Manchester January 2006

During January I spent a couple of weeks in Manchester with work, on two different training courses at Siemens. The courses were concerning the NC Programming, PLC Programming and the Operation of the Siemens 840D CNC Controller, which is the selected channel for the A400M Stage 00 Amtri machine. The first week was spent with ME and MSE guys and based at the Thistle Hotel on Portland Street, and the second with the actual Machine Operators staying at the Brittania Hotel also on Portland Street. Both trips included a number of visits to the local drinking hostelries and eateries as well as a footie match at Pie Eating Central (Wigan).

Our arrival in the X-Type

Sie-mens

The Carling Cup Semi-Final 1st Leg between Wigan Athletic and Arsenal

The JJB Stadium - Wigan

Come in Number 9... Reyes

A bit early for... Lights Out!

Normal service has been resumed...

Arsenal Winger...

Arsene Wenger and Paul Jewell

The Latics beat The Gunners 1-0

I did manage to indulge in a famous Wigan pastime during the half-time interval... by devouring a hearty meat & potato pie! It woz butifull!!!

The darkside of the Hotel Brittania

The Manchester Smog

South City Skyline and the Courts

Manchester Crown Courts on Minshull Street

Built in 1867-73 by Thomas Worthington. The building is informed by Worthington’s absorption of Ruskinian principles and his knowledge of European Gothic. The design has a vigorous urban quality imparted by the flat areas of brickwork, deeply recessed openings and bold outline. The site is awkward and the asymmetrical composition with corner tower and central campanile chimney turns this to advantage. Orderly rhythm is given by the ranks of tall closely set windows, and decoration becomes more concentrated at the top, in the stonework of the chimney with its spiky gargoyles and the corner tourelles and open arcading to the tower. The carving by Earp & Hobbs includes fierce beasts placed at eye level at the entrances, as Ruskin would have liked. The separation of different users was achieved by placing pairs of courtrooms on each side of an open courtyard, each separated from its neighbour by offices and flanked by corridors. The original courtrooms have panelled roofs and high windows framed by ornate pilasters. The pitch-pine furnishings effectively combine open, glazed and blind Gothic arcading. The extensio to the Aytoun Street side is by James Stevenson of the Hurd Rolland Partnership, 1993-6. Worthington’s forms are simplified for the new work, which echoes the tall windows and gables. The courtyard was glazed over and four new courtrooms inserted into the ground floor, with two new courts in the extension. The atrium is the hub of the separate circulation routes with an open deck for the public and glazed walkways for jurors and judiciary. The STAINED GLASS of the jury walkway is by Lavers, Barraud & Westlake. It was moved from the former judges’ rooms and copied where necessary to provide a complete scheme. The figures of Moses, St Michael and Solomon symbolise Law, Justice and Wisdom

Canal Street... or otherwise known as the Gay Village

Manchester University

Queerside

The Palace Hotel

Oxford Street

The Midland Hotel and War Memorial

Peters Square

Manchester Central Library

One of the great monuments of Manchester. Built 1930-4 and one of Vincent Harris's most confident, assured, and bombastic essays in the Roman Imperial manner he developed during the 1920s. Harris won the commission in competition in 1927 (part of the same two-stage competition for the Town Hall extension, above) with a scheme for a steel-framed, Portland-stone-clad building of four storeys plus attic with an extensive four-level book storage area partially below ground. Harris's Pantheon-influenced design may also reflect the needs of the circular plenum heating plan for the high-voltage electrode heating plant.
The five-bay portico of Corinthian columns, tetrastyle in antis, with round-headed arches to the returns, provides a landmark entrance to the city centre from the S. It also provides a classical foil to the Gothic Revival of Manchester Town Hall to the N. The round arches of the portico sides are echoed in the facade which is composed of a heavy two-storey rusticated base surmounted by a continuous Tuscan colonnaded screen to the upper storeys. Despite the apparent weight of the exterior it is in fact more of a façade which encloses a large, top-lit and domed circular reading room in the manner of the former British Museum Reading Room. It housed subsidiary functions such as catalogue rooms, study carrels, and special collections. The ingenuity of Harris's design is seen in the way he placed this grand space, with its Tuscan colonnade of Sienna scagliola, on top of the stacks (as in the American Library of Congress), in defiance of the fashion for creating book towers on top of reading rooms as seen at the Universities of London, Leeds, and Cambridge. The original furniture was designed by Harris; stained glass windows in the double-height entrance hall by George Kruger Gray

The extension to the Victorian Town Hall was built in 1934-8 after E. Vincent Harris won a competition in 1927. Conceived of as an understated link between the grandeur of the Gothic Revival town hall and the Classical bombast of the Central Library.This is essentially done by the eclectic mix of Gothic forms for the skyline, translated via more domestic stone mullion-and-transom windows to the main facades down to the more civic neo-Georgian character on the side which faces the Library

Manchester Town Hall

Albert memorial and fountain

This magnificent building was designed in Victorian Gothic style by Alfred Waterhouse and opened in 1877. Amongst its many treasures are the Ford Maddox Brown murals which are monument to the ideas of Victorian Manchester portraying science, invention, education, trade and textile industry

Albert Square

Robert at the Town hall

The Arndale & Triangle Centre

The Manchester observation wheel towering 60m (196ft) above the City

The 42-carriage wheel, similar to the London Eye, was erected in Exchange Square for tourists and shoppers in the run-up to Christmas. Twenty-four lorries helped bring in the construction, and it was been erected piece by piece over the weeks leading up to Christmas. The attraction was in Paris for two years and features a "VIP gondola", designed for President Jacques Chirac. The special carriage comes complete with leather seats, carpets, a fridge and telephone. The 60m-high wheel, which is lit by 51,000 light bulbs, towers above the city's Urbis museum, offering views for miles. A ride on the wheel, which is open to the public until February, lasts about 10 minutes

Just before you reach Manchester Cathedral this lovely old pub, The Old Wellington remains sandwiched amongst other buildings on the old market site. Its Manchester's oldest pub, dating back to 1550. Seeing it here took me completely by surprise - I hadn't realised Manchester still had buildings like this! Its fortunate to be still here at all as it was badly damaged in the IRA bombing of 1996 and has undergone restorative work

Adjacent to the Old Wellington is Sinclair's Oyster Bar, slightly younger than the Wellington as it dates from 1720, and It still serves its succulent oysters, along with substantial pub meals right up to this day. In 1971 the building was lifted as part of the Arndale Shopping centre re-development and was re-opened 10 years later

Cathedral Gardens

Manchester Cathedral

This Cathedral is the 3rd one to be on this site since the 9th century. Unfortunately there's not really a lot of the older structures remaining, just some stone by the choir and a 14th century arch by the tower. What is surprising is that the building is here at all considering that in 1940 a 1000lb bomb pretty much destroyed the interior and knocked out all the stained glass. More damage was done in 1996 by the IRA bomb, but that's been pretty much restored now

What was once a car park is now Cathedral Gardens, with lawns lapping up against the Corn Exchange, cathedral, Chetham's School of Music and the ultra-cool Urbis. Urbis is a museum of city living where flashy gizmos convey the pace of urban development, letting you walk the streets of cities around the globe. Manchester after all was the first industrial city, which means it is now at the forefront of the post-industrial age. Some of this historical fact is conveyed by the exhibits, but mostly it's a noisy concoction of gadgets where the buzz of interaction has overtaken any educational content. Urbis is now FREE! It is open 10-6 daily, open late on Saturday till 8. The ground floor gallery hosts changing exhibitions (free) as does the first floor gallery (£££). The shop is kooky and fun. It's also worth going in to see the indoor funicular in action (a glass lift that ascends at an angle )

The other side of the Triangle...

Printworks and Filmworks are a re-vamped printing factory with a "street" full of eateries and a big cinema complex. A good place to be night or day although its done out so dark inside it always looks like evening time! There are 36 cafés and bars, 16 restaurants of various ethnic cuisines, a health complex, and Manchester's first IMAX cinema, alongside 20 screens at the development known as "the Filmworks"

Printworks Venues:-

The Royal Exchange Theatre

The original Royal Exchange building, by Bradshaw, Gass & Hope 1914-21, was closed in 1968 until 1973 when it was used to house a temporary theatre by the Sixty-Nine Theatre Company. The idea of creating a permanent structure was developed by the theatre group and Richard Negri, who was subsequently appointed as designer, produced a detailed model. The Theatre pod sits within the hall which has giant columns and three glass domes. Beath the largest, central, dome and suspended from the four central columns is the tubular steel theatre-in-the -round, a high-tech 'Lunar Module' as is was soon christened, containing a seven sided theatre. Refurbishment after the IRA bomb was carried ut by Levitt Bernstein Associates in 1996

St Ann's Square

From Madchester and the Hacienda of the late 80s, to Oasis, Britpop and Manchester United of the 90s, this great northern city is always at the beating heart of British popular culture. And it does high brow these days too: host to the world-famous Halle Orchestra, the Royal Exchange Theatre Company and the BBC Philharmonic. It's the city that never sleeps, largeing it over drink and music until late - a cocky confident vibe with humour to match. And now that Man City have inherited the Commonwealth stadium the Gallagher brothers will no doubt be in town!

Bars visited:-
Portland Bar & Restaurant, Barogue, KRO Piccadilly, B Lounge (Brunswick), Wetherspoons – The House, Old Orleans, Yates’s, Crompton’s, Baracuda, Circus Tavern, Weterspoons – Paramount, The Bank, Sam’s Chop House, Athenaeum, Norweigan Blue, New Union Hotel, Edwards., Brannigans

Restaurants:-
Little Yang Sing, B Lounge, Yates’s, Ashoka, El Macho

The noble and unassuming Portico Library is the only surviving work in Manchester by Thomas Harrison. Promoters of a scheme for a combined newsroom, circulating library and reading room visited the Athenaeum in Liverpool in 1799 or 1800. This may have been how they came into contact with Harrison whose Lyceum was built there 1800-04. To Mosley Street a pedimented central loggia has four unfluted Ionic columns, based on Stuart and Revett's drawings of the Little Temple on the Illisus. On the side to Charlotte Street a rank of attached columns and ground floor windows with alternating flat and pedimented heads, all done in the finely finished Runcorn stone. The steps up to the Ionic Portico and the recessed entrance emphasise the exclusive nature of the club, but today they lead to a disappointing pub conversion

Chinatown

The Thistle & Brittania Hotels on Portland Street

Travis & Mangnall’s Watts Warehouse (now the Britannia Hotel), on Portland Street, (1851-6) was the king of the home trade warehouses, and remains one of the largest and most impressive buildings of its type in the centre. Home trade warehouses served the home market with retailers visiting the premises to inspect the goods and make orders. Emphasis was on display and good lighting for viewing the goods, and there would usually be an impressive hall or foyer and show rooms with mahogany counters beneath the windows where goods could be inspected. The industry encompassed made-up clothing, haberdashery and a wide range of fancy goods. S. & J. Watts was the largest wholesale drapery business in Manchester and the owner James Watts typical of the city’s new mercantile princes, a self-made man who espoused the free-trade cause. His warehouse aptly encapsulates the spirit of self-confidence mixed with a touch of brashness. The length is twenty-three bays or c. 300ft, the height nearly 100ft. There are four roof towers but the ranges of gables between and on top of the towers shown on C19 engravings have been lost. The general outline resembles the Fondaco dei Turchi in Venice. Each of the six floors is given a different treatment ranging from Italian Renaissance to Elizabethan, culminating with wheel windows in the roof towers. This fantastic mixture is held together by an orderly rhythm and the confidence of the composition, so it is more than just a curiosity. The building had four large internal wells and a system of circulation which segregated customers, staff and porters. Inside the original sumptuous staircase is preserved, as are the generous landings with their ornate cast-iron columns

One thing to be said about Manchester, is that they do not have any Postcards, I guess this says a lot for the City really!

Piccadilly Gardens

A statue of Queen Victoria overlooking Piccadilly Gardens

Wheel of Light

This whole area was once Salford docks, cargo ships came up the Manchester Ship Canal to unload their wares from around the world. However, with the advent of containerisation and increasing motorway links in the 1970's, ships started unloading at southern ports such as Felixstowe, and Salford docks days were numbered. After years of decline the docks finally closed in the 1980's. 20 years later Salford Quays emerged from the gloom with a magnificent effort by Salford and Trafford councils, the whole area is now full of waterside housing, offices, a cinema, hotels, a shopping mall and of course the Lowry Centre and the Imperial War Museum North