Cleaning the Town Hall …….. 1967

Now for anyone who doesn’t remember the Town Hall when it still had nearly a century of Manchester soot and grime, here is the picture.

It was taken in 1967, just three years after the City Council had estimated the cleanup would cost £25,000.

And what I like about the image is the contrast between the dark stone, and the two sections which have been cleaned.

As dramatic as the clock tower looks, I rather think it is the section on Lloyd Street which offers up just what the cleaning had achieved., highlighting the detail in the stonework and lifting the section to the eye.

Why they began with Lloyd Street will be on record somewhere, but I suspect it was the trial, which if it went wrong was down a side street.

Nor is that all that the picture has to offer.

Albert Square was still an island surrounded by traffic, with provision for parking opposite the Town Hall, and the underground Victorian lavatories, with their period features and sturdy iron railings.

And for the particularly observant, there almost in the centre of the square, is the statue of Oliver Heywood, who had already been washed in advance of his neighbour, William Gladstone.

Not sure why he got preferential treatment, but someone will know, and a lot more people will pile in with speculation.

And they will no doubt have theories about just what happened to the lavatories.

Were they stripped of their features, just back filled, or just covered over?

Location; Albert Square

Picture; Town Hall clean up, Albert Square, 1967, Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection, https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR35NR9v6lzJfkiSsHgHdQyL2CCuQUHuCuVr8xnd403q534MNgY5g1nAZfY

And the Town Hall challenge is ………

So, here are two pictures probably taken minutes apart sometime around 2002.

For years they had sat in a folder tucked away in another folder with the improbable description of “Manchester City Centre”.

At the time there will have been something about the configuration of the two towers that caught my attention, but I moved onto other scenes.

And now almost a quarter of a century later I wonder just where I was.

I am guessing it will be Cooper Street close to Kennedy Street, but the angle isn’t quite right.

I rater think I might have been on Booth Street before the tall glass building that straddles Booth and Kennedy Street was built.

It was still under construction in 2012, and I was there a deace earlier, so may be that’s where I was.

And that is the challenge ….. just where was I?

Location off Cooper Street

Pictures; Manchester Town Hall, 2002, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

One clock tower ….. a pub ….. and 4 funny looking cars ….. 45 years ago

The picture may not win any prizes for top quality image of the year.

But then it was 1979 and I was just starting out on taking photographs and developing them using smelly photography.

Still, it is sort of a record of the Town Hall, and the Town Hall Tavern taken from King Street a very long time ago

Location; King Street

Picture; One clock tower ….. a pub ….. and 4 funny looking cars, 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Snaps of Manchester number 7 ....... the Town Hall and the Cathedral in the 1920s

Now if you live in Manchester or like me claim it as your adopted city the chances are that you will have taken a picture of the Town Hall.

It was designed by Alfred Waterhouse and finished in 1877, and it remains a splendid building.

 I spent many years from the 1970s in the various state rooms and when meetings ground to tedious repetition and sloganising there was always the paintings, the wallpaper and the ceilings to marvel at.

The outside is no less impressive, but I have never found a good angle at which the to take a picture, and the result is that you  end up somewhere on Cross Street or South Mill Street trying to get all of the building in the frame.

Now I know it is possible to stand directly opposite on Brazenose Street but all too ofteh you have to wait for a clear moment when a bus a taxi or a lorry aren’t passing.

So I am always pleased when someone pulls it off.  In this case the picture comes from the collection of Sandra Hapgood and dates from the early decades of the last century.

It is another of those Snaps of Manchester which are often just as valuable as the carefully composed images taken by a professional.  And although they are often undated and their significance is lost they can be just as interesting.

More so because they are often of places which are unrecorded by the professional or commercial photographer.

Having said that I would like a £ for every image I have seen of the Cathedral.  This one comes from the same collection and will date from the same time.

It was taken from Exchange Station, now long gone, although bits of its railway past are still littered around what is now a car park.

Today the stretch of Victoria Street is closed to traffic which seemed a good idea but I rather think the temporary building in front of the Cathedral however worthy its use detracts from the Cathedral.

Pictures; from the collection of Sandra Hapgood

In Albert Square in June 1932

Now this is not one of the best quality postcards in the collection but it is one of the only ones I have of the Town Hall and Albert Square in the 1930s.

The exact date is a bit in doubt but the image was registered on the catalogue list of Valentine & Sons on June 28th 1932, although it may have been taken earlier.

The company of Valentine & Sons began producing photographic postcards in the early 1860's and continued as an independent company for a century before being taken over in 1963 by John Waddington and later sold on to Hallmark Cards INC of the United States in 1980.*

And as you do I have become more interested in Valentine’s but that is for another time, suffice to say the collection is with the University of St Andrews**

Going back to the Town Hall it is a scene which I pretty much remember from when I arrived in 1969.

Of course the trams had gone, along with the old fashioned taxis and the Town Hall had just been  cleaned up, but otherwise it is a scene that looks familiar enough.

But the space behind Albert was still the taxi rank, and the buildings to the left of the tram were still there, not that I can remember them.

But then I was just 19 and that long old block of grime and smoke covered offices and shops held no special attraction.

Looking back I wish I had taken an interest in them.

Certainly those remaining to the north and south of the square are fine buildings and have adapted well to a new century.

As of course has the Town Hall which is a place I never tire of visiting.

Picture; from the collection of Alan Brown

*University of St Andrews Valentine Collection, University of St Andrews 1999, revised 2010
**http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/imu/imu.php?request=home

All wrapped up ……….

There will be countless pictures of our Town Hall, taken from every angle, and from almost every decade since the place was opened.

But given the relative short history that the building has been closed for renovation I suspect that there will not be that many of its “wrapped up time”.

So here is mine.

Had I more fore thought I might have taken it in the run up to Christmas with a suitable caption including “wrapped up”, "present” and “to open on ........”.

But I didn’t.

So instead, it will join the countless others recording yet another moment in its history.

Location; Albert Square, 

Picture; All wrapped up, 2023, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Free ........ James Fraser ........ and the other Albert Square Four

I wonder what James Fraser and his fellow occupants of Albert Square think about being locked up behind those tall walls in front of the Town Hall for another two years?

Mr. James Frazer, 2022

He shares the space with Prince Albert, John Bright, Oliver Heywood and William Gladstone.

And not for the first time I have pondered on the absence of a woman on a pedestal in the square.

Which I know is a cheap jibe, but none the less a pertinent one.

Still there is that one of Mrs. Pankhurst looking out on St Peter’s Square, which I think is more to a scale of memorial I like.

You can go and stand beside her, or better still position yourself just behind and share her gaze across the Square.

Conversely those grand, worthy, and eminent Victorians look down at you with all that lofty self-esteem and try as I can I don’t often get a good picture of them ……. just a crick in the neck.

Now, I know of course that their imprisonment will finish in 2024 when the final touches are put to the restored Town Hall and the enlarged Albert Square.*

Our Albert, 2018

The project should have been finished a year earlier but as everyone knows a mix of Covid and the inevitable surprises that any restoration throw up have delayed things.

Sharing the square with Mrs. Pankhurst, 2022

Still it won’t be long now before the walls come down and I can wander freely across the square renewing my acquaintanceship with the said five and popping into the Town Hall to see what’s been done.

And by all accounts there has been a lot done, bringing our Town Hall into the 21st century while bringing back much that has been lost, hidden and left a tad neglected.

Location; Albert Square and St Peter’s Square.

Pictures; looking across to Mr. Frazer, 2022, Our Albert 2018, and Mrs Pankhurst, 2022 from the collection of Andrew Simpson 

 *Our Town Hall Project - the transformation,https://www.manchester.gov.uk/info/500354/our_town_hall/7297/our_town_hall_project_-_the_transformation/1

Celebrating our Municipal Town Halls part 6 .......... Manchester Town Hall*

Well I could hardly leave our own Town Hall out of the collection.*

It is a building I have been fascinated by for nearly half a century, although when I first saw it I was not convinced.  Back then I was still into classical buildings and rather was disdainful of all that Gothic stuff.

Plenty of people would come to its defence including one friend who pointed out that it had just been cleaned as if that would make me like it all the more.

Of course that Gothic prejudice has long vanished and during the 1970s into the 90s I spent many hours in the building and came to fully appreciate it as a fine statement of all that municipal power.

And here I have to mention Mr Tidmarsh whose illustraions have been regularly used by any one wanting to show our city in the last decades of the 19th century.

Many of them can be found in the three volumes of Manchester Old and New by William Arthur Shaw published in 1894.

I noticed a recent auction of the 3 which estimated that they might go for

£30-£40, and there are also paper back versions as well as an e book.

I chose to opt for the Library copies which once ordered up arrived at Chorlton Library in a matter of days, something I am sure would have pleased the Corporation's Library Committee back at the beginning of the last century.









Pictures, Manchester Town Hall, by H.E. Tidmarsh from Manchester Old and New, William Arthur Shaw, 1894

*Our Municipal Town Halls, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Our%20Municipal%20Town%20Halls

Prince Albert inspects progress at the Town Hall

Work on the continued restoration of the Town Hall continues apace.

And yesterday I wandered into Albert Square to look over the progress.

It will be another three years before the planned reopening.

Occasionally little snippets of the work are revealed.

In the meantime, the builder’s boards encompassing the site offer up a cornucopia of interesting information.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; Albert Square, 2021, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

 

The full beauty of the Town Hall revealed

Now for pretty much a full century this view of the Town Hall had been obscured by buildings and even with the installation of the Peace Gardens in 1985 it rarely got the same attention as the Albert Square side.

And yet it does have a presence which today has been heighted by the relocation of the Cenotaph to a position just in front of the entrance.

And that I think is all I want to say except that Peter’s painting does the building proud.

Painting; New Cenotaph location and west entrance of Town Hall from a photograph by Andrew Simpson. Painting © 2015 Peter Topping, 
Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk
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