Uncovering another corner of the city’s past …….

It is easy to forget the warren of little streets that exist underneath the great viaduct that carry trains in

and out of Piccadilly Railway Station.

Once upon a time they would have been home to hundreds of families who lived in the rows of terraced properties many of which were already showing their age before the railway came to Manchester.

As late as 1950 there were still plenty of them, stretching south from Fairfield Street down to Ardwick Cemetery.

But they have all gone.  Some were cleared away by the extension of the brick viaducts in the 19th century, and the rest from clearance programmes.

Some new social housing has taken their place around what is now Ardwick Park, but the rest of the land has been given over to industrial units and open space.

Decades ago I would wander this area, but I for all sorts of reasons I haven’t been back .

That said my interest was reignited by a bit of research on a group of houses that were located off Fairfield Street in a bend in the River Medlock.

They dated from around 1837, and clearly owed much to the coronation of the old Queen, because one block of 14 back to backs was called Victoria Terrace, and half of the fronted Coronation Square.

And as you do I was drawn in, so having found them on census returns and then the Rate Books,

I began a research project which led to a series of blog stories which ran their course.*

But then John Anthony set me going again, by sending over a series of pictures he took of Coronation Square today and the surrounding streets.

Look along Coronation Square, and the original stone wall  of the brewery yard which dates back to the 1840s  is still there.

Nor has there been any attempt to widen this very narrow street.

And that is true of some of the other streets. Made to seem all the smaller by the dominance of the railway viaducts.

But walk along them as John Anthony did and you can still be rewarded by golden finds, like the reappearance of the River Medlock which briefly comes out into the daylight by Hoyle Street.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; Top: Temperance Street, Hoyle Street Junction looking towards Ardwick Station; Centre: Coronation Square from North Western Street; Bottom: River Medlock from Temperance Street, from the collection of John Anthony Hewitt

*Fairfield Street, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Fairfield%20Street