Goodbye the Hotspur Press … only the demolition team and Andy Robertson think of you……

 Well of course that is not strictly accurate.

There are others interested in the building who keep coming down since the fire to photograph the sad sight of what’s left.

But there aren’t many.  The media, and TV pundits, have moved on to pop concerts, and road closures.

While the conspiracy theorists no longer cast the dice on who was to blame, how had the story first broken on a Chinese news station 24 hours earlier and had the building really been consumed by flames, and instead return to stories of visitors from outer space building the pyramids.

Not my old chum Andy Robertson who was back on Friday with camera in hand to explore what was going on.

As ever he is creating a collection of pictures which will chronicle the end of the building and whatever the developers have in mind for the site.

So here are his latest images which reveal the bits inside which most never see from Cambridge Street, along with the effects of the fire on timber, stone and wood.

And I finish with a picture almost the same as the first, but which offers us that chair just beyond the fence.

I may be wrong but that chair or a similar one seems to have sat there for as long as I can remember, long before the fire and long before the high-rise developments along Cambridge Street.

Well I may be wrong …. Someone I am sure will have an opinion, and perhaps come up with some photographs of the site of their own.

We shall see.

Location; Cambridge Street

Pictures; Friday on Cambridge Street at the Hotspur Press site, 2025, from the collection of Andy Robertson

After they have all gone …… the relic of the Hotspur Press

It is a familiar story ….. a breaking news event … be it a bombing, a flood disaster, or in this case the fire on Cambridge Street when the Hotspur Press burned down in a matter of hours.

On that June evening, the press, TV pundits, conspiracy theorists and photographers were all over the historic building which some claim to be the oldest textile mill in Manchester.

But almost before the last smouldering embers gave up their heat, the press, TV pundits, conspiracy theorists and photographers quit the stage looking for new sensational things to report and record.

Leaving the conspiracy theorists to cast the dice on who was to blame, how had the story first broken on a Chinese news station 24 hours earlier and had the building really been consumed by flames.

Meanwhile a few stalwarts went back and continue to do so with the aim of recording what happened next.

Amongst these is my old friend Andy Robertson who is  big contributor to the blog, seeking to record the whole story of a building, from it decline to its eventual demolition and its replacement.

In the process he has amassed a vast collection of images of places across the Twin Cities and beyond making it a wonderful record of the transformation of Manchester, Salford and other places across Greater Manchester.

Of these two images he told me “a bit more knocked down”.

So watch this space.

Location; Cambridge Street

Pictures; knocking down bits of the Hotspur Press, 2025, from the collection of Andy Robertson

A printing press ..... a river and the future …… Cambridge Street

The story of the Hotspur Press on Cambridge Street is well documented.

And there will be many people who have watched the surrounding streets slowly transform from run down reminders of our industrial past to bright tall office and residential properties.

So, this week Andy was back walking the familiar route, following the bend in the River Medlock, and clocking the changes.

The two images I have chosen perfectly capture this spot.

The first mixes Hotspur House with the tall buildings behind it and point to that simple observation that the city continues to change.

I am not always a keen fan of the tall blocks that are rising everywhere, particularly those that seem to defy gravity and make the human figure look miniscule.

But then I doubt I would signed up to that burst of new build which spread across Manchester in the early 19th century.

And no doubt I would have railed against the enclosing of the “sweet flowing rivers” by tall factories and warehouses, and worse by hiding them in brick built tunnels.

The end of the city’s first Industrial Revolution has begun to open up those rivers again, but there is still plenty of evidence of that past.

Location; Cambridge Street

Pictures; Hotspur House and the river, 2021, from the collection of Andy Robertson