Having photographed the arterial roads of Manchester in 2014, I have resolved to return to the task in 2024.
Some things seem to have changed, some things seem to have stayed the same.
Manchester Arterial 2024 – A635
Manchester Arterial – A6
The A6 is Britain’s fourth longest road. Its route varies greatly from the lower lands of the South East, though the Peak District, right though the heart of Manchester city centre, then onwards towards Preston. It then goes though the historic city of Lancaster before skirting the Eastern fringe of the Lake District before ending in Carlisle, bang on the start of the A7.
North from Stockport towards Manchester, the A6 was a wide, four lane road, but still 30 mph, which usually flowed pretty well. According to Mudge, it looks like it has now been massacred by bus lanes and red paint. Shame. We meet the A57 from the east, just south of the city centre, and multiplex until we reach Mancunian Way, the A57 heading off as a short urban motorway, the A6 heading into the city centre via London Road/Piccadily, where it loses its number and vanishes. It would have gone straight down Piccadily/Market Street to meet Deansgate, and then across the River Irwell into Salford, and up Chapel Street, where the number reappears. Market Street has been pedestrianised for years, so the A6 has long ceased to be a through route.
In 2014, having taken early retirement from teaching photography, I embarked on a series of walks along the arterial roads of Manchester.
See also Bury New Road and Cheetham Hill Road and Rochdale Road and Oldham Road and Ashton New Road and Ashton Old Road and Hyde Road.
Manchester Arterial – A662
Starting at traffic lights on the A665 the road heads northeastwards, initially with the Metrolink on the left and a factory building on the right. The road then bears right at traffic lights marking the first section of on-street running for the trams, which lasts until just before a bridge over the River Medlock, after which the road passes to the south of the Sportcity complex whilst the tram line runs through the middle.
The A6010 is crossed at traffic lights, after which we see the tram lines on the left once more. We go over the Ashton Canal, then the tram lines at grade before bearing to the right to pass Clayton Park before another section of on-street running for the Metrolink begins, which continues for some distance. Just after crossing the Manchester city limit there is a set of traffic lights, after which the road becomes D2 for a short distance to allow a tram stop – Edge Lane, to be located in the central reservation. The tram leaves the road to the right for the next stop – Cemetery Road, and the stop in Droylsden town centre is once again in the central reservation. In all three cases the street running recommences after the stop.
In 2014, having taken early retirement from teaching photography, I embarked on a series of walks along the arterial roads of Manchester.
See also Bury New Road and Cheetham Hill Road and Rochdale Road and Oldham Road.
Manchester Arterial – A62
The A62, which runs from Manchester to Leeds, via Oldham and Huddersfield, was once the main route across the Pennines, connecting the largest city in Lancashire with Yorkshire’s largest city. However with the completion of the M62 towards Leeds in the early 1970s it lost much of its importance and traffic to the motorway, which runs a few miles to the north. These days, the A62 serves as a busy primary route between Manchester and Oldham, an extremely very quiet route over the Pennines, and then a fairly busy local road linking Huddersfield with Leeds.
Most maps show that the A62 starts its journey in the middle of Manchester by leaving the A6 Piccadilly and running along Lever Street – the original route was the parallel Oldham Street. However, owing to a bus gate Lever Street is not generally accessible from Piccadilly. We head out easterly on a busy street – non–primary, until we meet the Ring Road where we pick up primary status that we retain until Oldham. We turn left at this point and then immediately right to start the A62 proper.
In 2014, having taken early retirement from teaching photography, I embarked on a series of walks along the arterial roads of Manchester.
This whole undertaking was prompted in part by Charlie Meecham’s 1980’s Oldham Road project .
The work questions whether a sense of local identity can be maintained in an area of constant redevelopment and community displacement.
This area was first developed in the 19th century for cotton manufacture, coal extraction and later electrical and heavy engineering. The road was lined with shops and there was a vibrant community.
When I first started working on the project, most of the early industry had ceased operating and the mills were either abandoned or being dismantled. However, some had been refurbished either for new industrial use or later, made into apartments. Some run down areas were cleared making way for new housing. Clearance also provided opportunity to build new schools, trading estates and create green space. Most of the older community centres such as theatres and cinemas along the road were also abandoned and later cleared.
See also Bury New Road and Cheetham Hill Road and Rochdale Road and Ashton New Road and Ashton Old Road and Hyde Road and Stockport Road and Kingsway and Princess Parkway.
Manchester Arterial – A56
First crossing the M60 Manchester Outer Ring Road at Junction 7 into Stretford.
The A56 takes the name of Chester Road and continues north-eastwards through Stretford and Hulme into Manchester city centre, where it takes on the name Deansgate, one of Manchester’s main shopping streets and thoroughfares. At the end of Deansgate, the A56 takes on the name of Victoria Street as it passes Manchester Victoria railway station. Since 2012, most of Victoria Street has been pedestrianised with planters, but the road markings still remain underneath.
In 2014, having taken early retirement from teaching photography, I embarked on a series of walks along the arterial roads of Manchester.
Wolverhampton Walk
Architects: Austin Smith Lord
We begin at the Railway Station – recently refurbished, overwriting its 60s iteration – completely rebuilt by the architect Ray Moorcroft as part of the modernisation programme which saw the West Coast Main Line electrified.
Across the way an enormous brick clad multi-storey car park – skirted by the lines for the tram, which travels to and from Birmingham.
Walk across the brand new pedestrian footbridge over the ring road.
Architectural glass artist Kate Maestri was commissioned to produce the artwork design which features glass with blue and green strips of colour running through it.
Architects: Austin Smith Lord
Linking the Rail Station with the brand new Bus Station.
The normal practice of the Wolverhampton Bus Service is to have dirty, smelly buses, that are cramped and extremely hot in the summer and freezing cold in winter. They offer no announcements apologizing for delays they know about and don’t appear to care how long passengers wait with no idea of how or when they’ll be getting a bus.
The best thing you can do is learn to drive as quickly as possible and get your own vehicle or car pool.
Architects: Austin Smith Lord
Onward now to the Express and Star Building – Grade II listed.
Architect: Marcus Brown 1934.
The building is faced in a reconstituted Hollington stone called Vinculum, produced by another local firm, Tarmac.
A plaque commemorates RJ Emerson, art teacher and sculptor who sculpted Mercury in 1932.
Wolverhampton History and Heritage Society
Midland News Association managing director Matt Ross confirmed the company is now looking at the building’s future.
For a number of years we have been exploring opportunities surrounding our historic Express & Star offices in the heart of Wolverhampton.
After removing the printing presses from the site and restructuring our departments we now have significant spare capacity available and so are looking at the various options available to us, be that redeveloping the current site or exiting the building altogether.
Extension is by architects: H Marcus Brown & Lewis 1965
With further work at the rear.
Along Princess Street this corner group, with an impressive clock tower – originally HQ for the South Staffordshire Building Society
Architects: George A Boswell of Glasgow 1932.
On to the Mander Centre – opened on 6th March 1968, refurbished 1987, 2003 and 2016-17.
The Mander Shopping Centre in the heart Wolverhampton is your one-stop shopping destination for all things fashion, home, beauty, food and technology.
Architects: James A Roberts principal architect Stanley Sellers.
Developed by Manders Holdings Plc, the paint, inks and property conglomerate, between 1968 and 1974. The site occupies four and a half acres comprising the old Georgian works and offices of the Mander family firm, founded in 1773, as well as the site of the former Queens Arcade.
The Wulfrun Shopping Centre is an adjacent companion to the Manders development.
The Wulfrun Centre was built as a result of a joint project between Wolverhampton Council and the Hammerson Group – open for business in October 1969.
Piazza postcard 1970.
Architects: T & PH Braddock and also Bernard Engle & Partners.
Along St Georges Parade, an abandoned Sainsbury’s church combo – store designed by J Sainsbury’s Architects Department opened 1988.
The church was built between 1828 and 1830 – architect: James Morgan, at a cost of £10,268. It was consecrated on Thursday 2 September 1830 by the Bishop of Lichfield, it was made redundant in 1978.
The site is currently under lease to Sainsbury’s for a further three years and will come forward on a phased basis subject to their lease concluding. The council is in active dialogue with prospective development partners on the redevelopment of this site and in wider consultation with Homes England.
Back tracking to the Combined Court Centre.
Architects: Norman and Dawbarn 1990
Notable cases included trial and conviction of four members of The Stone Roses, in October 1990, for criminal damage to the offices of their former record company.
Thence up Snow Hill to the former Citizens Advice former Barclays Bank currently empty.
Architects: John HD Madin & Partners 1969
Take time to have a look around the back.
Off to Church Street and Telecom House
Sold for £4.25 million to Empire Property in 2022.
It had previously been sold for more than £3m in July 2018, also for use for apartments, to Inspired Asset Management which later went into receivership.
Located on a popular apartment block on Church street in the Wolverhampton centre, this 1 bedroom property has been newly renovated throughout and compromises an entrance hallway, open plan lounge/kitchen with in built appliances, shower room and double bedroom.
£650 PCM – Connells
Next to this modern piazza New Market Square – Architects: Nicol Thomas from a concept by head of planning Costas Georghiou.
Formed from the former Market Square, a mix of flats and shops opened in 2004, in an Italianate version of the modish school of streaky bacon.
In 2021 the Coca-Cola Christmas Truck visit to the Midlands was cancelled.
It was meant to arrive at Market Square in Wolverhampton at 11am today but failed to show up.
One fan had waited since 7am this morning to see the Coca-Cola truck.
While schoolchildren were left gutted when the truck didn’t turn up – and one boy had been so excited his mother said he had been talking about the red truck all morning.
Retail Market – Late 1950s market hall and offices above.
Architects: Borough Surveyor.
Excellent example of the Festival of Britain style of architecture, won Civic Trust Award 1960.
Locally Listed March 2000.
demolished January 2017.
Photo: Roger Kidd
This development that wraps itself around Salop, Skinner and School Streets appears to be of a similar period to the Retail Market – and sports a Lady Wulfrun in relief.
There is access to its roof top car park.
And also an exit back to street level.
Where we find at street level the former Odeon Cinema, opened on 11th September 1937 with Conrad Veidt in Dark Journey.
Architects: PJ Price and Harry W Weedon.
In October 2000, the former Odeon was designated a Grade II Listed building by English Heritage.
RIBA pix
In recent years it was a Mecca Bingo Club, but this was closed in March 2007 In October 2009, it had been refurbished and re-opened as the Diamond Banqueting Suite. In April 2021 police raided the vacant building to discover an illegal cannabis farm operating in the building.
Four men were arrested.
Let’s take a turn around the corner to Victoria Street where we find the complex of Beatties Buildings.
Architects: Lavender, Twentyman and Percy 1920’s – 30’s
The C20 Beatties store is a multi-period site developed first in the 1920s-30s. A Burton’s men’s clothes shop was built on a curved corner site at Victoria St/Darlington St and Beatties themselves replaced their existing Victoria St store in the 1930s with a building by local architects Lavender, Twentyman and Percy. Beatties later acquired and incorporated the Burton’s shop into their store. These two buildings form the locally listed building to which were added a mid-C20 extension along Darlington St and a late-C20 development to the rear at Skinner St.
An imperious Portland stone clad mixed us block on Waterloo Road, with a delightful clock.
Formerly the Gas Showrooms then Sun Alliance & London Insurance offices – aka Clock Chambers
The showroom in Darlington Street was also the centre of a radio network that controlled a fleet of service vans. This enabled customers to receive service within minutes of making a telephone call. Demonstrations of cookery, washing and refrigeration were given by the Gas Board’s Home Service Advisers and a number of the company’s engineers, who specialised in designing gas equipment for industrial processes operated an advisory service for manufacturers.
Architects: Richard Twentyman 1939.
Nineteen Waterloo Road latterly First City House formerly home to Eagle Star Insurance 1970
8-10 Waterloo Road architects: Richard Twentyman 1959 extended 1966.
31 Waterloo Road – Waterloo Court architects: Kenneth Wakeford, Jerram & Harris 1972
Right turn to the Telephone Exchange
Architects: NHA Gallagher of the Ministry of Public Buildings and Works and Clifford Culpin & Partners job architect Leslie Parrett 1971.
Around the bend to The Halls – once the Civic Halls.
Architects: Lyons and Israel 1936-38
Refurbished 2003 by Penoyre & Presad with more alterations in 2021 by Jacobs consulting engineers.
RIBA pix – 1939
Over the road to the Civic Centre.
Architects: Clifford Culpin & Partners 1974-79.
We end our Wolverhampton wander at the College of Art and Design
Architects: Diamond Redfern and Partners with A Chapman Borough Architect 1969
Huge thanks to Tom Hicks aka Black Country Type for his invaluable assistance.
Maid Marion Way Car Park – Nottingham
Maid Marian Way Nottingham NG1 6AE
This has narrow ramps up and down, and narrow parking spots.
One ticket machine upon entry wouldn’t dispense – the other was covered with a bag but did work, very weird.
Becky T
Anyway, a way must have a name, so why not Maid Marion?
Olivia De Havilland
Maid Marian is the heroine of the Robin Hood legend in English folklore, often taken to be his lover. She is not mentioned in the early, medieval versions of the legend, but was the subject of at least two plays by 1600. Her history and circumstances are obscure, but she commanded high respect in Robin’s circle for her courage and independence as well as her beauty and loyalty. For this reason, she is celebrated by feminist commentators as one of the early strong female characters in English literature.
Robin Hood and DH Lawrence apart it seems most apt – so Maid Marion Way it is then.
In November 1945, the city council decided to ask Parliament for the go ahead for a scheme likely to cost more than half a million pounds.
However, it would cut a swathe through medieval streets, wiping some from the map and spelling the end of a community life which had thrived for centuries.
The arguments, discussions and negotiations rumbled on for years. It would be 1963 before work finally got underway and the new road was built.
Less than two years after it was completed, it was given a label that has stuck over the past four decades — the ugliest street in Europe.
Dual carriageways mean cars, cars mean car parks and car parks mean business.
Whether you’re visiting a student or are one yourself, parking at our car park on Maid Marian Way gives you easy access to the University of Nottingham.
For those who want a bit of retail therapy, look no further than the Intu Victoria shopping centre. Located within easy walking distance of our Maid Marian car park and right in the heart of the city centre, you’ll have a choice of over fifty shops to browse.
If you’re a bit of a history buff then Nottingham Castle should definitely be on your ‘to do’ list. Park near the castle at Maid Marian Way, and you’re just minutes away from reliving tales of the past as you explore the original hidden caves equipped with a dungeon. Make sure you don’t leave without taking a picture with Nottingham’s most famous resident, Robin Hood, found just outside the castle.
Had a lovely conversation with a lady in the machine after my parking ticket was swallowed and learnt lots about the poor acoustic in car parks. They charged me twice to park my car which made me feel lots of negative emotions towards them. So all in all, a bit of rollercoaster. Highly recommend this experience for anyone looking for somewhere to park that enjoys conflict and has lots of money they don’t need.
Edward Thompson – Sunderland
Richmond St Monkwearmouth Sunderland SR5 1BQ
Two swans in front of his eyes
Colored balls in front of his eyes
It’s number one for his Kelly’s eye
Treble-six right over his eye
Edward Thompson, the family printing business, was founded in Sunderland in 1867.
They identified a business opportunity when a local priest, Jeremiah O’Callaghan, ordered some bingo tickets for a parish fund-raising exercise.
From those humble beginnings, Edward Thompson mushroomed in size as Britain went bingo-mad in the 1960s, becoming first the UK’s and then the world’s biggest producer of bingo cards and tickets.
The company which has been printing for more than 155 years – has been hit hard by the crash in bingo hall use as Covid ripped through the leisure sector. CEO Paddy Cronin said he was ‘gutted’ but the business had finally had to face the inevitable as the cashflow dried up.
We were built on a bet but our luck has now run out – he told The Northern Echo.
Covid completely changed the market and as the halls went into decline it just became untenable so I had to break the news to the workers.
They were the pioneers of newspaper bingo, printing the first cards in 1975 and going on to work in places like Bolivia and Belgium and even printing the ballot papers for Nelson Mandela’s 1994 election in South Africa.
So their number is up the factory is tinned-up, house has been called for the very last time.
Yeah, yeah, industrial estate
Well you started here to earn your pay
Clean neck and ears on your first day
Well we tap one another as you walk in the gate
And we’d build a canteen but we haven’t got much space
Collyhurst Cheetham Circular
It’s Friday, the rain has almost stopped and I have a job to do.
The putative William Mitchell totem in Eastford Square is being moved.
Having taken a particular interest in this particular piece of public art for some time – I need to go and take a little look.
But what will we see along the way, as we hasten along Rochdale Road?
Which once looked like this, way back when in 1904.
Though some things inevitably come and go, as some things are prone to do.
The city is undergoing yet another reinvention as Manchester becomes – an attractive place to invest and do business.
See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.
Isaiah 43:19
Once there was a gas works here – adjoining Gould Street, seen here in 1958.
The Gould Street Gas Works was a gas manufacturing plant located in Manchester, England. Originally built in 1824, the plant was operated by the Manchester Corporation Gas Department and was in operation from 1833 to 1969. It was named after the street on which it was located, which was named after John Gould, who was a prominent Manchester businessman in the 19th century.
The Gasworks New Town neighbourhood is one of seven envisioned by the £4bn Victoria North masterplan. It will feature nine buildings ranging from 8 to 34 storeys. The 6.6-acre site has most recently been home to a car park but the green development will overwhelmingly prioritise walking and cycling over driving. It will result in tens of millions of pounds being pumped into the city’s economy over the lifetime of the development.
Plans for a trailblazing city centre regeneration scheme that will create more than 1200 homes has been approved by Manchester City Council.
A total of 85 of the 1200, will be affordable homes available through Shared Ownership.
Though as of March 31st 2023 ground is yet to be broken, no signs of the:
New centre of gravity for central Manchester that will create thousands of jobs and inject tens of millions of pounds into the city’s economy.
So you zig-zag wanderers, make the most of these wide open expanses of affordable car parking, while you can.
The future may yet be here today – or the next.
Let’s duck under the railway, through this sad damp pedestrian tunnel – the domain of the cash strapped daytime drinker, transient tagger and disaffected leaflet distributor.
Next thing you know you have emerged into the daylight on Dalton Street – we have been here before seeking the Collyhurst Cowboy.
Photograph: Dennis Hussey
Onwards to Eastford Square.
The shops and maisonettes are due to be demolished any day now – no longer to gaze open-eyed upon the former quarry of Sandhills.
Around the front the diggers have been a digging – digging up around the base of the totem.
The work is to be re-sited by the nearby tower blocks.
The end is nigh.
Heading now for Collyhurst Road and the Irk Valley – seen here in 1960.
Looking back on the Square and the Dalton Street flats – Humphries, Dalton, Roach, Vauxhall and Moss Brook Courts under construction.
Vauxhall Street now but a shadow of its former self – the last traces of industry long gone.
Reclaimed over time by trees and dense underbrush.
Crossing Collyhurst Road and up and over the railway via Barney’s Steps also known as the Lowry Steps.
LS Lowry
By the late 1950’s the whole of this area which we called Barney’s Tip became a refuse tip for Manchester City Council.
The area is in the process of being reconfigured as a delightful country park.
The investment will also help develop an initial phase of the planned City River Park incorporating St Catherine’s Wood as part of a network of public open space, including improvements along the River Irk and works to improve flood resilience, unlocking the potential of the Irk Valley that will characterise the wider Northern Gateway project.
The first phase of the City River Park will begin work to transform former railway architecture to develop the new Viaduct Linear Park north of Victoria Train Station, new stepped public realm space – Red Bank Terraces, along with new green space by the River Irk and the key improvements to St Catherine’s Wood.
The Victoria North Express is coming your way!
Pressing on we pass the Showman’s quarters.
Collingham Street is lined with trucks, trailers, stalls and mobile homes.
But there’s nothing temporary about this Cheetham Hill neighbourhood; most residents have lived here for years and many plan to spend the rest of their lives here.
Founded more than forty years ago, it was created by the Showman’s Guild of Great Britain – and it’s reserved exclusively for fairground workers both retired and current.
Built on Queens Road tip, a former rubbish dump, and rented out by Manchester Council, many of the 52 homes belong to older retired showmen or families for whom an itinerant lifestyle has become more challenging.
It’s a close-knit community with a unique shared history.
Emerging eventually onto Rayburn Way.
Home to the Eden Girls Leadership Academy and Eden Boys Leadership Academy.
And a whole host of delightful light industrial units.
Let’s all go west – along North Street.
On the corner of Derby Street and Honey Street we find Hamnett & Andrew – Insuflex Works
Later transformed into Linen Hire, though I fear that further linen hire may well be in abeyance, on a permanent basis.
What was happening at the Queens Arms back in 1966?
These were the older premises.
Then next door, the newer premises.
Photo: Alison G
The Queens Arms was held in high regard amongst the real ale crowd and had been a regular fixture in the Good Beer Guide.
As recently as 2007 it was named the City Life Pub of the Year,
Empress Brewery Co Ltd – 383 Chester Road, Old Trafford.
Registered as above May 1896 – 236 public houses.
Acquired by Walker Cain Ltd. 1929 and brewing ceased.
The pub was extended in 1987.
Seen here in 2015 closed for the foreseeable.
Recently becoming Flamingo – well strike me pink!
Though not without its own particular issues it would seem, according to the MEN.
The licensing out of hours team has received noise complaints relating to the premises which was found to be open beyond permitted hours when visited. Officers also identified breaches of the Health Act during inspections in which people were seen smoking shisha pipes in an enclosed extension at the back.
We will leave the Flamingo be and head back into town – but not without giving a nod to this confusing collision between this self-made scrapyard-man chic gate and the ever changing skyline of overheated urban regeneration.
The new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!
Corinthians 5:17
Archival photographs – Manchester Local Image Collection
Postcards from Swansea
Obliquely beginning with a postcard to Swansea
A Swansea man has been left scratching his head after receiving a postcard from Spain 29 years after it was sent.
The card, dated September 25 1986, dropped through the letterbox of Gethin Davies from Bonymaen.
Bearing two 1980s Spanish stamps and a British second-class stamp, it was sent by someone called Phyl, to a Mrs E Leon.
Mr Davies now hopes to reunite it with the person it was intended for.
In his postcard, Phyl writes that the weather is nice, he has a self-catering apartment near a pond, but complains about the expensive cost of Spanish bread at £1 a loaf.
Although it was delivered to the right address on the card, Mr Davies said he has no clue who either Phyl or Mrs Leon could be.
I’ve been baffled by it really.
I suppose Mrs Leon once lived in my flat, but I’ve asked around neighbours who have lived here twenty or thirty years, and none of them have ever heard of her.
The Post Office say they have no idea what could have happened to the postcard for twenty nine years, may be it got stuck in a sorting machine, may be given that it’s got both British and Spanish stamps on it, someone found it and posted it on.
Really I’d just like to find out who either Phyl or Mrs Leon are, so I could finally give it to them after all this time.
Curiously the story does not reproduce the picture of the picture postcard.
Dear Eddie, this is a very pleasant place and the weather is just right. The food is very expensive though over £1 for a loaf of bread! We have a self catering little apartment by the side of a pond complete with ducks.
Love Phil xxx
September 25th 1986
My interest is in both sides of the subject – the choice of picture and the carefully composed message on the obverse.
I have written concerning shopping precincts and shopping precinct postcards and often make reference to postcards when compiling posts about places.
There is something very poignant about the handwritten reportage of holidays past and also a sadness attached to the blank other side -sentiments forever unsent.
I’ve looked at life from both sides now
From win and lose and still somehow
It’s life’s illusions I recall
I really don’t know life at all
We are all going somewhere or nowhere or other – we report back.
Having a nice relaxing holiday. Not had good weather. Got caught in rain on Friday have lost my voice. Uncle Jim laughing
Auntie Ethel & Jim
Hope Leslies finger is coming on alright
20th August 1968
Hello Sharon, hope you are as happy as can be. Sorry I can’t tell you anything about your country, as I’ve never been; not yet anyway.
Bye Don
23rd April 1979
Dear Rita, here we are enjoying our holiday with Frank, Jacky & Stuart. The weather has been very poor, but there is an improvement today. Hope all is well with you. Lynn her husband and the little ones are visiting on thursday, so we shall have a real tea-party.
Everyone joins in sending love to you.
Frank & Irene
July 23rd 1985
David, Best Wishes
From
Steve
Wish we were there?
Wythenshawe Walk
We begin at the William Temple Church
The Anglican Church of William Temple was opened in 1965 on the corner of Robinswood Road and Simonsway as the church of the Civic Centre. The mission was already well-established, having begun many years previously in Shadow Moss School Room, latterly operating in a dual-purpose building on Simonsway. The architect, George Pace, agreed with the proviso that he should not design a ‘pseudo’ building, but that it should be modern in concept. This he did and particular attention was paid to the acoustics with a view to music and drama being performed there. One of Pace’s stipulations was that, as with all the churches he designed, there must be no plaques attached to the walls commemorating the dedication of the church or in memory of anyone, for he said he built his churches to the Glory of God. The only lettered stone is on the back wall of the church and it has on it the date of the consecration and a symbol, which is Pace’s original sign for William Temple Church.
The internal supports of the church are black-painted steel girders, not romantically symbolising the industry of the area, as it is sometimes said, but because when it was discovered that the church had been built on swampy ground an extra £2,000 was needed for foundations; the wooden beams of the original design had to be changed for cheaper steel ones. There is symbolism, however, in the placing of the font between and beneath the three main weight-bearing supports of the church.
The pews have an interesting history, having been brought from derelict churches in and around Manchester.
The present lady churchwarden said:
“whenever we heard of a church being demolished we borrowed Mr. Owen’s coal cart and went off to see if we could buy any of the pews. Many times I’ve sat on the back of the wagon, in the pouring rain, with the pews, bringing them back to Wythenshawe to be stored until our church building was completed!”
Some time after the building was opened, a fire damaged some of the pews. With the insurance money all the pews were stripped and bleached, giving an element of uniformity and a bright welcoming atmosphere in the church generally. An interesting thought was voiced that as many people living in Wythenshawe now had their origins near to the centre of Manchester they may be sitting in the same pews in which their ancestors once sat.
Onwards to St Anthony’s RC – seen here under construction.
An imposing and monumental building by Adrian Gilbert Scott.
The church has a rich, little-altered interior with strong architectural qualities and notable furnishings. The church is described as ‘one of the few real landmarks of Wythenshawe’ and ‘beautifully built’, by Hartwell, Hyde and Pevsner 2004
The church was listed Grade II in 2014.
It replaced the Green Hut.
Backtrack to St Andrews Architects JCG Prestwich and Son 1960 – as seen by Comrade Yuri Gagarin 12th July 1961 – detailed here.
We now take a secular route around the back of the Civic Centre to look at Centron and Delta House.
Built in 1972 to encourage white collar jobs into the area, formerly occupied by Shell and the TSB, currently partially unoccupied.
Across the way the former Barclay’s Bank IT HQ by DLG Shuldham the bank’s chief architect.
Just around the corner.
There were four eight-storey blocks of ‘Sectra’ flats that Laing built in Wythenshawe for Manchester County Borough Council, completed in 1967. The blocks were described by Laing in their monthly newsletter ‘Team Spirit’ in January 1968 as four blocks of specially designed eight-storey flats for elderly people.
Showing skeleton cladding, patterned end wall units and access balcony.
They were named Park Court, Violet Court, Birch Tree Court and Edwards Court.
Park Court and Violet Court have since been demolished to make way for retail space.
Tower Block 1987
Architect J Austen Bent
Local Image Collection 1972
Onwards to the most exotic magenta fire station.
Then down the road to St Luke’s 1939 by W Cecil Young of Taylor and Young.
No striving after sensational effect is strived at – Pevsner.
Down the road we go to St Martin’s.
The church is the the work of Harry Fairhurst Architects 1958.
Opened 21st March 1959.
Across the road to Tin Town.
A mini-estate of impeccably kept, neat steel-framed prefabs, designed in 1946 by Frederick Gibberd. We got a tour around one, home to former Durutti Column drummer Bruce Mitchell. The space standards and architectural quality are, as Phil Griffin points out, way above those of contemporary central Manchester luxury loft living.
Owen Hatherley – The Guardian
New residents were given the choice of an apple or pear tree.
Finally arriving at Sir Basil Spence’s St Francis of Assisi.
In December 1956 Basil Spence and Partners were commissioned to design St Francis Church in Wythenshawe, Greater Manchester. The project was part of a large building programme by the Manchester Diocese and was to service the new post-war housing estate at Newall Green. The site housed an existing hall that had been serving a dual-purpose as church and church hall but which reverted to use as a church hall once the new church was opened. The foundation stone was laid by Colin Skinner CBE on 23 April 1960 and the church was consecrated on 25 March 1961 by the Bishop of Manchester, W D L Greer.
The main building is predominantly brick; it is set back from the road by a landscaped courtyard that includes a brick tower and 73ft concrete cross. Another large cross rises from the front wall of the church itself making it highly visible from the surrounding neighbourhood.
The church can hold a congregation of 250. A small chapel is separated from the main church by a sliding screen and can be used independently for private prayer and mid week-services. On busy days the screen can be retracted to provide additional seating to the main church. A gallery over the entrance porch houses two organs and the choir.
Milton Square Gateshead
As a companion to the adjacent Poet’s Estate – let’s take a look at Malory, Milton, Masefield and Wordsworth.
This is a similar mix of boxy terraces and traffic free walkways.
Possibly of a later date.
Poet’s Estate – Gateshead
I’d seen these homes from the train.
So I walked from Newcastle to take a look.
They turn their backs on Sunderland Road and the Tyne.
A tight cluster of terraced apartments, set in a grassy rolling terrain, linked by paths and short underpasses.
A modern mediaeval, mildly fortified village, rendered in pale brick and white render.
Keats, Kipling, Blake, Byron and Shelley enclosed.
Take a look around #40
Higher Openshaw
There’s been more than a few comings and goings along Ashton Old Road.
Where once there were fields, homes and industry arrive, as the Industrial Revolution is in full swing.
The streets to the north of Ashton Old Road are alive with shops, homes, people and prams.
Along with the occasional motor car.
The Old Road boasted some fine busy boozers.
And a splendid church and school.
The man responsible for the majority of these archive photographs is Tommy Brooks of 56 Gransmoor Road.
He is my hero, a member go the Manchester Amateur Photographic Society, cycling the streets of Manchester to produce a unique record of life in the Sixties.
The Manchester Image Collection is awash with his work.
Chapeau Tommy!
The house is no longer there – the area has recently been redeveloped, some older properties demolished, and new homes built.
Though The Gransmoor is no longer The Gransmoor.
Although it briefly became CKs
Converted to retail use 24th September 2012 after closure. This interesting Victorian building stands back from the road with what may well be a coach road in front. Inside the high ceilings and glorious plasterwork gave the impression of a gentlemen’s club. Though it previously sold cask Banks’s beers in its earlier years, its final days were seen out with only keg beers being available.
St Clements still prevails with a healthy congregation.
In 2010 several properties were removed and the land levelled.
Eleven years later old and new now snuggle up together.
The street structure is more or less unchanged.
Though sadly the wonderfully named Ambush Street is no more.
So the big wheel keeps on turning new homes, new folk and new life for East Manchester.
Portwood Stockport 2021
We have previously taken a look at Portwood as was – let’s take a giant leap forward to today.
The industry to the east has gone west – no more bees and alligators, instead there’s Tesco and Porsche.
Why make when you can buy?
Meadow Mill has long since ceased to spin and weave – currently undergoing adaptation into modern residential living.
I though, have always been fascinated by the rough ground that now seems so left behind.
Where once I found a weathered book of lost photographs.
This is a scarred and neglected landscape, even the developer’s sign has given up the ghost.
There are brambles, buddleia, rough grass and teasels amongst the rubble.
The remnants of roads, kerbed and tarred, strewn with hastily dumped detritus.
Puddled and forlorn.
Enter beneath the M60, where the Tame and Goyt conjoin to become the Mersey, a dimly lit passage home to the itinerant aerosol artistes.
All that remains of the long gone mills – the concrete base.
Detritus tipped and strewn, amongst the moss.
The remnants of roads going nowhere.
Surrounded by cars going nowhere.
Contemporary architecture creating cavernous canyons.
A landscape forever changing, caught between expectation and fulfilment, paradise forever postponed.
This horror will grow mild, this darkness light.
John Milton
Derby Day 2013 – Etihad Stadium
This is my first visit to a match day at the Etihad – having last watched City at Maine Road, from that uncovered corner enclave, the Kippax Paddock – the so called Gene Kelly Stand
Singing in the Rain
It all ended in ruins.
Demolished, the last ball kicked in anger Sunday 11th May 2003.
To the other side of the city and rebranded Eastlands, occupying the former Commonwealth Games Stadium.
Owners John Wardle and Thaksin Shinawatra came and went.
Since 4 August 2008, the club has been owned by Sheikh Mansour, one of football’s wealthiest owners, with an estimated individual net worth of at least £17 billion and a family fortune of at least $1 trillion.
A far cry from Peter Swales and his TV Repair shop on Washway Road.
The game has changed, money is in motion, fans travel from every corner of the globe, fuelled by the Murdoch Dollar and the insatiable thirst for televised football.
So it’s the 22nd September 2013 – I though I’d take a look around town first.
Kits and colours in abundance – though some of these colours can and will run.
Off then to the Etihad and its the Pellegrini squad versus Moyes’ boys.
This is a world within a world as the Middle East seeks to lighten its carbon footprint, and put its size nines all over east Manchester.
Corporate greeting on Joe Mercer Way, executive sweeteners, in the form of earthbound airline hostesses.
Groups from the Antipodes happy to embrace the jumbo blue letters – no boots, no hustling, no barging through swelling crowds, no menacing looks from beneath feather cut fringes.
No none of that any more.
I made my excuses and left.
Manchester City ensured David Moyes’ first derby as Manchester United manager ended in abject humiliation with a crushing victory at the Etihad Stadium.
In contrast to the despair of his opposite number, it was a day of delight for new City boss Manuel Pellegrini as he watched the rampant Blues make a powerful statement about their Premier League ambitions.
Sergio Aguero and Yaya Toure gave City a commanding half-time lead and any slim hopes of a United recovery were snuffed out by further goals from Aguero and Samir Nasri within five minutes of the restart.
Deneway Stockport Again
Here we are again then – having stopped to snap this July.
I’ve gone completely round the bend and over the hill – just by leaving my own abode, situated just below Deneway.
Early morning low light on wet roads, the mixed palette of brick simply glows.
Walls fleetingly adorned with shadows of birch and willow.
Hamilton Street – Ashton under Lyne
Prompted by Gillian and Adam’s – A Different North project, my thoughts turned once again to notions of the North, similar notions have been considered in my previous posts:
A Taste of the North and A Taste of Honey.
I recalled the 2016 season Sky Football promotional film, it had featured a street in Ashton under Lyne, it had featured Hamilton Street.
A street spanning the West End and the Ryecroft areas of the town, the town where I had lived for most of my teenage years. The town where my Mam was born and raised in nearby Hill Street, nearby West End Park where my Grandad I had worked, nearby Ashton Moss and Guide Bridge.
This is an area familiar to me, which became the convergent point of a variety of ideas and images, mediated in part by the mighty Murdoch Empire.
Here was the coming together of coal and cotton, an influx of population leaving the fields for pastures new.
In the film, Leytonstone London born David Beckham is seen running down the snow covered northern street.
A credit to our emergent mechanical snow generation industry.
According to snowmakers.com, it takes 74,600 gallons of water to cover a 200 by 200-foot plot with 6 inches of snow. Climate change is cutting snow seasons short, we make snow to compensate, more energy is spent making snow, more coal is burned, more CO2 is released.
It is to be noted that locally there has been a marked decline in snowfall in recent years, the Frozen North possibly a thing of the past.
The temperatures around the UK and Europe have actually got warmer over the last few decades, although when you are out de-icing your car it may not actually feel as though it has. Whilst this can not be directly link to climate change, it is fair to assume that climate change is playing a part.
It is also to be noted that Sky Supremo Rupert Murdoch has described himself as a climate change “sceptic”.
Appearing arms raised outside of the home of a family clustered around the television, in their front room.
Filming the ad was great and the finished piece is a really clever way of showing that you never know what might happen in football, I always enjoy working with Sky Sports and I’m proud to be associated with their football coverage.
The area does have a football heritage, Ashton National Football Club played in the Cheshire County League in the 1920s and 1930s. They were sometimes also known as Ashton National Gas, due to their connections with the National Gas and Oil Engine Company based in the town.
Illustrative of a time when sport and local industry went hand in glove.
The National Ground was subsequently taken over by Curzon Ashton who have since moved to the Tameside Stadium.
Ashton & Hyde Village Hotels occupy the front of shirt sponsors spot on our new blue and white home shirt, while Seed of Speed, our official conditioning partners, feature on the arm, and Minuteman Press occupy the back of the shirt. Meanwhile, Regional Steels UK Ltd. are the front of shirt sponsors on our new pink and black away kit.
Illustrative of a time when sport and local industry continue to work hand in glove.
Local lad Gordon Alexander Taylor OBE is a former professional footballer. He has been chief executive of the English footballers’ trades union, the Professional Footballers’ Association, since 1981. He is reputed to be the highest paid union official in the world.
His mobile phone messages were allegedly hacked by a private investigator employed by the News of the World newspaper. The Guardian reported that News International paid Taylor £700,000 in legal costs and damages in exchange for a confidentiality agreement barring him from speaking about the case.
News International is owned by our old pal Rupert Murdoch, the News of the World no longer exists.
The view of Hamilton Street closely mirrors LS Lowry’s Street Scene Pendlebury – the mill looming large over the fierce perspective of the roadway. The importance of Lowry’s role in constructing a popular image of the North cannot be overestimated.
He finds a grim beauty in his views of red facades, black smoke and figures in white, snowy emptiness. He is a modern primitive, an industrial Rousseau, whose way of seeing is perhaps the only one that could do justice to the way places like Salford looked in the factory age.
For many years cosmopolitan London turned its back on Lowry, finally relenting with a one man show at the Tate in 2013 – I noted on the day of my visit, that the attendant shop stocked flat caps, mufflers and bottled beer, they seemed to have drawn the line at inflatable whippets.
Drawing upon other artists’s work, in a continuous search for ways to depict the unlovely facts of the city’s edges and the landscape made by industrialisation.
But Murdoch’s Hamilton Street is as much a construct as Lowry’s – the snow an expensive technical coating, Mr Beckham a CGI apparition. Our contemporary visual culture is littered with digital detritus, saving time and money, conjuring up cars, kids and footballers at will.
An illusion within an illusion of an illusory North.
Green screen chroma keyed onto the grey tableau.
Mr Beckham himself can also be seen as a media construct, for many years representing that most Northern of institutions Manchester United – itself yet another product of image manipulation, its tragic post-Munich aura encircling the planet, with an expensive Empire Made, red and white scarf of cultural imperialism.
David’s parents were fanatical Manchester United supporters who frequently travelled 200 miles to Old Trafford from London to attend the team’s home matches, he inherited his parents’ love of Manchester United, and his main sporting passion was football.
Mr B’s mentor was of course former Govan convener – Mr A Ferguson, who headed south to find his new Northern home, creating and then destroying the lad’s career, allegedly by means of boot and hairdryer.
Here we have the traditional Northern Alpha Male challenged by the emergent Metrosexual culture, celebrity fragrances, posh partner, tattooed torso, and skin conditioner endorsements.
It is to be noted that the wealth of the region, in part created by the shoemaking and electrical industries, have long since ceased to flourish, though still trading, PIFCO no longer has a local base.
The forces of free market monopoly capitalism have made football and its attendant personalities global commodities, and manufacturing by and large, merely a fanciful folk memory.
Hamilton Street would have provided substantial homes to workers at the Ryecroft Cotton Mills.
Ryecroft Mill, built in 1837,was the second of a series of four mills built on the site, the first was built in 1834. In 1843, over 10,000 people were employed in Ashton’s cotton mills – today there are none.
This industrial growth was far from painless and Ashton along with other Tameside towns, worked long and hard in order to build the Chartist Movement, fighting to establish better working conditions for all.
The tradition of political and religious non-conformity runs wide and deep here, the oft overlooked history of Northern character and culture.
Textile production ceased in the 1970s and the mill is now home to Ryecroft Foods, a subsidiary of Weetabix.
Ashton like many of Manchester’s satellite towns created enormous wealth during the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries. The workers of Ashton saw little of that wealth, the social and economic void left by the rapid exodus of the cotton industry to the Far East, is still waiting to be filled, in these so called left behind towns.
Here is a landscape nestled in the foot of the Pennines, struggling to escape its past and define a future.
Bollards
As I was out walking on the corner one day, I spied an old bollard in the alley he lay.
To paraphrase popular protest troubadour Bob Dylan.
I was struck by the elegant symmetry and rough patinated grey aggregate.
To look up on the world from a hole in the ground,
To wait for your future like a horse that’s gone lame,
To lie in the gutter and die with no name?
I mused briefly on the very word bollards, suitable perhaps for a provincial wine bar, Regency period drama, or family run drapers – but mostly.
A bollard is a sturdy, short, vertical post. The term originally referred to a post on a ship or quay used principally for mooring boats, but is now also used to refer to posts installed to control road traffic and posts designed to prevent ram-raiding and vehicle-ramming attacks.
The term is probably related to bole, meaning a tree trunk.
Having so mused I began to wander a tight little island of alleys and homes, discovering three of the little fellas, each linked by typology and common ancestry, steadfastly impeding the ingress of the motor car.
Yet also presenting themselves as mini works of utilitarian art – if that’s not a contradiction in terms.
Having returned home I began another short journey into the world of bollards, where do they come from?
Hostile Vehicle Mitigation
Huge range • Fast delivery • Right on price
PAS 68 approved protection for your people and property combining security, natural materials and style.
My new pals seem to be closely related to the Reigate.
Available in a mind boggling range of finishes.
Bollards can be our friends, an expression of personal freedom and security.
A pensioner says he will go to court if necessary after putting up concrete bollards in a last-ditch attempt to protect his home.
Owen Allan, 74, of Beaufort Gardens, Braintree, claims motorists treat the housing estate like a race track, driving well in excess of the 20mph speed limit, and that the railings in front of his home have regularly been damaged by vehicles leaving the road.
He was worried it would only be a matter of time before a car came careering off Marlborough Road and flying through the wall of his bungalow.
Though on occasion may be perceived as an enemy of personal liberty, precipitating a head on collision with the local authority.
A furious family have been stopped from parking on their own driveway after bullyboy council officials installed concrete bollards outside their home.
We’re stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea here what the with yellow lines and the bollards.
I have cause to thank the humble concrete bollard, having suffered an assault on our front wall from a passing pantechnicon, I subsequently petitioned the council, requiring them to erect a substantial bollard barrier.
Which was subsequently hit by a passing pantechnicon.
They are our modernist friends, little gems of public art and should treated with due respect – think on.
You hostile vehicles.
Modern Mooch 