It was decided to build a new church in 1963, when the architects Burles, Newton & Partners were appointed and drew up a scheme for a church seating 470. Financial restraints delayed the start of building work until 1966. The contractors were William Thorpe and the foundation stone was laid by Bishop Burke in October 1967. The church was opened two years later in 1969. The church was built to reflect the emerging liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council, with a wide interior affording full views of the altar. The same architects designed a presbytery, added in 1974-5. A sanctuary reordering took place at some point when the Blessed Sacrament Chapel became the Lady Chapel and the tabernacle was placed behind the altar. The altar rails were removed, and the sanctuary carpeted. Perhaps at the same time the font was brought from the baptistery into the body of the church.
Description
All orientations given are liturgical. The church is a steel-framed structure with loadbearing gable walls built on a series of rafts to guard against mining subsidence. It was designed to ensure that the congregation would have unimpeded views of the sanctuary, and the architects described the layout as ‘in conformity with the Spirit of the new Constitution’. The plan is near rectangular, angled at the east end, with a striking roof swooping up at the east end and trios of sharply pointed gables on each side.
The building is entered on the northwest side via a low porch which gives to a narthex and a former baptistery lit by a pyramidal roof light, attached on the west side. Light pours in to the narthex from a screen with semi-abstract stained glass with the ox symbol of St Luke, an original fixture. The nave is an impressive and memorable space with the boarded roof forming dramatic shapes which frame the east end and sanctuary, where a pair of full-height slit windows are angled to cast light without creating glare and frame a Crucifix. The roof rises up on each side of the big triangular windows on the north and south sides. Those to the south have stained glass showing the Tree of Life the True Vine and the Cross of Faith designed by Roy Coomber of Pendle Stained Glass in 2002-3. There is a cantilevered west gallery with a pipe organ set into the wall above it and a southeast chapel, now a Lady Chapel, formerly of the Blessed Sacrament, with stained glass on sacramental themes. A Pietà in the chapel probably originated in the previous church. The tabernacle, of stainless steel with high relief abstract modelling, was repositioned behind the altar at the time of the reordering. This item and the sanctuary Crucifix with a gilded figure are by an unknown artist. Stations of the Cross are by Harold Riley, installed in circa 2003. They consist of triptychs executed in pencil and wash. Other works by Riley include a study of the Virgin dated 2003 and a print of his painting Our Lady of Manchester.
Three nineteen-storey point blocks built as public housing as part of the redevelopment of Sunderland town centre. The blocks contain 270 dwellings in total. Construction was approved by committee in 1967.
The blocks were constructed by Sunderland County Borough Council.
The developers of the Town Central Area were Town and City Properties Ltd. It is believed that they contributed £38,600 to the development of the blocks.
Ian Frazer and Associates were the architects for the sub-structural works only.
Llewelyn, Davies, Weeks and Partners were the structural and mechanical engineers in addition to being the architects for the tower blocks.
Gilbert-Ash Northern Ltd.’s tender for the contract was £959,258 – construction began in March 1967.
Black’s Regal Theatre was built on the site of the Olympia Exhibition Hall and Pleasuredrome 1897-1910 and it was built for the northern independent Black’s circuit. It opened on 28th March 1932 with Jessie Matthews in Out of the Blue.
The theatre was equipped with a Compton three manual, nine ranks theatre organ which had an Art Deco style console on a lift.
This was opened by organist J Arnold Eagle. The policy of the theatre for many years was pictures and variety and it had a fifty seven feet wide proscenium, the stage was forty feet deep and there were ten dressing rooms. Other facilities included a cafe and roller rink.
Regal/Odeon, Holmeside, Sunderland, Co. Durham
In 1955 the Black’s circuit was taken over by the Rank Organisation and the Regal was re-named Odeon from 28th November 1955. It was divided into a three screen cinema in 1975 with 1,200 seats in the former circle and two 150 seat screens in the rear stalls.
On 28th March 1982 a special 50th Anniversary concert was given by Phil Kelsall on the Compton organ. Three months later, on 26th June 1982 the Odeon was closed with One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Star Wars & The Empire Strikes Back, Mary Millington’s True Blue Confessions.
The building was boarded up and abandonded for a long period of time.
However it was to re-open as a Top Rank Bingo Club and remains in use today as a Mecca Bingo Club. The sub-division of the auditorium has been removed. In July 2009, it was announced that the building and the entire block had been the subject of a compulsory purchase order.
Opened on 1st March 1937 with Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers in Swing Time, the Ritz Cinema was built by the Union Cinemas chain. They were soon taken over by Associated British Cinemas – ABC. It was lavishly fitted with deep pile carpets and chandeliers.
In 1961 it was re-named ABC. It was converted into a two screen cinema from July/August 1974 when the former circle became a 534 seat screen and the front stalls a second screen seating 212. The rear stalls area was converted into a Painted Wagon pub. Sadly the conversion destroyed much of the original interior of the auditorium. It was later taken over by the Cannon Cinemas group, but later went back to the ABC name.
Sadly it closed on 29th April 1999, the last of Sunderland’s major cinemas.
It has recently reopened as The Point a nightclub which has four dance floors and has now completely lost all features of its cinematic past.
Construction of Killingworth, a new town, began in 1963. Intended for 20,000 people, it was a former mining community, formed on seven hundred and sixty acres of derelict colliery land near Killingworth Village. The building of Killingworth Township was undertaken by Northumberland County Council and was not formally a New Town sponsored by the Government.
Unlike that town, Killingworth’s planners adopted a radical approach to town centre design, resulting in relatively high-rise buildings in an avant-garde and brutalist style that won awards for architecture, dynamic industry and attractive environment.
This new town centre consisted of pre-cast concrete houses, with millions of small crustacean shells unusually embedded into their external walls, five to ten storey flats, offices, industrial units and service buildings, which often consisted of artistic non-functional characteristics, shops and residential multi-storey car parks, interconnected by ramps and walkways. These made up a deck system of access to shopping and other facilities, employing the Swedish Skarne method of construction.
Originally named Killingworth Township, the latter part was quickly dropped through lack of colloquial use.
Killingworth is referred to as Killy by many residents of the town and surrounding areas.
Around 1964, during the reclamation of the derelict pit sites, a fifteen acre lake south of the town centre was created; spoil heaps were levelled, seeded and planted with semi-mature trees.
In 1987 the demolition of this three-tier housing estate of the township was undertaken by the Architects’ Department of the Metropolitan Borough of North Tyneside.
Photo: Philip Wolmuth
Once the wrecking ball arrives new town can begin to look like any old town.
Following Euan Lynn’s suggestion – I went to take a look around.
From the window of the 52 bus, I saw an enchanting Telephone Exchange.
This joint-stock bank was established in Manchester in 1836 as Manchester & Salford Bank by a group of promoters keen to take advantage of recent legislation allowing the formation of joint-stock banks outside London. The bank had up to 15 directors and the issued capital was £1m, of which £252,100 was paid up by December 1836.
RIBA Pix: Headquarters building for William Deacon’s Bank Limited – Mosley Street Manchester: the garden at podium level.
Harry S Fairhurst & Son 1965
The first shareholders’ meeting, in May 1836, took place in temporary premises, but in August 1836 a banking house was rented in King Street. Land off Mosley Street was later acquired and a new banking house completed in 1838.
In 1969 The Royal Bank of Scotland was restructured and Williams Deacon’s became a direct subsidiary of a new holding company, National & Commercial Banking Group. The following year the holding company’s subsidiaries in England and Wales – Williams Deacon’s Bank, Glyn, Mills & Co and the English and Welsh branches of The National Bank – merged to form Williams & Glyn’s Bank.
In 1972 Williams & Glyn’s Bank joined with five other European banks to form the Inter Alpha Banks Group to exploit opportunities in the European Economic Community. In 1985 The Royal Bank of Scotland Group’s two major subsidiary holdings, Williams & Glyn’s Bank and The Royal Bank of Scotland, were fully merged as The Royal Bank of Scotland plc.
The very merry monopolies and mergers merry dance – consequently this perfectly formed Modernist bank stands alone and forlorn.
The first school of design in the UK, the Government School of Design, was established in 1837 and went on to become the Royal College of Art. It marked the beginnings of the development of technical education in the UK, which expanded in the remaining decades of the 19th century, and was largely instigated by the Science and Art Department of the Board of Trade, formed in 1853. In 1856 the Science and Art Department transferred from the Board of Trade to the Education Department and administered grant-aid to art schools from 1856 and to schools of design and technical schools from 1868.
The Technical Instruction Act 1889 permitted local authorities to levy rates to aid technical or manual instruction. County and borough councils began to provide technical instruction by day and evening classes.
The Local Taxation Customs and Excise Act 1890 diverted ‘whisky money’ from publicans to local authorities for assisting technical education or relieving rates, boosting investment in technical instruction.
By the end of the 19th century continuing education was provided by a variety of bodies in a number of forms:
day continuation schools
evening schools and classes
mechanics institutes
schools of art
polytechnics
university extension lectures
tutorial classes
working men’s colleges and courses
Under the 1902 Education Act, changes to conditions attached to government grants encouraged the expansion of technical education. Local Education Authorities took over most of the evening continuation schools.
Major changes occurred after the Second World War. Junior technical schools , commercial schools and schools of art were fully integrated into the revised system of secondary education.
Manchester School of Art was established in 1838 as the Manchester School of Design. It is the second oldest art school in the United Kingdom after the Royal College of Art which was founded the year before.
The school opened in the basement of the Manchester Royal Institution on Mosley Street in 1838. It became the School of Art in 1853 and moved to Cavendish Street in 1880. It was subsequently named the Municipal School of Art. In 1880, the school admitted female students, at the time the only higher education available to women, although men and women were segregated. The school was extended in 1897.
The mill towns which encircled the city of Manchester each had their own independent colleges of Art and Design.
Textiles in particular required practitioners in surface pattern and garment design and construction, innovative and skilled students were in demand for print, engineering, architecture and general manufacturing – who also required the services of typographers, illustrators, commercial and graphic designers.
Having left school aged sixteen in 1971, all I ever wanted to do was go to Art School.
My local college was the then Ashton under Lyne College of Further Education – the full-time mode of study was then a two year Pre-Diploma Course.
It had begun life as the Heginbottom School of Art based at – Heginbottom Technical Schools School of Art and Free Library Old Street Ashton-under-Lyne.
The new Technical Schools and Free Library, which has just been completed were opened for students without any formal ceremony. The building has been erected from designs prepared by Messrs John Eaton and Sons, architects, Ashton, at a cost, including fittings of £16,000.
The building is now Grade II listed and the library and college long gone.
A blue plaque in the main entrance celebrates the former student Raymond Ray-Jones.
This is the syllabus of 1924-25 – courses take place in evening as students would have been working during the day.
Many of the classes were clearly defined by gender.
Drawing was a seen as a skill which underpinned he majority of disciplines.
Some of the provision was non-vocational.
Forward now to 1959-60.
There are now full-time courses in Art and Design – though there were no degree courses until 1974, students would find employment, places on a teacher training course or possibly progress to one of the London colleges, which did have graduate status.
There were still clear distinctions in what were considered women’s skills, which also reflected the patterns of employment.
There was also an increasing distinction between specialisms, Fine and Applied Arts taking diverging paths.
An astounding range of skills were available on a part time evening basis, opening up vocational or non-vocational options.
These were always affordable and well attended.
Art and design education had undergone a major transformation in the early 1960s. The Coldstream report -1960/ 1962 had restructured art education: the existing National Diploma in Design had been replaced with a three year Diploma in Art and Design in 1963. The Dip.AD was conceived as providing ‘a liberal education in art’ and had four areas of specialisation: textiles/fashion, three dimensional design, graphic design, and fine art. Other subjects, such as electronic media, photography and film, were incorporated into fine art or graphic design courses.
The Dip.AD was intended to be the equivalent of a university degree. To achieve this academic entry requirements, at least five O’ levels, were introduced; although exceptions could be granted for “students with outstanding artistic promise”, very few were: only 36 were made in 1967 . The Dip. AD itself contained a compulsory academic element and enhanced art history component: taken together these accounted for 15 per cent of course time and 20 per cent of the final pass mark. One year Pre-diploma (latterly Foundation) courses termed Basic Design, were also introduced, these a product of the Bauhaus approach to art education, pioneered in the UK by and Richard Hamilton, Tom Hudson, Harr Thubron, Maurice de Sausmarez, and Victor Pasmore. Basic Design was a form of creative education involving basic analytic experiment and a clearing of the slate.
The college which I attended was opened on March 3rd 1964.
Gone were the autocratic Victorian stylings of the Heginbottom School – The College of Further Education represented a more open democratic age.
The communal areas were light and airy, with full-length windows, wooden floors, contemporary furniture and fittings.
The teaching rooms and workshops well equipped and staffed, with ample support from technicians and lecturers.
This was a no expense spared build – we were made to feel valued, in an institution purpose built for our education and future lives.
The full-time course was five full days a week, with one late evening for photography and art history.
I attended ever single day for two years, we were eager to learn and following an introductory merry go round of design disciplines, students were able to choose their own route.
I was privileged to have been taught by Bill Clarke as a student of Fine Art – of whom fellow Ashton student Chris Ofili said:
After six months on the foundation course I chose to specialise in painting and drawing. The teacher there, Bill Clarke, introduced me to painting in a way that didn’t make me feel restricted or limited. Not only was it something completely new, but it was something that allowed me to investigate further into who I am. He taught us that it wasn’t so much about painting a scene and making sure you got the shading right, but trying to get to a point where the thing that works is absolutely critical and essential to you as a living, breathing person. I was obviously aware of famous artists, but I suppose I never really thought that was what you could do with your life. He opened the door enough to make me think that it was worth going into the room.
A huge emphasis was placed on observational drawing in the life-room, in addition to more exploratory work in a variety of media.
I also spent a great deal of time in the Print Room working in both etching and lithography with lecturer Colin Radcliffe.
Returning to the college four years ago, I found that the life room was now in use by the Animal Management course.
The site had been undergoing refurbishment and new development.
Built by Kier and designed by IBI Taylor and Young the Advanced Technologies Centre has been constructed following a £10.5 million investment.
Levolux designed, supplied and installed a customised architectural facade solution as part of the £10.5 million development of the Advanced Technologies Centre.
ITP supplied our VCL 250 vapour control layer as a protective solution underneath a stunning façade design. With a mono-filament reinforcement scrim for tensile strength, its polyethylene-based membrane ensures that the building envelope is properly sealed to control ventilation, prevent heat loss and protect insulates from interstitial condensation.
The single storey building was previously home to the Ceramics and Textiles rooms.
The Construction Skills Centre has been designed by Manchester-based architects 10 Architect.
Heckford Signs work with Willmott Dixon approached on a new coloured acrylic sign for the new Construction Skills Building at Tameside College. The aim for this new sign was to create a showcase of the college logo at an eye-catching size, to include 3D elements which would be housed on the East elevation of the impressive new building on campus.
The rolling curves of the original workshops have been retained and updated.
Since leaving the college in 1973, I graduated from Portsmouth Polytechnic with a BA(Hons) Printmaking, subsequently spending thirty years of my working life teaching in a variety of Further Educational sites across Manchester.
Fielden Park College seen here in 1973 – where I taught design to the printing apprentices.
Originally designed by the City Architect SG Besant Roberts in 1965, refurbished by Walker Simpson Architects.
Closed.
Wenlock Way – an annex of Openshaw Technical College, a former primary school which housed courses in Sign Writing, Jewellery, Horology and Retail Display.
Demolished.
Openshaw College – since demolished and rebuilt, becoming Central Manchester College in the 90s.
We were relocated to Taylor Street in the former Bishop Greer School – renamed the East Manchester Centre.
Since demolished to make way for an old people’s home.
Following the reorganisation of Manchester’s FE provision we were moved again to the former Yew Tree High School, Arden Sixth Form College – renamed City College Manchester.
This block was eventually demolished to make way for the new Northenden Centre – which closed last year, which has in its turn been demolished.
Everyone was relocated to the brand new building on the former Boddington’s Brewery site.
Everyone but me, as I left in 2014 to become a modern moocher.
Manchester College City Campus
Following build completion in July, the long awaited 27,000 square metre, four-storey campus, designed by Bond Bryan and Simpson Haugh, offers a range of facilities, creating an exceptional student experience. It becomes the home of the College’s Industry Excellence Academies for Hospitality and Catering, Creative and Digital Media, Music, Computing and Digital as well as its Centres of Excellence for Visual Arts and Performing Arts.
It accommodates a range of Higher Education courses such as the UCEN Manchester’s School of Computing and Cyber-Security, The Manchester Film School and The Arden School of Theatre and the School of Art, Media and Make-up.
Derby’s Eagle Market, which has been open for nearly 50 years, is set to close for good in around six months from now. The indoor market is expected to shut down in March, traders were told in a memo late last month.
The long-standing city centre market has undergone major changes since opening in 1975. Over the past 46 years, dozens of traders have come and gone, from fruit and veg sellers to fine clothes retailers, pottery makers.
The nut stall that is greatly missed by nut fans.
Singer Frankie Vaughan opens Jack’s Rainwear at the market in 1976.
When it first opened, the venue was a maze of hexagonal stalls, which gave it a futuristic look, but it was a confusing layout and it was difficult to navigate and find the stall you wanted. The hexagons came down in 1990 in favour of a more traditional, open layout which made the market easier to escape in the event of a fire.
The Modernist modular structure replaced by a higher High-Tech roofing solution.
Petes Heel bar will be missed, along with his missing apostrophe.
The redevelopment masterplan includes new homes and commercial uses with new public spaces and walkable streets that will integrate the site with the rest of the City Centre and improve new connections to the river. There is scope to introduce some tall buildings to make better use of the site with new food and beverage, leisure and other activity at ground floor level. The proposals will contribute towards the Council’s vision in a way that responds positively to the site context including surrounding character areas.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
More recently it has had a renaissance under the stewardship of local lad Louis Beckett.
The community centre now provides space for local bands to rehearse, local artists to exhibit their work, a community cafe and larger function rooms that are available for events.
A wide range of events takes place here through the year including live gigs, pantomines, Halloween parties, cabaret nights and art exhibitions, and since 2012 it’s been home to the Moston Small Cinema which screens a range of films and sporting events.
I popped by a couple of weeks ago and was given a terrific tour by Paula and Lou, along with a competitively priced tasty brew and breakfast.
Work was underway for the current Art Show and evidence of the club’s affable affiliation with FC Unitedof Manchester, along with the results of the previous week’s art activities for the local youngsters.
Let’s take a look around outside and in.
Keep an eye and ear out for forthcoming events – get y’self up there soon!
Manchester City Council agreed to use the Phoenixmodel for their prefab estates.
A total of 43,206 Phoenix prefabs were built across the country, each one designed by the John Laing Group.
The Phoenix, designed by Laing and built by themselves as well as partners McAlpine and Henry Boot, looked much like an AIROH with a central front door. It was a two-bedroom in-situ preform design with steel frame, asbestos clad walls and an innovative roof of tubular steel poles with steel panels attached. Like all designs, it came pre-painted in magnolia, with green highlights on frames and skirting.
Phoenix prefabs cost £1,200 each constructed onsite, while the specially insulated version designed for use on the Isle of Lewis in the Hebrides cost £2,000.
More than once, though that’s no reason not to do so again – so I did.
Saying hello to Harold.
Harold saying hello to us:
Nostalgia won’t pay the bills; the world doesn’t owe us a living; and we must harness the scientific revolution to win in the years to come. This scientific revolution is making it physically possible, for the first time in human history, to conquer poverty and disease, to move towards universal literacy, and to achieve for the whole people better living standards than those enjoyed by tiny privileged classes in previous epochs.
He warned change would have to reach every corner of the country; The Britain that is going to be formed in the white heat of this revolution will be no place for the restrictive practices or for outdated methods on either side of industry.
Standing sentinel over one of Nikolaus Pevsner and John Betjeman’s favourite railway station front elevations.
Through a passage darkly.
Emerging into the light of day and the demolition of the Kirklees College 1969-72 by Borough Architect Charles Edmund Aspinall.
My thanks to the Metropolitan team who invited me in beyond the barriers.
We provide safe and efficient demolition services across a broad range of projects, from the small domestic dwelling to large scale industrial units – we offer the complete solution. With excellent communication and impeccable health and safety standards, we can project manage the decommissioning a structure on time and on budget.
Edward VII is under wraps.
Everything else is up for smash and grab – including the later concrete block immortalised by Mandy Payne.
LIDL is coming – and some homes
The final details have now been signed off by the council and work on the six-acre site – which includes the Grade II-listed original Huddersfield Royal Infirmary – can now begin.
The vandal-hit and fire-damaged late 1960s and early 1970s college buildings are to be demolished and Lidl will build a new supermarket with a 127-space car park. The store will eventually replace the store on Castlegate.
The former hospital will be retained and the site will see 229 apartments and an office complex. The apartments are expected to be for older or retired people.
Huddersfield’s £20M game-changing bus station is set to be completed by the end of 2025 with a living grass roof, sixty bike cycle hub, upgraded shops and new facilities
Crossing the road to the Civic Centre and the perennially empty piazza which along with the Magistrates Courts and Police Station was the work of the Borough Architects team – led by Charles Edmund Aspinall.
Walking excitedly toward the Exsilite panels set in the stone faced columns – a brand name for a synthetic, moulded, artificial marble.
Magistrates Courts
Police Station
Dick Taverne served under Harold Wilson’s premiership in the 1960s, he served as a Home Office Minister from 1966 to 1968, Minister of State at the Treasury from 1968 to 1969 and then as Financial Secretary to the Treasury from 1969 to 1970.
In 1970, he helped to launch the Institute for Fiscal Studies, now an influential independent think tank and was the first Director, later chairman.
The vision is to create an inclusive space where families, residents and visitors can enjoy a vibrant mix of music, arts, food and more in one central area, overlooking a stunning new urban park.
The council plans to demolish the Piazza Centre and create a new events/live music venue, a food hall, a museum and art gallery, a new library and a new multi-storey car park, all centred around a new Town Park.
Named after one of the Twentieth Century’s finest artists, the space nurtures a new and inspired generation of designers. Through visual and physical connection, the environment encourages students to work together, stimulating communication and ingenuity, the ingredients of successful collaboration.
Take that to the bank/s
Keep savin’, keep buildin’ That interest for our love Take that to the bank Keep savin’, keep buildin’ That interest for our love Take that to the bank
HSBC was designed by Peter Womersley, who also designed the thoroughly modern private house, Farnley Hey, near Castle Hill, which won the RIBA Bronze Medal in 1958.
Halifax Building Society
Having walked around town for more hours than enough I sought respite in The Sportsman and a glass of Squawk multi-berry fruited sour
Another great looking estate pub that was on the same estate as the Hipp which it was also fairly close to.
There was the usual two rooms inside, I had a drink in the bar room which was quite busy on my Friday afternoon visit, there was also a more comfortable lounge.
The pub was a Robinsons tied house, there were two real ales on, I had a drink of Robinsons Bitter which was a nice drink, there was also Robinsons Mild on.
We are committed to the growth and development of individual, our local and international communities. In the interim may I use this medium to invite you to be part of the move of God in our church, the Pathfinder.
The Lord bless your richly as you navigate through in Jesus name.
Warren Street Stockport, north of Lancashire Bridge beside the Mersey – seen here in the 1920s a mix of retail, dwellings and industry as was most of the town centre.
Plans to build hundreds of new homes – including a 15-storey tower block – on a vacant Sainsbury’s site in Stockport town centre are set to get the go-ahead.
Proposals that would bring more than 500 flats and 34 townhouses to the three-acre plot, in Warren Street, are set to go before the council’s planning committee next Thursday night. The 573 homes would be spread across a trio of buildings – rising in height from five to 15 storeys. Two of these would also have space for a range of potential uses, ranging from shops and cafes to gyms and creches.
Martin Halsey, operations director at Amstone Ventures, added:
We can see that Stockport has untapped demand for quality homes within its town centre, offering a vibrant lifestyle and everything Stockport town centre has to offer, all on the doorstep.”
Took a look around the site before it’s no longer possible to look around the site.
Take in all the best that Manchester’s creative scene has to offer and let your imagination go wild.
In 1807 you really had to use your imagination to discover the creative scene.
The site was home to the Prince’s Theatre:
Constructed by Metcalf and Waterson at a cost of £20,000, and designed by the architect Edward Salomons. The Theatre, which had seating for 1,590, opened with a production of Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’ on Saturday, October the 15th 1864, under the management of Charles Calvert.
Sadly the Prince’s Theatre was closed in April 1940 when it was sold to ABC Cinemas who planned to build a new Cinema complex on the site, the Theatre was subsequently demolished but because of the war – the new Cinema was never built
It was replaced by Rediffusion House – later Peter House architects Ansell & Bailey.
Topped out in 1957 with a pint of Chester’s Mild.
Peter House gracefully hugs the curve of Oxford Street as it leads into St. Peter’s Square. This was one of the earliest commercial buildings to be completed post-war, which demonstrates the slow economic recovery of the region. Built on a site that had been bombed, the Portland stone seemed to marry with the material narrative established by JW Beaumont and LC Howitt in their buildings of the 1950’s and following earlier interwar commercial buildings. This scheme has more panache than the rather serious facades of the Student Union building or the Law Courts though.
The stepped massing and the articulation of the wings of the building preclude the accepted commercial norm of developing to the edge of the site and instead promote a satisfying formal interplay between the six and eleven storey elements. The building has been sensitively modified despite a lack of any listed status and remains commercially viable as offices and as retail. The continued success may be attributed to the air of quality afforded by the stone, certainly it has ensured the longevity, particularly when one considers the fate that befell the easement hugging concrete of Elizabeth House – Cruickshank & Seward, 1971 across the road; it was demolished in 2012.
Rediffusion was the first independent commercial TV franchisee, in 1956 Associated-Rediffusion struck a very lucrative deal with Granada Television, the franchise holder for weekday broadcasts in the North of England.
The company offered a low-bandwidth cable TV and radio distribution system, provided in most United Kingdom towns. Selection of TV or radio station was by means of a rotary switch, usually mounted on a wall or window frame close to the point of entry of the cable into the home.
The Rediffusion retail chain, renting and servicing TVs, radios, VCRs and hi-fi systems, was common on high streets until it was bought by Granada Rentals in 1984.
The days of the monolithic mono-culture of the sole occupant are in decline – we live in the age of the co-working space and homes of multi-use creative scene.
Peter House prevails a pale white Portland Stone embodiment of different days and different ways.
Let’s take a walk around.
As a footnote – once in the shadow of Peter House, Tommy Ducks was demolished overnight.
Apparently, its supporters managed to arrange a preservation order for the building but, according to the excellent Pubs of Manchester website, that order expired at midnight on February 12, 1993, and the pub was literally reduced to rubble before anyone could seek a renewal on February 13th.
Situated at the junction of Salkeld Street and Cook Street
Glasgow Central Signalling Centre, located in the vee of Bridge Street Junction, opened on 2 January 1961. It replaced signal boxes at Central Station, Bridge Street Junction, Eglinton Street Junction and Eglinton Street Station. When initially opened it was capable of handling 1,000 routes.
Glasgow Central Signalling Centre closed on 27 December 2008, when its area of control was transferred to the new West of Scotland Signalling Centre – WSSC at Cowlairs. The NX panel is to be preserved. The station is currently signalled by two Westinghouse Westlock Interlockings which are controlled via an Alstom MCS control system.
The 19th-century industrial concentrations in the above-named urban areas resulted in the Tame being a much polluted waterway. As well as industrial pollution from the dyes and bleaches used in textile mills, effluent from specialised paper-making cigarette papers, engineering effluents, including base metal washings from battery manufacture, phenols from the huge coal-gas plant in Denton, rain-wash from roads and abandoned coal spoil heaps there was also the sewage effluent from the surrounding population. Up to two-thirds of the river’s flow at its confluence with the Goyt had passed through a sewage works. The anti-pollution efforts of the last thirty years of the 20th century have resulted in positive fauna distributions.
There is a plot of land to the left of Porsche which remains undeveloped, I often walk around this area, what would have once been for myself and others the place of childhood high jinx.
Now it is the domain of the fly-tipper, the home of the homeless, a war zone for a species which has declared war upon itself.
A desert of detritus, interpolated with tangles of brambles, seas of teasels and the ubiquitous buddleia.
This is the unofficial showroom for the unofficial Anthropocene Epoch – always crashing in a different car, during increasingly unseasonal weather, the superabundance of abundance.
It seems that the sun may set on us, before the sun finally sets.
Let’s take a peep at Portwood.
Game over.
Vehicle use affects our whole quality of local life. Traffic can be dangerous and intimidating, dividing communities and making street life unpleasant, whilst air pollution and traffic noise can make urban living uncomfortable.
The impacts of mass consumption are: Misuse of land and resources, exporting pollution and waste from rich countries to poor countries, obesity due to excessive consumption, a cycle of waste, disparities and poverty.
Opened in 1966 along with the slightly later Lancastrian Hall and Library, the Swinton Square shopping precinct provided an integrated modern setting for shopping, living, learning and entertainment.
The late 60s and early 70s was a time of general prosperity – and the hard landscaping offered a soft option for the local folk.
This was the age of the Precinct, celebrated nationally with postcard after postcard.
My local haunt in Ashton under Lyne.
Local traders and national chains rubbed shoulders.
There was even a Job Centre opening- there was even a wide range of vacancies.
Following a challenging year, the letting reinforces Swinton Square as a pillar in the local community. Whilst retail has been heavily affected throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, footfall at the scheme has remained buoyant, with shoppers staying local, favouring the convenience and independent retailers of Swinton Square. Renovations began on the site of the new, temporary job centre at the beginning of the year and is due to be completed in May. The centre is expected to boost footfall and support for local, independent businesses.
Despite Swinton’s many strengths, it faces similar challenges to other towns. The shopping centre and other buildings in the town centre are dated and in need of investment. Demand for local housing has grown by 23% in the last five years, but there is a lack of high-quality family and affordable housing in the right locations in the area.
The vision is just the first step of the journey, the next is to appoint a developer partner who can take this vision and help shape it, through ongoing consultation and engagement with the community, into a framework and plan for Swinton that will guide future investment.
Modern Mooch 
