Salford Crescent is one of the few remaining Georgian streets in the region, a glorious stretch of elegant houses overlooking the river – once – but now at the heart of the bustling university.

Here is a treasure trove of history, taking in the downhome Crescent pub where Marx & Engels drank, the redbrick villa where the great scientist J P Joule lived, the Working Class Movement Library and traces of grand Acton Square – all overlooked by the gasworks Ewan MacColl eulogised in “Dirty Old Town”.

And let’s not forget the green lung of the Irwell Valley and Peel Park, the latter one of the first publicly-financed open spaces in the country, with its bandstand and weekend folk painted by Lowry who was taught art in the technical college over looking the landscape.