Cathedral Gardens is one of my favourite open-air spaces in the city.
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| Watching the water feature, 2025 |
It is a relatively recent addition but does what such places are supposed to do offering up somewhere to sit, meet up or take a break from all the busy stuff going on around it.
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| Long Milgate, 1875, close to the water feature |
Go back far enough and it is the site of heaps of old buildings including what was the timber framed Sun Inn which became known as Poet’s Corner.
Later still in the 1950s it was home to a hotel and printing press and as part of the regeneration of this part of the city became Cathedral Gardens after the IRA bomb in 1996.
Over the years I have dropped in on cold winter’s evening, and wandered through in high summer
And on Monday I was there just after 8 in the morning on what was a fine spring day.
At one end were two Jehovah Witnesses siting on a bench with their promotional material and a few people waiting for a bus, but the gardens were empty leaving me to admire the water feature while busy commuters purposefully made their way from the railway station past Cheetham’s and the Cathedral and onto shops and offices.
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| The gardens in the early morning, 2025 |
Of course detractors will point to that time of year when bits of it have been taken over by the Christmas Markets or other events.
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| Catching the bus, Todd Street, 2025 |
Location; Cathedral Gardens
Pictures; Cathedral Gardens, 2025, from the collection of Andrew Simpson and Long Millgate, 1875, m02783, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council , http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass
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