Victoria Railway Station ……... the one with the lot

It’s the Manchester railway station that has heaps more than just a set of platforms, some fast food out lets and lots of passengers.*

True Victoria does have all these, but it also has plenty of history on display and more than a bit you can no longer see.

It starts with that bold assertion of just how many places you could travel to back in 1909, all of which are there to see on the sweeping glass and iron canopy at the front of the station.

They were “Leeds, Harrogate, Bradford, York, Scarborough, Newcastle, Hull, Belgium, Liverpool, Southport, Bury, Blackpool, Fleetwood, Goole, Ireland, and Scotland”

And if you want more there is the magnificent, tiled map taking up three quarters of a tall wall which lists the network of towns across the North as well as eleven destinations in Wales and Ireland and twenty-one European seaports and concluding with “and the Continent”.

To which can now be added the stops along the way to Bury, Oldham and Rochdale on the Metro lines.

The station also has the memorial to those men from the Lancashire  & Yorkshire Railway who served in the Great War.  

It is made of bronze I and  lists their names flanked by the effigies of Saint George and Saint Michael with  a smaller plaque to the men from the company’s goods yard who also served.

Less ornate but no less moving is the small plaque beside an arch which once led to a separate platform from which thousands of soldiers departed Victoria during that war.

It is simple but elegant and reads “To the Memory of the Many Thousands of Men Who Passed Through This Door To The Great War 1914-18 And Those who Did Not Return”.

For as long as I can remember the arch was fronted by a wooden door which became more and more dilapidated, doing little for the dignity of the memorial.  But in 2015 the space was filled with a glass panel on which a map records the location of Commonwealth War Cemeteries, to which was added a tiled plinth and lighting.

And beside it there is at present a memorial to those who were killed or hurt by the Arena bombing on May 22nd, 2017, which is matched by the impressive Glade of Light memorial close by.

Each of these memorials are an essential part of the station and are seen by thousands each day.

Less visible are parts of the city which were destroyed or built over during the construction and expansion of the railway station.

These include Cemetry at Walker’s Croft where up to 40,000 were buried, some of whom were paupers and some were Cholera victims.

Nearly 170 years later the lost cemetery became the focus of concerns during the modernization of the railway station with the Manchester Evening News reporting in 2013 that “Human remains lying in a mass pauper’s grave under Manchester Victoria station are to be dug up”**

No less grim and still within the confines of the station is the site of the Manchester Union Workhouse.  It had opened in 1793 and fronted New Bridge Street and Ducie Street.

In the 1850s a new workhouse was built at Crumpsal and part of the Manchester site was sold to the railway company who extended the station in 1875, followed forty-five years later when the remaining buildings were cleared to expand the goods yard.

And the same expansion had seen the demolition of some of the slum properties in Irk Town to accommodate the new viaduct which carried trains out of the station.

At which point I could dig deep into the story of the railway’s presence on the site but it’s a long and a tad bewildering tale involving rival railway companies which regularly merged with others.

Suffice to say that Manchester and more specifically Victoria Railway station were at the heart of railway development. The station was opened in 1844, just fourteen years after the first passenger railway station was opened on Liverpool Road by the Liverpool and Manchester Railway company.

By the mid-1840s six railway companies operated from the station and it was one of the biggest passenger stations in Britain.

But during the 1970s and 80s the station seemed in decline. The much-vaunted Pic Vic Tunnel connecting the two railway stations had been shelved, many of the services had been diverted to Piccadilly and only a handful of platforms remained, with a chunk of the station sold off for the construction of the Manchester Arena.

All a sad end to what had once been a thriving and important railway hub, which in 1909 boasted 17 platforms and that grand exterior façade. 

To which in 1929 was added an extension linking Victoria to Exchange Railway Sation.

But as we know stories can have happy endings, and with the arrival of the Metro the station has had a new lease of life, which has included a new roof, the modernization of the concourse area which has retained the iconic wooden booking hall, and the former First Class buffet and stationer’s.

So yep Victoria has got the lot.

Leaving me just to add in an outrageous way the Station, surrounding area along with Shudehill and Market Street are the subject of our new trams book due out later next month.

It is book three in the series of The History of Greater Manchester by Tram  and will be available like the other books at Central Ref, Chorlton Bookshop, and Waterstones on Deansgate as well as from us at www.pubbooks.co.uk, price £4.99***

Which will be followed by books exploring the metro line across the city to the Etihad Stadium, Salford and Altrincham.

Location; Manchester Victoria Railway Station

Pictures; at the station, 2025, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*And yes Piccadilly Railway Station was London Road Railway Station with an impressive main entrance which was demolished for its 1960s reicarnation and subsequent makeover at the start of the 21st century, while Oxford Road has reatined its dramatic 1960s "new look" replacing the wooden shack.

**Bainbridge, Peter, A grave undertaking... Victoria Station cemetery is departing from Platform 1, Manchester Evening News, April 9, 2013, https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/grave-undertaking-manchesters-victoria-station-2573159 

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