Travels from Cornbrook and on into the city ……

 This is the book which every tram traveller should have.

Stories at the Stops, Book 2, Cornbrook to Exchange Square, 2024

It’s the second in the series telling the history of Greater Manchester By Tram.*

Book one covered the journey from East Didsbury to Trafford Bar and over the next brace of years Andrew Simpson and Peter Topping will cover all 99 tram stops on all of the eight routes across the 64 miles of the network.

And they confidently expect that heaps of the 42 million passengers who annually let the tram do the biz will read about “The Stories at the Stops”.

Cornbrook, the stairs and the passenger, 2024

So, at Cornbrook there is the tale of Pomona Gardens and its 1850 model of Vesuvius.

 At Deansgate, dark doings along the canal.

In St Peter’s Square the history of the church, the war memorial and that massacre.

Leaving a collection of historic stuff around Exchange Square including that “bile yellow” “thing” which passed for “the biggest toilet block in the world” and which replaced a wealth of secret alley ways with names like Back Sugar Lane, Seven Stars Court and Little Tipping Street.

And the odd idea of jacking up a much-loved historic building and later taking it apart and reassembling it closer to Manchester Cathedral.

Arriving at Deansgate Castlefield, 2023

Book two "Cornbrook to Exchange" along with all the Simpson/Topping collection is available from Chorlton Bookshop, and from us at www.pubbooks.co.uk, price £4.99

Crowds gather to greet a big yellow tram, St Peter's Square, 2024

The changing scene, Exchange Square, 2014

Location; From Cornbrook to Exchange Square

Pictures; traveling from Cornbrook via Deansgate Castlefield, and St Peter's Field to Exchange Square, 2013-2024

*A new book on the History of Greater Manchester By Tram, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/A%20new%20book%20on%20the%20History%20of%20Greater%20Manchester%20by%20Tram