Down at Spinningfields …….. remembering an older time

This is the corner of Hardman Street and Byrom Street sometime around 1983.

Byrom Street, circa 1983

I can’t be exactly sure of the date, but it will be in the early 1980s when it seemed that almost every Saturday there was a march and demonstration.

They ranged for calls to stop further cuts in public spending, demands for the withdrawal of US Cruise missiles and those Anti Nazi rallies.

This one was about the arms race and in particular the siting of a new generation of delivery systems for nuclear weapons by the United States Air Force here in Britain.

The march began at All Saints, threaded its way through the city before ending at Crown Square.

And this image was taken as the demonstration came to an end.

Byrom Street, 2022

Apart from bringing back memories of the time and my own impassioned youth it neatly supplied a reminder of what was here before the new Spinningfields.

Spinningfields is one of those bright shiny “new bits” of the city.

I often wander down there to take pictures and try and remember just what it was like when I first washed up in Manchester over 50 years ago.

To be honest it’s a bit of a blur and back in 1969 I don’t think I thought much of it.  It was just a  network of streets and buildings which had seen better times waiting for something to happen.

And then as you do I took my eye off the area and only returned as the developers were filling the place up with tall glass and concrete buildings, some pretty soulless open spaces and heaps of restaurants.

Byrom Street, 1893

Occasionally I would challenge myself to remember what it replaced with little success. 

But here is the answer because what is now modern buildings “more glass than wall” is the old Hospital for Consumption and Diseases of the Throat”.

I will go looking for its history, but for now that is it.

Queue for my old Facebook chum Alan Jennings, to offer up some of his priceless memories.

But I can add that, "The Hospital was established in 1875 in St. John Street, Manchester. 

It transferred to new premises in Hardman Street in 1886. In 1885 an in-patients hospital was opened at Bowdon, Cheshire, and in 1904 the Crossley Sanatorium at Delamere, near Frodsham, Cheshire, was built, named after the Chairman of the Board, W. J. Crossley, a major contributor to its cost".*

Location; Byrom Street

Picture; Byrom Street, circa 1983, from the collection of Andrew Simpson,  in June 2022, courtesy of Goggle Maps and the corner of Byrom and Hardman Streets, 1893, from the 1893 OS map of South Lancashire, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, https://digitalarchives.co.uk/

*Manchester Hospital for Consumption and Diseases of the Throat and Chest, Manchester City Council, https://www.manchester.gov.uk/directory_record/212450/manchester_hospital_for_consumption_and_diseases_of_the_throat_and_chest#:~:text=The%20Hospital%20was%20established%20in,Chairman%20of%20the%20Board%2C%20W.%20J.