A bold new station for Manchester and the film Hell is A City

This has to be one of my favourite Manchester stations. It is Oxford Road Railway Station.

The original station dates from 1849 and in 1960  was replaced by this one which was listed in 1995 and described by English Heritage as a "building of outstanding architectural quality and technological interest; one of the most dramatic stations in England.”*

I do have to agree with them.  Its glass and laminated wood entrance soars into the sky and on a sunny evening the reflection of the Refuge Building is captured in those high windows.

Now its predecessor was a much more modest affair.  It too was made of wood but was workman like and lacked style and presence.

There are a few pictures of this older station but not many and until recently I had not really given it much thought.

Until I came across a still from the film Hell is a City which was set in Manchester starred Stanley Baker and focuses on the search for a violent criminal.

It was made in 1960 just nine years before I arrived in the city and much of the location shots are ones that I remember well.

And there as Stanley Baker confronts the criminal on the roof tops of the Refuge Building is Oxford Road Station, both the Armadillo roof of the new station, the sweeping concrete wall of the car park and the old station.

It stands at right angles to the new station entrance which was something of a surprise but is logical.

Of course you would have to be over 50 and more likely 60 to have any vivid memories of this building and I doubt that there are that many pictures of the two standing together.

And like all such things the new station has undergone change.

That sweeping concrete wall and the car park it protected has gone.  In its place has come a tall steel structure with stone steps, which on a sunny day are occuppied by those waiting for a train or those catching a bit of sun along with their sandwiches.

And it remains a very busy place both inside and outside the rush hour.








Pictures;Oxford Road Station in 2008 from the collection of Andrew Simpson, still from Hell is a City, 1960, from Graham Gill,