BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Manchester Walks - ECPv6.15.20//NONSGML v1.0//EN
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:PUBLISH
X-WR-CALNAME:Manchester Walks
X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://www.newmanchesterwalks.com
X-WR-CALDESC:Events for Manchester Walks
REFRESH-INTERVAL;VALUE=DURATION:PT1H
X-Robots-Tag:noindex
X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT1H
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:UTC
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:+0000
TZOFFSETTO:+0000
TZNAME:UTC
DTSTART:20250101T000000
END:STANDARD
END:VTIMEZONE
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20260526T140000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20260526T154000
DTSTAMP:20260524T224632
CREATED:20250623T121109Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260524T191800Z
UID:26233-1779804000-1779810000@www.newmanchesterwalks.com
SUMMARY:Emmeline Pankhurst’s Manchester
DESCRIPTION:Next Tour: No dates yet.\nMeet: At the Emmeline Pankhurst Statue\, St Peter’s Square.\nBooking: Please press here to book with Evenbrite. \nIt is now more than a hundred and five years (1 December 1919) since a woman entered the British Parliament for the first time. American socialite Nancy Astor won a by-election for the Unionists in Plymouth Sutton\, ironically replacing her husband\, Waldorf Astor\, who had just been ennobled. \nThe campaign to win women the vote and the right to enter the Commons had been raging ever since more than a dozen people were killed and hundreds injured at the Peterloo Massacre in Manchester in 1819. Henry Hunt\, the main speaker at the Peterloo rally that never happened\, later became the first MP to put forward a bill to allow women to vote in general elections. But that was back in the 1830s. Two generations later the Pankhurst family took over the campaign\, leading one of the most bitter and brutal political battles in British history\, for many years from Manchester. \nPartial victory was celebrated in 1918 when (some) women were at last allowed to vote and stand. One woman was elected\, but never took her seat. A year later Nancy Astor made up for it. \nHear the full story on this eye-opening guided tour. \n \n!!STOP PRESS!!\nThis is the only Pankhurst tour which goes to the Pankhursts’ shop (yes\, I bet you didn’t know they had a shop in Manchester city centre!) and gives the accurate political background to the infamous Free Trade Hall rally in October 1905. \nWe have made a forensic and in-depth study of this extraordinary story. Discover Manchester’s cataclysmic connections… \n…read on below. \n  \nFurther study\nIn August 1819 at least a dozen people were killed demonstrating for the right to vote at St Peter’s Fields\, Manchester. Nearly a hundred years later\, in 1903\, the Pankhurst family\, disgusted with the Independent Labour Party’s refusal to allow women to use the newly-opened Pankhurst Hall in north Manchester\, founded the Women’s Social and Political Union to step up the campaign for the right of women to have the vote in parliamentary elections. \nWhat had been a sedate pressure group\, willing to stay within the law to change the law\, soon became militant. The women suffrage supporters (“suffragettes\,” the Daily Mail called them) disrupted a Liberal Party rally in the Free Trade Hall in 1905 and two of their leaders – Christabel Pankhurst and Annie Kenney – were jailed. Manchester had become Suffragette City\, but it took a generation and many thousands of broken windows for women to secure the vote. \nThis is a walk in memory of the Pankhursts – Emmeline\, Christabel and Sylvia – fierce campaigners\, resolute radicals. We visit their haunts\, outline their struggle and follow in their footsteps. \nAn excerpt from the walk\nWhen Christabel Pankhurst and Annie Kenney were arrested for disrupting the Liberal Party’s political rally at the Free Trade Hall in October 1905 they were taken first to a cell in Manchester Town Hall and then to Strangeways Prison. \nSoon one of the leading Liberal politicians of the day turned up at the prison offering to pay the women’s fines so that they could be quickly released. The philanthropic politician was none other than Winston Churchill\, MP for Oldham\, who had recently crossed the floor from the Conservative benches. But was this really a welcome move or just a cynical one? Surely if the women agreed to his offer he could champion himself as being in control of them …
URL:https://www.newmanchesterwalks.com/event/mif-tours-emmeline-pankhursts-manchester/
LOCATION:emmeline Pankhurst statue\, St Peter's Square\, Manchester\, M2 3DE\, United Kingdom
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.newmanchesterwalks.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Pankhursts-three-main-ones.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20260528T113000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20260528T131500
DTSTAMP:20260524T224632
CREATED:20250719T092817Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260413T132235Z
UID:26333-1779967800-1779974100@www.newmanchesterwalks.com
SUMMARY:John Rylands Library...And More
DESCRIPTION:Next tour: Thursday 28 May 2026.\nMeet: Outside St Ann’s Church\, St Ann Street\, 11.30 a.m.\nBooking: Please press here to book with Eventbrite. \nThe John Rylands Library has been closed for nearly a year. Now it’s back – and with our tours! \n*** \nThe only way to truly understand the magic of what is the No. 1 Manchester Attraction on Trip Advisor is on our regular tour.   \nThis is more than a tour of one of the world’s greatest libraries. This is a trip through the industrial and religious history of Manchester linked with the 19th century’s most successful cotton merchant whose legacy survives in the magnificent library named after him. \nTours start with an introduction to the city’s cotton past (at the Royal Exchange) and John Rylands’ religious background (at St Ann’s Church) before we make our way to Deansgate. We then hear: \n* An outline of John Rylands Library’s Gothic architecture.\n* The story of John and Enriqueta Rylands.\n* How the Rylands company became the most successful Manchester cotton merchants of the 19th century.\n* An outline of the library’s riches.\n* Remarkable pictures of the library’s and the John Rylands firm’s history.\n* A look at the oldest piece of the New Testament ever found.\n* A close inspection of the exquisite Reading Room.\n* An explanation of the key statues\, particularly Francis Bacon\, who paved the way for the Industrial Revolution during which Manchester thrived\, and John Wycliffe and William Tyndale who led a revolution in religion. \n***** \nThe John Rylands Library is often described as “the Taj Mahal of the North-West”\, for it is a palace built out of love; a widow’s love for her late husband\, a family’s love of religious literature; a city’s love of Gothic architecture. The building looks like a mini-cathedral\, a religious icon\, a divine presence on Deansgate\, but it is one of the world’s greatest libraries\, for out of the bequest of John Rylands\, Manchester’s richest 19th century cotton magnate\, his widow Enriqueta created an unrivalled collection: Dickens’s novels in their original wrappers; a first edition of Shakespeare’s Sonnets; the second largest collection of works by the pioneering printer William Caxton; the personal papers of John Wesley\, John Dalton and Elizabeth Gaskell; later complemented\, most remarkably of all\, by the 2nd Century St John Fragment – the oldest existing remnant of the New Testament. \nThe library was built during the 1890s and deliberately placed on Deansgate next to what was then a violent slum (but is now entirely commercialised) to show Manchester’s underclass that there was an alternative. For them and for all users it was and remains free\, a haven of man’s pursuit of intellectual brilliance in a harsh industrial climate. \nThe architect was Basil Champneys whose ecclesiastical touches were toned down by Enriqueta Rylands\, a non-conformist. Nevertheless it remains powerfully Gothic – the last Gothic revival building erected in Manchester\, which opened on 1 Jan 1900 and was the first Manchester building to be lit by electricity. It was recently restored at great cost with a new grand entrance constructed on the south side. \nHighlights of the tour include the St John Fragment and the reading room\, a grand galleried Gothic extravaganza filled with stained glass and statuary. The St John Fragment is just that – a fragment – found in Egypt at Oxyrhynchus (Behnesa)\, the ruined city where some of the most startling and successful excavations in the history of archaeology were carried out. It was donated to the library in 1920 but not identified until 1935 when the papyrus collections were catalogued. The Reading Room is awe-inspiring and overpowering\, but the statues come alive when their significance is explained\, for here are representations of some of the most formidable figures in British history – Newton\, Dalton\, Bacon – the links between religion and science\, unfashionable at the moment\, crucial to the development of civilisation. This is primarily a religious building\, a building devoted to religion rather than for worshipping God. Pride of place goes to those figures found here who made Britain the centre of Christian tolerance: John Wycliffe\, William Tyndale and John Rainolds. \nTours of the library start with an introduction to the city’s cotton past and John Rylands’ religious background outside St Ann’s Church.
URL:https://www.newmanchesterwalks.com/event/john-rylands-library-and-more/
LOCATION:Outside St Ann’s Church\, St Ann Street\, Manchester\, United Kingdom
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20260529T110000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20260529T124500
DTSTAMP:20260524T224632
CREATED:20260208T215252Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260421T142612Z
UID:26597-1780052400-1780058700@www.newmanchesterwalks.com
SUMMARY:Southern Cemetery
DESCRIPTION:Next tour: Friday 29 May 2026\, 11 a.m.\nMeet: Cemetery Gates (opposite James Hilton Memorials of 245 Barlow Moor Road).(Barlow Moor Road Metrolink stop\, 10 minutes walk away).\nPlease don’t go to: The Crematorium\, Nell Lane…\nBooking: Please press here to book with Eventbrite. \n*** \nNew Manchester Walks will take you around Southern Cemetery\, final resting place of some of the greats of Manchester history\, with Ed Glinert\, author of “London’s Dead” (published by HarperCollins). \nWe will see the graves and memories of Matt Busby\, John Rylands\, Joe Sunlight\, Daniel Adamson\, Tony Wilson and L. S. Lowry\, as we explore Britain’s second biggest cemetery.
URL:https://www.newmanchesterwalks.com/event/southern-cemetery/
LOCATION:Southern Cemtery\, 212 Barlow Moor Road\, Chorlton-cum-Hardy\, Manchester\, M21 7GL\, United Kingdom
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20260604T180000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20260604T194000
DTSTAMP:20260524T224632
CREATED:20260214T204932Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260309T151914Z
UID:26618-1780596000-1780602000@www.newmanchesterwalks.com
SUMMARY:50th anniversary of the Pistols at the Lesser Free Trade Hall
DESCRIPTION:This tour: Thursday 4 June 2026\, 6pm.\n50th Anniversary of the Pistols at the Lesser Free Trade Hall\nMeet: Outside HOME\, 2 Tony Wilson Place.\nBooking: Please press here to book with Eventbrite.\n\nHere’s the set list\n* Tony Wilson’s pad.\n* The Boardwalk\, where Oasis made their debut.\n* The Hacienda.\n* Elbow’s “hole in my neighbourhood”.\n* The basement record shop where Morrissey had a job – yes! – for about five minutes\, resulting in a depression that inspired those great lines from “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now”.\n* The Ritz\, where the first Smiths gig took place.\n* The Hidden Gem church where Tony Wilson’s funeral took place.\n* The Free Trade Hall\, where this day in 1976 the Sex Pistols invented the modern Manchester music scene. \nWhat does it sound like?\nForget Memphis and Merseybeat\, Manchester is music city\, a venue to rank alongside New Orleans or Notting Hill\, a factory of superior song-making and stirring soundscapes courtesy of Joy Division\, the Fall\, New Order\, Buzzcocks\, Happy Mondays\, John Cooper Clarke\, the Stone Roses\, 808 State and\, of course\, the Smiths\, all spinning around the legend of the Hacienda\, the world’s hippest nightclub\, chicer than the Copacabana\, sexier than Studio 54\, cooler than the Cavern or Cream. \nAt the centre of the city’s beat was Factory Records\, a record label to rival Motown and Chess with a business model that could be compared only to British Leyland or the South Sea Bubble. But it’s not about Mammon or the man\, it’s about the music\, the songs\, and what songs! – “Dead Souls”\, “William\, It was Really Nothing”\, “Rowche Rumble”\, “Time Goes By So Slow” – the list\, like the road\, goes on forever. (Jon the Postman’s versions of “Louie Louie” certainly did). \n \n“Manchester\, so much to answer for\,” as the man sang. \n \n 
URL:https://www.newmanchesterwalks.com/event/50th-anniversary-of-the-pistols-at-the-lesser-free-trade-hall/
LOCATION:HOME\, 2 Tony Wilson Place\, Manchester\, Select a State:\, M15 4GU\, United Kingdom
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.newmanchesterwalks.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Sex_Pistols_June_4_1976-1.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20260614T163000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20260614T181000
DTSTAMP:20260524T224632
CREATED:20250704T171300Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260513T193413Z
UID:26244-1781454600-1781460600@www.newmanchesterwalks.com
SUMMARY:The Horrors of Angel Meadow. A Tour into the Centre of the Victorian Hell-Hole
DESCRIPTION:Next tour: Sunday 14 June 2026.\nMeet: Victoria Station wallmap\, 4.30 p.m.\nBooking: Please press here to book with Eventbrite. \n“The lowest\, most filthy\, most unhealthy\, and most wicked locality in Manchester…full of cellars and inhabited by prostitutes\, their bullies\, thieves\, cadgers\, vagrants and tramps.” \nWas this yesterday? No\, journalist Angus Bethune Reach was writing in the 19th century when Angel Meadow was one of a number of notorious Manchester slums; probably the worst. \nThis is what proto-communist Friedrich Engels had to say about the locale in 1844. “The landlords are not ashamed to let dwellings like the six or seven cellars on the quay directly below Scotland Bridge\, the floors of which stand at least two feet below the low water level of the Irk … utterly uninhabitable\, [it] stands deprived of all fittings for doors and windows\, a case by no means rare in this region\, when an open ground-floor is used as a privy by the whole neighbourhood for want of other facilities. . . .” \nA hundred yards on\, at the end of Millow Street\, stood “Gibraltar”. This was once described by the social commentator James Phillips Kay as the haunt of the “lowest” of the population. “The stranger\, if he dare venture to explore its intricacies and recesses is sure to be watched with suspicion\, on every side is heard the sound of the axe or knife…” \nOkay\, both those revered social commentators were writing many years ago\, but go there now and it’s pretty grim\, which is why we guide you around these atmospheric areas\, converting the squalor and sordidness into scintillating stories. And we’ve not even entered Angel Meadow proper yet. \nHave things improved? Yes\, with much thanks to the Friends of Angel Meadow. When we’ve finished with all the terrible tales we deserve an ale or two at the Marble pub with its gorgeous tiles\, magnificent ales and friendly atmosphere.
URL:https://www.newmanchesterwalks.com/event/angel-meadow-a-tour-into-the-centre-of-the-victorian-hell-hole/
LOCATION:Victoria Station Wallmap\, Victoria Station Approach\, Manchester\, M99 1ZW\, United Kingdom
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.newmanchesterwalks.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Angel-Meadow-Gibraltar.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20260615T111500
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20260615T111500
DTSTAMP:20260524T224632
CREATED:20250609T144412Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260502T175942Z
UID:26197-1781522100-1781522100@www.newmanchesterwalks.com
SUMMARY:The 1996 Manchester Bomb. Expert tour\, 30 Years On.
DESCRIPTION:This tour: Monday 15 June 2026\, 11.15am.\nMeet: Outside Selfridge’s\, Exchange Square.\nBooking: Please press here to book with Eventbrite. \nOne myth we will shatter is that the pillar box that stands on the site now is the same pillar box! \nAnother myth is that the bomb was definitely the work of the IRA.  \nThe morning of Saturday the 15th of June 1996. A man with an Irish accent phones the Manchester media to say that a bomb is set to go off in the city centre. Because he gives the correct code word\, the authorities realise this is serious. The bomb is in a van on Corporation Street by a pillar box outside Marks & Spencer. \nThe police begin the onerous task of clearing thousands of people from the area. The bomb disposable unit arrives and sets up base on Back Pool Fold\, off Cross Street\, a hundred yards away. Will they be able to defuse the device in time? \nAt nearly a quarter past eleven the army people send their remotely-controlled robotic device – the pigstick disrupter – along Cross Street and Corporation Street to defuse the bomb. It arrives at 11.17am\, one second too late. \n*** \nThe bomb exploded\, sending 3\,300 pounds of Semtex and ammonium nitrate fertiliser into the sky. It was the biggest ever bomb detonated on the British mainland in “peacetime” and destroyed much of the city centre. \nBut why Manchester? Join us on a tour tainted with trauma and tension\, which reaches into the very depths of the city’s rarely told history.
URL:https://www.newmanchesterwalks.com/event/the-1996-manchester-bomb-expert-tour/
LOCATION:Selfridge’s\, Exchange Square\, Manchester\, M3 1BD\, United Kingdom
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20260616T180000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20260616T194000
DTSTAMP:20260524T224632
CREATED:20260508T094209Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260508T094209Z
UID:26711-1781632800-1781638800@www.newmanchesterwalks.com
SUMMARY:The Smiths of Manchester Tour (Queen is Dead at 40)
DESCRIPTION:Next tour: Tuesday 16 June 2026.\nMeet: Outside the Mercure Hotel\, Portland Street.\nBooking: Please press here to book with Eventbrite.\n\nWhere we go:\n• The Hacienda\, vilified in his the Smiths’ most famous song.\n• HOME cinema to recall The Smiths’ cinematic links.\n• The building where Moz actually had a job!\, which inspired…\n• Central Station and its role in the Moors Murders that inspired the Smiths’ name.\n• The building where the Smiths rehearsed relentlessly in 1983.\n• The venue where they made their debut.\n• The Lesser Free Trade Hall where Morrissey witnessed a music revolution and earned his first appearance in the media.\nand more. Read on…\n*** \nThey were Britain’s greatest ever group. More melodic than the Beatles\, more powerful than the Stones\, cleverer than the Who\, catchier than U2\, funnier than Madness and better-looking than Jesus & Mary Chain (okay\, not hard). \nThey played music that lifted the soul with words that sharpened the mind. \nThey played both types of music: fast and slow\, soft and loud\, country and western (???)\, and they came from Manchester. \nThey were The Smiths. \nThey sang about the city and shot its sites for their sleeves: the Hacienda\, Manchester Central\, “a river the colour of lead”\, Coronation Street\, the Holy Name Church… \nThe Smiths’ Manchester walk takes a trip through their haunts and their dark underbelly. Unlike other Smiths’ tours\, we don’t shirk from the difficult stories. We explain how the horrendous denouement of the Moors Murderers’ killing spree gave Morrissey the inspiration for the band’s name and affected much of his song-writing. \nThis is a music-driven tour. We play the relevant song at the relevant stop. \n \nHere’s an extract\nMorrissey’s stint in Yanks’ record shop\, a dank and now defunct basement outlet in Chepstow Street’s Canada House early in 1979\, partly inspired the line about jobs and misery in “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now”. Yes\, he could play records all day\, but was still not satisfied. The contradiction of being unhappy with not having a job yet being depressed with job was a long running problem with Moz. As he once noted in his diary: “When I had no job I could pinpoint my depression. But when I did get a job I was still depressed.” \nThe gestation of the song itself\, two minutes-plus of sumptuous sardonic cynicism\, was typically Smithsonian. Converting the title of an obscure Sandie Shaw number\, “Heaven Knows I’m Missing Him Now”\, Morrissey recorded the vocals for the first verse in London. He then insisted on travelling to Manchester to do the vocals for the second verse. Consequently the producer\, John Porter\, booked a studio\, packed the tapes and went North. There Morrissey recorded another verse but then announced he was popping out to the chip shop. 45 minutes later he still hadn’t returned. Porter phoned Moz’s mother who told him\, “Oh he was here but he’s gone back to London.”
URL:https://www.newmanchesterwalks.com/event/the-smiths-of-manchester-tour-queen-is-dead-at-40/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20260626T110000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20260626T124000
DTSTAMP:20260524T224632
CREATED:20250704T183406Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260524T134241Z
UID:26254-1782471600-1782477600@www.newmanchesterwalks.com
SUMMARY:The Glories of Manchester Architecture
DESCRIPTION:The Glories of Manchester Architecture.\nNext tour: Friday 26 June 2026\, 11 a.m.\nGuide: RIBA judge Ed Glinert\, author of “Manchester: The Biography”.\nStarts: Outside the Midland Hotel\, Peter Street.\nBooking: Please press here to book with Eventbrite. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n*** \n\n\n\n\n\n\nThe Builder magazine once declared “one can scarcely walk about Manchester without coming across frequent examples of the grand in architecture. There is nothing to equal it since the building of Venice.” \n\n\n\n\n\n\nOkay\, that was written in the 1850s\, but for 19th century grandeur Manchester is hard to beat. There are Classical meeting halls and clubs\, Italianate cotton palaces\, Gothic towers and spires\, and Baroque banks – and all of it is stolen\, stolen from grand European creations which hopeful architects had sketched on their Grand Tour and then reproduced across the city. \nThe Gran Guardia Vecchia in Verona provided Edward Walters with a model for the Free Trade Hall; the St Mark’s Campanile in Venice was adapted by Thomas Worthington for the Police Courts on Minshull Street; Ypres Cloth Hall became Manchester Town Hall. \nRead on\, for the 20th century and beyond…\nIn the 20th century the new architects adopted a similar approach\, but this time it was the gleaming skyscrapers of Chicago and New York that enthused them. However those in charge of Manchester refused to let progressive architects such as Harry S. Fairhurst and Joe Sunlight fill the skyline with granite and glass\, and so Manchester missed out on one of the most exciting periods in building history. Restrictions on height eased after the Second World War but Manchester was nervous of reaching for the stars until recently\, and it is true to say our towers are poor cousins of the glories that Adrian Smith\, Chris Wilkinson and Renzo Piano have been creating across the globe. \nWe examine the city’s building legacy as we twist in and out of the city centre streets\, straining our necks for a glimpse of a glorious Gaudi-like gable\, a Venetian vista\, a Greek giant order or a stroke of sacred geometry. \n \n\n \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n*** \nWant to read more?\nHere’s the piece New Manchester Walks’ Ed Glinert wrote for the Manchester International Festival 2011 brochure. \nThe best view of Manchester’s architecture is from Salford. Stand on isolated\, lonely Oldfield Road\, off Salford Crescent\, by the dried up route of the Manchester\, Bolton and Bury Canal\, and look west\, and there it is: Manchester\, caught in a perspective of triumphant towers and soaring skyscrapers. Marvel at the sticking-out “drawers” of the Civil Justice Centre aside its formidable aluminium composite bulk and suspended glass wall\, the largest in Europe. Look in awe at the Art Deco fortress of Sunlight House\, and take in an intoxicating vision of the Beetham\, the subtlety of its shape now suitably sensed when removed by the long gap. \nWalk from here into Manchester and the finer detailing of these facades becomes sharper. Central Manchester is dominated by 19th century architects’ desperation to re-create the traditional styles of Europe – Greek\, Gothic\, Italianate\, Baroque – on uncharted territory. Manchester has few original buildings\, just brilliant copies. The Memorial Hall on the corner of Albert Square and Southmill Street by Thomas Worthington is pure 15th century Venice. What’s left of the Free Trade Hall on nearby Peter Street is Edward Walters’ take on the Gran Guardia Vecchia in Verona. You want more Italy on the streets of Manchester? Head for the Athenaeum on Princess Street\, now part of the art gallery\, and behold a Florentine Palace that’s pure Palazzo Pandolfini by Raphael\, while inside ironically is a large collection of Pre-Raphaelite paintings himself. \nOn the way\, you might head past Friends Meeting House on Mount Street. It’s Greek. Ancient Greek. The façade is based on the Temple on the Ilissus because Richard Lane\, designing in the 1820s\, believed that as Manchester had no cultural legacy the city should pay homage to the territory where modern ideas of aesthetics\, art and architecture were shaped. Not that everybody was impressed with the slew of Classical revival buildings he created. The Builder magazine for instance derided his work (Chorlton-on-Medlock Town Hall\, St Thomas’s Pendleton) as looking like a factories with the front of temples stuck on. \nAt least in modern times Manchester has begun to originate. The Bruntwood-owned Bank Chambers/Bank House on Faulkner Street\, between Piccadilly Gardens and Chinatown\, is a magnificent segue of big tower and little tower on a concrete podium. It was designed by Fitzroy\, Robinson in 1971 and appropriately is home to Fairhurst’s\, the most prolific architects in Manchester history. Pity it will need another hundred years before its brutalist beauty and granite-and-glass glamour are fully appreciated.
URL:https://www.newmanchesterwalks.com/event/mif-tours-the-glories-of-manchester-architecture-2/
LOCATION:Midland Hotel\, 16 Peter Street\, Manchester\, M60 2DS\, United Kingdom
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.newmanchesterwalks.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Central-Library-from-the-air.jpg
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR