Travels through a lost bit of railway history ........ sixty-one years ago

 I won’t be alone in having a long love affair with the former Liverpool Road Railway Station.

The 1830 Warehouse, 1965

It opened in 1830 along with a warehouse and was the first passenger railway in the world connecting Manchester to Liverpool.

Not that passenger traffic was the reason for its construction, that decision rested with the economic priorities of providing a cheap form of transport to shift goods between the two destinations.

So successful was the venture that within a few years extra warehouses were constructed, a second passenger platform was built and just 14 years after it all began, a new station was opened at Hunts Bank and our site was given over entirely to goods.

The story is one I often return to and for two decades was a place from where I ran conducted talks and walks.

The platform with former passengerwaiting room beyound, 1965

It had been abandoned by British Rail in 1975 and bits sold off to Granada TV and later still the rest became the new home of the Greater Manchester Museum of Science and Technology. 

My first encounter with the place was in 1980 during the “Steam Expo” event, when I took a series of good and not so good pictures.

But others had come with their camera before me, including Ron Stubley and as yet unknown photographer in 1965.

The unknown photographer took four colour slides which are part of a collection which cover Manchester, Stretford and out to Chorlton and Wythenshawe and are a mix of industrial scenes, some old historic buildings and more than a few of well-known city centre sites.

Former passenger platform, 1965

The collection was donated to me by the daughter of the photographer, but somewhere along the line their identity was lost, although I am still looking for the letter, email or Facebook message which alerted me to the names of the woman who donated them and the photographer.

Those for the Liverpool Road site are a window into what was still a working area and show just how far the buildings had been knocked about over the 135 years since the  complex had opened.

The 1830 warehouse still retained the loops holes through which goods would be taken in from the rail side and the arches through which wagons would have been pulled into the building.

The plaque, 1965

But at some point, one of the arches had been lost and a much larger entrance constructed.

As late as the 1990s it was still possible to find the turntables used to turn wagons 90 degrees and transfer them inside.

Likewise, bits of the old passenger railway station had survived but all were in a vey sad state.

Along with these relics there was the commemorative plaque above the doorway on Liverpool Road, recording the site’s history and set against that washed out red paint which was part of the old British Rail livery and indeed may been remanent from the former LMS colour scheme.

On that last note I await to be corrected.

Location’ Liverpool Road

Pictures; walking the old Liverpool Railway site in 1965, from the 1965 collection

Manchester's first railway station ........... no.2 a history lesson

The carriage shed, 2004

Now I have always had a fascination for Castlefield and in particular the Liverpool Railway Station.

And a few days ago when Ron posted some of his pictures of the site in the early 1980's it stirred my pot.

So here are a mix of Ron's pictures and mine from almost four decades later, with a bit of a story.

Castlefield became the centre of the first railway complex in 1830.

The original site consisted of the station and warehouse, which was extended a year later to include a set of offices, passenger shed and two more warehouses.

By 1837 a second station platform had been built opposite, reflecting the growing number of passengers.

What is interesting about the buildings is the way they mirror the existing technology but also look forward to the future.

The 1830 warehouse, 1980

So the 1830 warehouse copied the canal warehouses, which were built around the Castlefield Basin but used new materials like cast iron.


Canal warehouse design had been perfected during the last half of the 18th century.

The main features of the design were a series of loading points called loop holes on each floor and access points for barges to move directly into the building.

Similar loopholes were situated on the roadside of the warehouse. This enabled goods to be moved from one side to another. One of the best of these is sited opposite Dukes 92 and has recently been renovated.

The 1830 warehouse, 2004

The original 1830 warehouse used a combination of loopholes and arches designed to allow wagons to be pushed into the building.

After the great fire in 1866, which destroyed the two newer warehouses, this practice was stopped. It is still possible to see where the lines ran into the building. Turntables existed to turn and push wagons into the warehouse.

Maps of the period show these turntables all over the site. The last one was only torn up in the late 90s.

All along the rail side it is possible to see changes that have been made to the original design.

One of the arches has been enlarged and one of the loopholes adapted. It is possible to see some of the early winding gear above one of the loopholes, and the different brickwork above other loopholes can see the evidence for where others once were.

Canal Warehouse, 2004

Likewise the station design is really just a development of stagecoach technology.

Passengers stepped up into the railway carriage, which were just stagecoaches on rails.

Like the road version, luggage and the guard sat on top of the carriage.

The carriage shed, which protected passengers, has a wooden beamed roof not unlike medieval buildings but is supported by the new technology of cast iron pillars.

Looking up to the Byrom Warehouse, 1980

If you look beyond the station to G Mex you can see the future.

In just 50 years railway stations were to be transformed into graceful arches of iron and glass, with the platforms below. Central, Piccadilly and Victoria stations are only later manifestations of Crystal Palace.

The site continued to evolve, and for a long time was a pretty drab warehouse complex and after its closure could have lingered on as a neglected spot gently decaying before falling to Derek the Developer.

1980                                                                      2004

But happily it became the home for the museum which is another story.

Location; Liverpool Road

Pictures; the site in the 1980s courtesy of Ron Stubley, and in the early 21st century from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Manchester's first railway station ........... no.1 waiting for something to happen

Now when Ron shared four pictures of the old railway station and warehouse on Liverpool Road, I was transported back nearly four decades.

The station and carriage shed

I visited it just after it had finally closed and British Rail had sold it to the museum.

It was hard at the time to see just how significant were these old run down buildings.

But these were the first passenger railway station and warehouse, having opened in 1830 when a group of Manchester businesses wanted a quick and cheaper way to get their manufactured goods to Liverpool.
Added to which they quickly saw the commercial advantage of using their railway trains to carry paying passengers.

So here in the pictures is the passenger buildings, beyond which is the carriage shed erected the following year.

And as with so much of the 19th century there was a strict division between those of property and wealth who travelled first class and the rest as seen in the provision of a first and second class booking hall and waiting room.

the 1830 warehouse, railway side

And it is worth remembering just how much the new railway company was at the cutting edge of technological change.  Their steam locomotives may have been the future but tickets were still handwritten and first class carriages were essentially stage coaches placed on a set of railway chassis.

In that respect they were looking back as well as forward.  And that was reflected in their choice of warehouse design, which was direct coy of the existing canal warehouses, complete with arches which allowed waggons to be taken into the building.

Inside the 1830 warehouse

But unlike canal boats which can turn effortless, the railway waggons had to be uncoupled placed on a turntable and then turned 90 degrees before being pushed into the warehouse.

Originally these turn tables were all over the site but the last which was beside the Byrom Warehouse was taken away some time in the 1990's.

And tomorrow there will be more on those early warehouses, of which there were three.

The first built in 1830 opposite the railway station and the second two built the following year which stood at right angles.

These were destroyed in a devastating fire.

The surviving buildings have done well to be still with us, although they were pretty much knocked about.

But have now become part  of the museum complex.

Location; Liverpool Road

Pictures; the railway station and first warehouse, built in 1830-31 as they were in the early 1980s from the collection of Ron Stubley