It ain’t da Vinci …… travels through Ancoats and the canal they stole

An occasional series looking at the less well executed pieces of street art.

It ain't da Vinci, Radium Street, 2023

Well, that is how the story started but as so often happens it took a few twists and turns.

The art is relatively new, and was not there back in 2020, when I last wandered down Radium Street, which is how the story took its first turn, because originally this was German Street and sat along with Bengal Street and Poland Street running from Great Ancoats Street down Union Street and the Rochdale Canal. 

German Street, 1851

And the canal with the Ashton Canal which is a little further south assisted in the development of this area as an important textile manufacturing centre in the early decades of the 19th century.

Many of those cotton mills still exist but long ago became part of that gentrification revolution which saw them converted into residential apartments and smart offices and studios.

Not that I have anything against that development, but along the way, someone stole a bit of the Rochdale Canal.

To be strictly accurate it was a branch of the canal which ran off the main canal just a little east of Poland Street, and then by degree had another off shoot which ran west crossing Radium Street beside our piece of art.

The Bee Hive Mill, 2023

Looking at the picture on the wall it struck me that it stood beside a bridge, but on peering over the causal observer is rewarded with nothing more exciting than an over grown car park.

But back into the 19th century this was an important section of the canal and was boarded by a mix of textile mills, coal yards, the Phoenix Iron Works and the Behive Mill Cotton Mill

School Court, 2023

The coal yards and the Iron Works have long gone, but the Behive Mill which dates from 1824 is still there with its workmanship entrance on Jersey Street.

As is School Court which today is just an uninviting little dead end a little way down from that painting and the remnant of the branch canal.  

Apart from the name there is no other indication that this was the site of St Paul’s Church School which in the mid 19th century is shown on the maps as a substantial building.  

I have yet to find out anything about the building and it has gone by the 1890s, all of which will mean a trip to the archives to track its story.

I suspect if the students of the school had been invited to paint a wall they may well have improved on the 21st century spray can artist.

Well its an opinion.

Radium Street/ German Street, 2023

As for the canal it is less that it was stolen and just filled in when no one wanted it anymore.

Location; Ancoats

Pictures; Radium Street, School Court, Behive Mill, Jersey Street, 2023 from the collection of Andrew Simpson,  and extract from the Manchester Guardian, 1828, deatil of Adhead’s map of Manchester in 1851, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/ and Radium Street, 2023, courtesy of Google Maps