Mitzi Cunliffe – Modern Mooch

Tram Trip To Bury

Posted on January 21, 2025 by modernmoocher

I was cordially requested to produce tram based walk, by the good folk at the modernist – travelling from Victoria Station to Bury. Alighting at each stop and seeing what could be seen, by way of modern buildings along the byways.

By the way, I do have previous experience, having undertaken a similar task travelling to Ashton.

So I set off as instructed, clutching my GMPTE senior concessionary travel pass.

Queens Road

Turn right on leaving the station, right then left – you have reached The Vine.

Glendower Dr, Manchester, Greater Manchester M40 7TD.

Head for Rochdale Road and turn right back toward the city centre, you have reached Eastford Square.

Manchester M40 7QT

Formerly home to homes and shops – currently home to the William Mitchell Totem.

Abraham Moss

Head toward where you will find St Annes RC Church – Architect: Greenhalgh & Williams 1958

Crescent Rd, Crumpsall, Manchester M8 5UE

Crumpsall

Turn right out of the station onto Crumpsall Lane

Former District Bank latterly Nat West – decorative relief and door.

Currently Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit

1 Delaunays Rd, Crumpsall, Manchester M8 4QS

Carmel Court

Turn back along Crumpsall Lane past the station until you reach Holland Road on your right.

14 Holland Rd, Crumpsall, Manchester M8 4NP

Onto Middleton Road and turn left where you will find the Telephone Exchange.

Middleton Road, Manchester. M8 5DS

Back track along Middleton Road toward Bowker Vale station.

There are several post-war residential low rise block along the route.

Haversham Court

Middleton Rd, Crumpsall, Manchester M8 4JY

Hilltop Court – just off to the left of Middleton Road.

Brooklands Road, Crumpsall, Manchester M8 4JH

Bowker Vale

Heaton Park

A good twenty minute walk from the station to Heaton Park Pumping Station.

Turn left from the station along Bury Old Road until you reach Heywood Road on your right.

Heywood Road, Prestwich, Manchester M25 2GT

1954-5 by the Manchester City Architect’s Department, Chief Architect Leonard C Howitt, for the Manchester Corporation Waterworks. Alan Atkinson, engineer. Incorporates large relief by Mitzi Cunliffe, signed and dated 1955.

Prestwich

Development by architects Leach Rhodes Walker.

Longfield Shopping Centre

Prestwich Library

Post Office

After months of public consultation, the joint venture has firmed up its proposals for the redevelopment of the Longfield Centre and is aiming to be on site before the end of the year.

Muse and Bury Council have submitted a hybrid application to transform six acres of Prestwich town centre.

Place North West

Besses o’ th‘ Barn

Whitefield

Almost directly facing the station along Bury New Road.

Morrison’s – a Celebration of Whitefield relief Steve des Landes 2009.

5 Stanley Road Whitefield Manchester M45 8QH

Community Fire Station

Bury New Rd, Unsworth, Manchester M45 7SY

Radcliffe

Turn left out of the station onto Church Street West turn right toward the town centre.

Shopping Block

Corner of Dale Street and Blackburn Street.

Former Post now Delivery Office

St Thomas Estate

By Wilson and Womersley 1968, the project architect was John Sheard.

New-towny, dense low-rise housing irregularly grouped around and over pedestrian access paths.

Pevsner 1996/2004

The Strategic Regeneration Framework is the guide that is shaping the direction of Radcliffe’s growth over the next 15 years with a series of realistic short, medium, and longer-term actions. It is also shaping the direction of future council investment, supporting bids for central governmental funding and providing certainty for third parties wanting to invest in town.

Work has begun on Strategic Regeneration Framework’s priority projects, these include:

A new civic hub in central Radcliffe, which will bring together a mix of functions at the heart of the town
Refurbishment of the market basement and the revamping of market chambers
New leisure facilities
A secondary school on the Coney Green site
A “whole town approach” to housing, bringing forward a comprehensive approach to residential development in Radcliffe
A transportation strategy, which will consider matters such as active travel and car parking

Bury Council

Bury

We undertook a Bury Walk for the first time in 2024

Arriving at and looking around the Interchange – 1980 architects: Essex Goodman & Suggitt

A view of the Market Hall 1971 – architects: Harry S Fairhurst.

Unitarian Church.

The new church was designed and constructed by local architects James T Ratcliffe.

That’s the end of the line.

Heaton Park Reservoir Pumping Station

Posted on November 7, 2024November 7, 2024 by modernmoocher

Built between 1954-5 by the Manchester City Architect’s Department, Chief Architect Leonard C Howitt, for the Manchester Corporation Waterworks. Alan Atkinson, engineer. Incorporates large relief by Mitzi Cunliffe, signed and dated 1955. Yorkshire sandstone, with Westmorland greenstone from Broughton Moor used as relief. Roof not seen above dentiled overhang.

Carved relief is a highly stylised depiction of the bringing of water from Haweswater to Manchester with contemporary figures supporting the pipeline and a curious flat relief designed to be seen from below. It was designed to commemorate those who constructed it as well as the origin and course of the aqueduct. Beneath it five plaques tell the history of the Haweswater supply.

Haweswater Dam – Paul King

Completely preserved interior fully lined in beige marble, with contrasting green marble skirting continued as door surround. Behind the Cunliffe mural is a wood relief section in sycamore depicting the 82 mile route of the pipe.

The bringing of water to Manchester from a new reservoir at Haweswater was a major undertaking which cost £14,000,000. The sectional relief plan and the mural were conceived as part of the original brief to give a ‘monumental’ character to the city’s remarkable achievement. Included as a remarkable synthesis of architectural design and fine sculpture, with the dominance of the latter in this tiny building. The building materials and the reliefs are all symbolic of the achievement in bringing of water from the Lake District to Manchester.

Historic England Grade II Listed

In 1929 work started to build the dam wall across the valley floor. At the time of construction, its design was considered to be at the forefront of civil engineering technology because it was the world’s first hollow buttress dam.

Chapel Bridge Mardale

Before the valley was flooded in 1935, all the farms and dwellings of the villages of Mardale Green and Measand were demolished, as well as the centuries-old Dun Bull Inn at Mardale Green. The village church was dismantled and the stone used in constructing the dam; all the bodies in the churchyard were exhumed and re-buried at Shap.

Wikipedia

I have previously led Mitzi Cunliffe walks in south Manchester – taking in her works at Owens Park and Manchester High School for Girls.

Mitzi Cunliffe is primarily known as the designer of the BAFTA Award, but her work encompasses both ceramics and textiles, in addition to her extensive public art works – as illustrated here.

Mitzi Cunliffe – An American in Manchester is available from the Modernist Shop.

I took the tram to Heaton Park Station and walked the rest of the way.

The imposing structure, clad in the dramatic relief dominates this domesticated street of well behaved semis. As I stood admiring the work, a passerby joined me in a mutual appreciation of its beauty and significance.

Do yourself a favour – take a trip, take a look for yourself.

Public Art Trail – University of Leeds

Posted on August 12, 2024 by modernmoocher

The University of Leeds has a long established collection of public art, this has now been formalised into an Art Trail around the campus. Each of the pieces on this largely accessible display, has a QR code with a supporting audio tour, along with an information panel.

Printed guides are also available from the Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery, or online here.

Burton’s – The Tailor of Taste, have long been benefactors of the collection – here’s a little of the company’s history.

Sir Michael Sadler, University Vice Chancellor 1911-1923, was instrumental in developing an interest in Modernist art, through his own collection.

Sadler felt that a student’s education was greatly enhanced by a cultured and harmonious environment. He set about creating such an environment through the public display of pictures from his collection.

Take some time to wander around and consider the works in context, set against two centuries of architectural style and fashion, along with generous open and green spaces.

You can devise your own route around the trail, this is mine.

#7 Hermes – William Chattaway

#9 Meet Sit and Talk – Lorna Green

#17 Three Piece Reclining Figure – Henry Moore

#20 Masters of the Universe – Eduardo Paolozzi

#3 Sign For Art – Keith Wilson

#12 Untitled – Hubert Dalwood

#14 Dual Form – Barbara Hepworth

#16 Texta Texens – Sue Lawty with Dan Jones and Helen Mort

#6 Man Made Textiles – Mitzi Cunliffe

#19 Curtain – Juanjo Novella

#11 Greener Living Space – David Mayne

#10 Lenten Forms – Michael Lyons

#13 Celebration of Engineering Sciences – Allan Johnson

#18 The Worlds of IF – Sara Barker

#5 The Dreamer – Quentin Bell

#9 Limbo – Austin Wright

#4 Christ Driving The Moneylenders From the Temple – Eric Gill

The trustees operate within these two positions: we absolutely condemn Eric Gill’s abuse of his daughters with no attempt to hide, excuse, normalise or minimise, yet we also have a duty to protect, display and interpret the art work we hold in our collections.

Ditchling Museum

#2 Walking Figure – William Chattaway

#1 A Spire – Simon Fujiwara

#15 Conversation Column – Liliane Lijn

Also if you fancy a little more Leeds – here’s my Modern Mooch Walk – have fun, stay safe.

Fallowfield Campus – University of Manchester

Posted on August 18, 2023September 18, 2023 by modernmoocher

We visited the Lancashire County Archive where we were shown this brochure from the Building Design Partnership – BDP archive, which is held there.

The archive is open to the public.

I have previously led walks there to view the Apollo sculptural relief by Mitzi Cunliffe.

I am assured that the relief will be re-sited within the new development.

The Student Village was opened in 1964.

RIBApix

Local Image Collection

Plans are in place for redevelopment of the site and the demolition of the tower block and adjacent housing.

The scheme, designed by Sheppard Robson, would see 3,300 new bedspaces brought forward, taking the total number of units at the complex to 5,400, a net increase of 950. This is an increase of around 1,000 new units compared to the previous iteration of the project, approved in 2015.

Place North West

Mitzi Cunliffe – Owen’s Park #2

Posted on May 7, 2020May 7, 2020 by modernmoocher

293 Wilmslow Rd Fallowfield Manchester M14 6HD

We have of course been here before visiting Mitzi Cunliffe and her work – Cosmos

Mitzi Solomon Cunliffe January 1st 1918 December 30th 2006

This time we are taking a peek around the back.

Having passed by on the top deck deck of the 42 on my way home to Stockport, I espied an extension of the sculpture to the rear of the tower.

I vowed to return!

Fighting through extraction units, wheelie bins, hoppers, plus a disused and disabused vacuum cleaner, I found myself in the narrow service area, where I did my best to get back from the wall, hard against the chain link fence.

The things you do.

For some much needed light relief, air and open space I revisited the front face of the tower.

Mitzi Cunliffe – Owen’s Park Manchester

Posted on July 12, 2018 by modernmoocher

Mitzi Solomon Cunliffe January 1st 1918 December 30th 2006

American born, resident of Didsbury Manchester, sculptor and designer, responsible for, amongst other things, the BAFTA mask.

Her first large scale commission was two pieces for the Festival of Britain in 1951. One, known as Root Bodied Forth, shows figures emerging from a tree, and was displayed at the entrance of the Festival. The second, a pair of bronze handles in the form of hands, adorned the Regatta Restaurant. She created a similar piece, in the form of knots, in 1952 which remains at the School of Civic Design at Liverpool University, along with The Quickening in the rear courtyard.

Cunliffe developed a technique for mass-producing abstract designs in relief in concrete, as architectural decoration, which she described as sculpture by the yard. She used the technique to decorate buildings throughout the UK, but particularly in and around Manchester.

Particularly this example of four modular panels named Cosmos, set in the wall of the student halls of residence in Owens Park, Fallowfield, Manchester.