the location for local lads, Karl Marx, and Marks & Spencer.

Derby Street 1901 – 1924

Further developments took place with the building of the Cheetwood Industrial Estate – a postwar group of flat-rooved, blocky brick and concrete utilitarian units.

So let’s take a look at the ever so strange streets of Strangeways, in that period of change during the latter part of the Twentieth Century, when manufacturing, retail, repair and distribution were almost, just about to disappear in a puff of globalisation, economic depression and Thatcherism. Where Jack and Jill the lads and lasses, traded, ducked, dived, wheeler dealed from Cortinas, Transits and low milage, one owner, luxuriously leather-seated and walnut-dashed Jags. A vanishing or vanished world, where however briefly – Manchester went architecturally mod.

Bent Street

Broughton Street

Carnarvon Street

Chatley Street

Cheetwood Street

Derby Street

Julia Street

Knowsely Street

Sherbourne Street

Stocks Street

All archival photographs from the Manchester Local Images Collection

Gorsey Bank – Stockport #3

Posted on January 24, 2018January 24, 2018 by modernmoocher

Once there were homes – 200 homes tucked between the M60, River Mersey and A560 Stockport Road.

I’ve been here before, many times, seen those homes demolished and the site returning to nature, brambled and overgrown, as the long standing lampposts disappeared for scrap, the kerbs covered in thick grass and moss.

Then the diggers arrived, the trees felled and the site cleared – no longer any trace remained of the lost homes of Gorsey Bank.

Building commences, steel erected, fences, roads and paths instated.

Welcome to the Aurora Industrial Park – open for business.

Emerging from the houses, the undergrowth, the Mersey clay and sandstone – a shiny new assemblage of state of the art industrial sheds. I’ll wander by from time to time, listen to the ghostly chatter of busy neighbours, going about their business.

Wait for the trees and brambles to take over again.

Mottram Street Flats – Stockport

Posted on October 22, 2017July 28, 2024 by modernmoocher

A post-war northern town, facing the problems of bomb damage, poor quality housing, and the pressing need for new homes.

In 1963 there seemed to be space and the will to build, the site at the centre of the image flanked by ageing Victorian terraces and industry.

Soon to become the Mottram Street Development.

Back in 1965 these were the highest housing tower blocks in Greater Manchester.

The work of borough architects John Rank and Clifford Fernley.

1960’s Photographs from the Stockport Image Archive

1980’s photographs from The Tower Block

Typically they incorporated concrete street furniture, sculptural and decorative detail, in keeping with the age.

Like many other developments of the period they have subsequently been clad, fenced, painted and secured beyond recognition.

There was a raised concrete play area, of which nothing has survived.

A little of their original character however has prevailed – a William Mitchellesque fallen obelisk, along with some panelling and planters.

The monolith was designed by Peter Shuttleworth, a newly qualified architect at Stockport Council

Curious to see public art behind bars

– would that they were removed.

Gore Brook – A History

Posted on September 19, 2017September 20, 2017 by modernmoocher

To begin at the beginning, well actually to begin in the middle and walk to the current beginning. The Gore Brook flows from the Lower Gorton Reservoir and from there onwards to meet the Chorlton Brook in the west, though I should imagine that prior to the construction of the waterworks, it was fed by more distant moorland waters.

Manchester being on the eastern edge of the Lancashire Plain and the western edge of the Pennines is riddled with rivers, rivers which now wriggle in an under and overground web, across heavily developed urban areas. Following the Industrial Revolution former meadow, common and farmland was overwritten by factories, housing and roads, the rural character of the rivers and brooks soon becoming darkened and polluted by the surrounding industries.

I was lead here by my search for a lost pub The Garratt on Pink Bank Lane, then drawn in further by this site The Red Path of Longsight.

The Red Path is a pedestrian link between Pink Bank Lane and the Gorton boundary at Buckley Road. It roughly follows the course of Gore Brook. The original footpath, running from Buckley Road to the bank of the brook, was made using black cinders. It was probably made in the 1940s to provide access to the allotments located on either side. In the early 1950s , a concrete bridge was laid across Gore Brook and the footpath extended to Pink Bank Lane. This section used red bricks in it’s construction, probably supplied by Jacksons brickworks . Crushed bricks were then used as a topping to make the path smoother and fill in any cracks. The thoroughfare soon became known as the Red Path.

So wide eyed and mapless I bowled up at Brook Terrace, just off Stockport Road Longsight, in search of The Gore and its source.

In the early 1900’s the river was still open and bridged, here at Stockport Road, later culverted and covered – anticipating the arrival of Tesco’s and Granada TV Rentals.

From there we pass under the railway along Brook Terrace and into Parry Road.

The underpass is still there and very much in use, as is Stanley Grove School – the Manchester Central Schools’ Kitchens are long gone, along with the food filled, insulated aluminium cases, that fed the hungry mouths of many, with semolina, pink custard, meat pies and lumpy mash.

Onwards to Elgar Street and still no sign of the river, hidden beneath our feet, the corner of Northmoor Road, can be seen on the corner, no longer distributing dividends, but now providing social housing.

We arrive at Pink Bank Lane, a rich mix of terraced homes, flats and factories – and the long lost Garratt, and the long lost Gore.

Though the lazy, lazy river has been confined in a brick lined wind, to meet the ever pressing needs of the Gorton Sewage Works.

The river then hugs the edge of Annie Lea Playing fields on Buckley Road, until it disappears again as it meets Mount Road, the playing fields are still open ground – the Manchester Cleansing Department, seen on the left – is no more.

Here on Knutsford Road we see the construction of the tunnels and culverts, the footbridge to the left spanning the railway, is still there.

1907

1911

1914

Finally we see The Gore reemerging clear, clean, wide, proud and resplendent in Sunny Brow Park, where it is still maintained as a decorative, duck-filled lake.

1907

1910

1964

Briefly underground again and into the back of Far Lane, skirting the Brookfield Church graveyard.

1920

1937

1964

Then tunnelling under Hyde Road at the back of the church lodge, appearing once again alongside Tan Yard Brow.

1904

1922

1964

The manmade waterfall continues to cascade, the Fairfield to Old Trafford railway is now the Fallowfield Loop, Manchester Cycleway, young lads no longer mess about in wellies and torn Tek Sac jeans on the bank, the Tannery no longer tans.

Then we end our journey by the broad expanse of the Lower Gorton Reservoir, implausibly dotted with jolly yachts, and home to a now absent stepped outflow stream. Look up to the east, and there you’ll see the moors, you could go further.

All archive photographs from Manchester Local Image Collection.

Pleasure Gardens – Battersea

Posted on August 29, 2017August 29, 2017 by modernmoocher

So suddenly the war ended and all of a sudden the fun began, followed with indecent haste by a wholesale national lack of fun, no fun anywhere no how.

Well why not have a festival, a Festival of Britain!

The south bank of the Thames had once been home to the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens.

Why not put it there or thereabouts.

‘This was always a raucous place, but a temple of the muses too. Under the management of its gifted, quixotic master of ceremonies, Jonathan Tyers, it was perhaps the first public art gallery, hung with paintings by Hogarth and Hayman. The buildings – first Palladian then Gothic and exotic – were splendid and the music inspired. The Vauxhall season was unmissable. Royalty came regularly. Canaletto painted it, Casanova loitered under the trees, Leopold Mozart was astonished by the dazzling lights. The poor could manage an occasional treat. For everyone it was a fantasyland of wonder and pride.’

It was decided there and then, the government would enforce state funded fun!

Programmes were printed and works undertaken.

Posters were pasted, let the fun begin in Battersea – and all the rest is history.

Then just as suddenly the fun was all but blown away, by the chill wind of the incoming Tory Government.

Much to my surprise there are still remnants and reminders to be found on the site, planting, fountains furniture and sculptural structures abound, restored in 2011 by Wandsworth Council – a timely reminder of a time when we were encouraged to have fun on the rates.

Chesterfield – Magistrates Courts

Posted on August 21, 2017October 25, 2021 by modernmoocher

Mysteriously lacking much evidence of its past, save for this Historic England listing.

Chesterfield Courthouse – II Magistrates Court house. 1963-65. Designed by Prof S Allen and Robert Keenlyside for Chesterfield Borough Council, altered in 1975. Reinforced concrete, with decorative stone cladding, and timber roofs clad with copper sheeting. Double fan shaped plan, three storeys. Original east entrance front has recessed ground floor with central double glazed doors now blocked with glazed side lights. Either side four windows with concrete louvres to the offices. Above eleven bays topped with gables, the three central bays have recessed windows to both floors. Either side the two storey courts have grey slate panels with side lights and set back grey! green slate cladding. West front has recessed ground floor with eleven windows each with concrete louvres. Above eleven gabled bays, the central three and outer tow with grey slate cladding and side lights with set back grey green slate cladding. The four remaining bays on either side have recessed windows. The north and south sides have recessed angled facades with slightly recessed ground floor with glazed entrance at centre of east section with large glazed windows above. Flanking wings have concrete louvres set in grey slate cladding. Interior has original Y-shaped entrance hall way which rises up through all three floors. East entrance now blocked and converted to offices. Entrances from north and south into hallway with marled floor and marble clad columns with wooden ceilings and recessed lights. Central imperial type staircase marble clad with metal and wood balustrade. Upper floors have wooden clad walls and movable glazed screen for dividing access from juvenile court when in session. Two storey courts on upper floor retain original wooden cladding, ceilings and courtroom fittings, including magistrates bench, dock, seating for lawyers and the public.

And self evidently facing a very uncertain future:

2015 – The Grade II listed building, which is located between Rose Hill and West Bars, has received planning consent allowing it to be used for a range of purposes including office, retail and leisure facilities. Stuart Waite, associate director at Innes England in Derby, who is handling lettings on behalf of a private client, said: “We have been in serious discussions with a number of occupiers regarding this building for a variety of uses. “Occupier confidence is growing and with the economic forecast for 2015 looking positive we are confident that will see early interest converted into deals. “We are working closely with Chesterfield Borough Council which has identified the Rose Hill and West Bars area of the town as a key strategic location for growth.”

It has stood empty for the last few years and been a hotspot for vandalism.

Last July, arsonists set a wheelie bin on fire and pushed it up against the building, causing the flames to spread.

2017 – Chesterfield’s former magistrates’ court is being used as a drugs den, shock pictures reveal – and a council chief has warned that the building poses a danger to public health. Extremely concerning images obtained by the Derbyshire Times today show hypodermic needles and what appears to be heroin inside the historic property – as well as extensive damage in rooms and excrement smeared up walls.

Derbyshire Times.

It’s seen better days.

It remains on the market for £450,000 a steal if you ask me.

Thread Architects have proposed redevelopment as an Arts Centre

On the day of my visit there was little evidence of arts activity, save for a short performance piece by a heavily intoxicated mini-mosher and her partner – funding sources having proved to be at best illusory and subject to market forces.

Talk is cheap.

Take a walk on the wild green sward side of town, it remains a marvel, open and accessible, just requires a tender touch, of cash.

Bromley Street Manchester

Posted on August 16, 2017August 16, 2017 by modernmoocher

Bromley Street – its northern tip joining with Dantzic Street in the valley of the River Irk, so far so very bucolic, so very, very nice, the street that was going places, tucked cosily beneath the shade of the old L&Y bridge.

The south bank of the Irk is here very steep and between fifteen and thirty feet high. On this declivitous hillside there are planted three rows of houses, of which the lowest rise directly out of the river, while the front walls of the highest stand on the crest of the hill in Long Millgate. Among them are mills on the river, in short, the method of construction is as crowded and disorderly here as in the lower part of Long Millgate. Right and left a multitude of covered passages lead from the main street into numerous courts, and he who turns in thither gets into a filth and disgusting grime, the equal of which is not to be found – especially in the courts which lead down to the Irk, and which contain unqualifiedly the most horrible dwellings which I have yet beheld. Below it on the river there are several tanneries which fill the whole neighbourhood with the stench of animal putrefaction. The view from Ducie Bridge, mercifully concealed from mortals of small stature by a parapet as high as a man, is characteristic for the whole district. At the bottom flows, or rather stagnates, the Irk, a narrow, coal-black, foul-smelling stream, full of debris and refuse, which it deposits on the shallower right bank.

So said Mr Friedrich Engels.

“Not only the blackest but the most sluggish of all rivers” – was surrounded by road, rail, dwelling and factory, high density industrialisation through most of the last century.

Then all of sudden along came a series of events, that saw a shift away from inner-city manufacturing, the outsourcing of all sorts and the demolition of homes. The area and the city became a pale shadow of its former self. Help however was at hand, the boom in buy to let, overseas investment and an ever expanding professional middle class, eagerly paddled up the murky Irk, emulating the massed forces of 7th Cavalry and the Lone Ranger combined – hurrah!

If you earn a minimum of £300,000 a year, have a net worth in excess of £3m and want an exceptional mortgage service that is designed to suit your individual needs, get in touch.

What have you got to lose?

It’s the gravy train as thick, dark and rewarding as the very inky Irk itself!

The stylishly designed living areas and carefully considered external finishes within the new buildings, have been designed to compliment the rich industrial architectural style of the area.

A development that even Mr Friedrich Engels himself would be proud of.

But wait, all is not rosy in the digitally constructed flower box garden, that you may see before you, in our online presentation and brochures.

Pinnacle Alliance plans to build 344 luxury apartments on a site near Dantzic Street, as part of the ‘Northern Gateway’. Dozens of investors have paid up to £350,000 for the off-plan apartments in the proposed scheme. But two years since many first paid out for their home, no work has actually begun on the £30m scheme.

The dispute has led to a demonstration in Hong Kong, where around 50 buyers took to the streets over Christmas urging local authorities to take up their concerns. And in an unusual twist, protestors even recorded their own campaign song – to the tune of Jingle Bells – criticising Pinnacle.

On the day of my visit the site was home to several jackdaws, the charred husk of a burnt out car, hastily discarded childrens’ toys, the most curious of plywood constructs and a sense of anything and everything, ceasing to make any sense whatsoever.

This stunning development will be an original and inspiring place to live.

Buxton Raceway – High Edge

Posted on July 14, 2017July 15, 2017 by modernmoocher

About 340 million years ago, the area which is now the Peak District was covered by a warm, clear, shallow sea. The sea was full of microscopic shell-creatures, and on the sea bed there were several coral reefs and beds of shellfish. Over a long period, millions of years, these creatures lived and died in this area, gradually laying down a thick bed of calcium deposits from their shells up to a depth of 600m in places. This is now the rock which is known as Carboniferous Limestone and this rock lies under the whole of the Peak District.

Then suddenly in 1972 the Buxton Rock Festival relocated from the nearby Pavilion Gardens to an area high atop the moors, on High Edge.

Don’t recall rain but it was very cold at night. The beer tent was selling Party Seven cans of beer, with seven pints in them. The queues for them were so long you had to make an important decision one can or two? Unfortunately I chose the latter, while one wasn’t enough, two was too much for a sixteen year old. Part way through the second can, I got up to dance to Easy Livin’ by Uriah Heep and fell flat on my face – Tim Hardman

Then suddenly in 1974.

I raced at the first meeting at High Edge Raceway and competed in that first year when the track was just a bulldozed dirt oval with earth banks and tyres for protection. I remember going to the Quiet Woman pub in Earl Sterndale for the first drivers meeting to see if there would be enough support for racing to take place. The people who went included a group of disillusioned hot rodders seeking to get away from the Belle Vue promoter, others ranged from truckers and farmers to car-nuts who just wanted to race anything. The first meeting I well remember those earth banks because I spent most of my first race sat on one, I couldn’t get the car off the top where I had been shunted by another racer. I wasn’t a successful banger racer and I didn’t continue after that first year but I am glad that racing has kept going at the venue – Alan Inwood

2017 and the track continues to grow and thrive currently trading as Buxton Raceway.

Offering a wide range of motor sports, racing anything with wheels and an engine, including bangers, buses and speedway bikes, being home to the Buxton Hitmen.

I often cycle or walk by and was privileged on this occasion to be given a guide tour by track worker, keen racer and self confessed car-nut Shane.

Pop in if your passing, you won’t be disappointed.

Sea Front Shelter – Hastings

Posted on July 9, 2017July 9, 2017 by modernmoocher

I have been here before, adoring the full range of Hasting’s sea front shelters.

They form an integral part of the general scheme designed and overseen by The Concrete King Sidney Little.

On my most recent visit the most distant shelter was receiving a wash and brush up, a brand new coat of paint or two, restored to bright red and white shipshape order, this land locked delight looked ready to set sail across the adjacent Channel to who knows where.

Offering a somewhat occluded view of blue skies and faraway shores, the bus stops here and goes on forever and forever.

Fire Station – Bury

Posted on May 25, 2017 by modernmoocher

Curvilinear, cantilevered, concrete canopies wave – wave goodbye.

Opened in 1967

Closed in 2012, it continues to stand idly by, as the Bury Town centre doughnuts the site with shiny new developments.

A striking tower topped by a hyper parabolic roof with a cheeky twist, it remains an elegant feature on The Rock.

Facing an uncertain future it can only be a matter of time, as the new build proliferates that the fire station disappears in a puff of smoke.

Who you gonna call?

Subway – Scarborough

Posted on May 3, 2017 by modernmoocher

When is a subway not a sandwich?

When it’s a doughnut!

Hard by the seafront linking Foreshore, Cleveland Way and Valley Road sits a neat little tight little island, giving pedestrian access to almost everywhere – and a car park.

As with every other torus worth calling a torus, at its very centre sits the presence of absence, darkened concrete subterranean causeways, linking everything to nothing.

There’s a world going on underground.