How we lived ……………. catching a bus ...... just a quarter of a century ago

Once again, I am looking at a bit of history which for many of us won’t seem like history ………. just a little before now.

And I make no excuses that this appears to be nothing more than a story about a bus timetable, because lurking behind “Your Handy Guide” there is much more, all of which is revealed in the introduction which welcomed travelers “to the first edition of this new handy timetable booklet covering all GM Buses services in the Chorlton area.

Since deregulation of the bus services in October 1986 there have been numerous changes to bus services with the tendering process leading to some routes changing between operators or possibly being run by more than one operator depending on the time of day or day of the week”.

And that gets to the heart of this little bit of history, because before bus deregulation we were served by one operator covering the whole of Greater Manchester and before that by city and district services administered by local authorities.

The creation of an elected authority for Greater Manchester was matched by an amalgamation of all the existing bus providers into SELNEC, or South East Lancashire North East Cheshire, which morphed into Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive.

Its demise at the hands of a Conservative Government lead to a plethora of independent bus companies which ran for profit and focused on the routes which offered the most in passengers.

So, the student route along Oxford Road past the university and on through Rusholme, Fallowfield, Withington and Didsbury was awash with buses.

But now we have the expansion of the B Network with the control of key elements of public transport back in the hands of muncipal direction.  Promising an integrated, cheaper and more coherent service. 

And the buses are painted yellow. I like yellow.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; “Your Handy Guide”, GM buses, 1992

A little bit of what we have lost ………. Manchester in the 1990s

Now I always maintain that it is often some of the most recent photographs of the city which look outdated and somehow out of place.

I suppose it is because we are prepared for those old black and white images from the beginning of the last century or the end of the 19th.

The people and the places are quite clearly from another time, when they did things differently, and even when the buildings are still there, they belong to that other time.

But not so more recent images, which are usually in colour and have enough about them to be almost now, but not quite.

And these two of St Peter’s Square fit that bill.

Both date from the 1990s, feature those old blue trams, and feature Central Ref and the Cenotaph.

But just a quarter of century or so on, the trams have been replaced, the Cenotaph relocated, and Central Ref undergone a major refurbishment and make over.

Added to which, the square itself has been transformed, and while we have lost the People’s Garden, we have gained a new metro stop, and an exciting new open space.

Well I think so anyway.

Leaving me just to expect a shedload of comments.

Location; St Peter's Square

Pictures; St Peter’s Square, circa 1990s, from the collection of picture postcards of Rita Bishop

Before the Beetham Tower ...... one of those lost Manchester scenes

Trafford Street and Deansgate, March 2003

We are on Deansgate, looking towards Trafford Street and this is one of those lost scenes of Manchester.

It is one I have been familiar with for over forty years.

To our right is the Deansgate pub and directly ahead is the great curved roof of what was Central Station and is now the exhibition centre.

And just to the left of where we are standing ran the viaduct that carried trains into the Great Northern Warehouse.

All that is now left of the viaduct is the end by Bridgwater Street.

The other end was only demolished relatively recently along with the buildings directly opposite us.

All went between 2004 and 2006 when the Beetham Tower was built.

Now the Tower comes in for quite a lot of criticism mainly I suspect because of the way it dominates this corner of the city.

And there is no escaping its presence.  Many of the views which were once familiar are now blocked by the tower and the glass box that stands beside it.

Trafford Street and Deansgate, May 2002

That said the buildings it replaced were not really much to write home about and once the ambulance depot moved out the site was pretty dismal.

But I have to say I can’t quite make up my mind about the Beetham Tower.

I am not against modern architecture partly because if history teaches you anything it is that some of our best loved buildings were once regarded as blots on the landscape but its sheer size does seem out of keeping with its surroundings.

Worse still, friends I talk to share with me that feeling that  the Tower makes you feel insignificant, something that even the CIS building and Sunlight House do not.

Both were built at a time when Manchester was embracing the new architecture of the mid 20th century and while they were hailed as new and exciting they fitted into the city landscape.

So I am left pondering on what we have lost and looking at these two pictures which were taken just a year apart.

The first was shot in the May of 2002 and the second in the March of the following year.

Trafford Street circa 1900

Unknown to me just a few months later in July 2003 the decision was taken to build the Tower and work began a year later.

Now hindsight is a wonderful gift and had I known of the plans back then I think I would have spent more time capturing the site before it disappeared.

Of course much of what it looked like soon after the viaduct had been built and the Great Northern Warehouse was open for business vanished a long time ago.

The great brick viaduct having crossed Deansgate carried on over Trafford Street, Crown Street and Bridgewater Street, delivering four railway lines into the warehouse.

Below in the arches were the stables of the railway company, a reminder that while the goods came in to the city by train it was horse drawn wagons that distributed them across Manchester.

I will go searching for some old photographs of the area.

That said they may be someone out there who did.

If so I would love to see the pictures. And indeed a selection of images of the towers which have followed the Beetham and those still under construction.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; corner of Trafford Street and Deansgate, 2002-3, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, detail of Trafford Street area, from Goad's Fire Insurance Maps of Manchester , 1900, Digital Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

Ghost stories from the Metrolink ……… 1992

 As transport features go the Mosley Street tram stop had a short life, opening in 1992 and closing on May 18th, 2013.

When Mosley Street was a tram stop, 2010

And given that it is now 12 years since it was last used there will be many who will not know of its existence and many more who have forgotten that once Timmy tram stopped there on its way south.

It stood  along side the row of shops and restaurants under Bernard House which my Wikipedia tells me “was the last unidirectional stop on the Metrolink, with a single platform serving southbound passengers travelling towards Altrincham Interchange, Eccles Interchange, MediaCityUK and St Werburgh's Road only”.*

I used it a few times, but it was not my go to stop and then it had gone. 

It always struck me as an afterthought on the network sandwiched between St Peter’s Square and Piccadilly Gardens. Added to which it only went the one way and what I had completely forgotten was that the stop “was designed with a varied height platform, partly full height with ramped lower sections. When a service was worked by two coupled T-68 vehicles, the rear vehicle extended mechanical steps to allow access at the low-platform sections - a feature absent in the newer M5000 vehicles”.*

High Street tram stop, 1990

So, there you are a little bit of our forgotten history.  Not that it was alone, because standing on High Street was another “one directional stop” which linked Market Street and Shudehill stops.

And this one I don’t remember ever using, nor for that matter do I remember that once Market Street was also one single platform, which became two in 1998 and sealed the fate of the High Street stop.

Leaving just Mosley Street as the only city centre single platform which eventually also vanished.  It did not benefit from a major upgrade and its days were numbered.

So returning to Wikipedia, “A review of the stop's future was conducted and found that the stop could cause congestion for trams at the Piccadilly delta junction when additional services are implemented. The report also noted that the tight confines around the stop location meant that rebuilding the platform to the new specifications would impact on pedestrian flows and access to adjacent retail establishments.

With two other Metrolink stops in close proximity (Piccadilly Gardens, 160 metres (520 ft), and Market Street), the expense of a platform upgrade was not considered to be economically or operationally justifiable. The decision was taken in February 2010 to close the stop".

Laying the tracks bringing a tram to Piccadilly and beyond, 1990

And so it went, leaving me to ponder as I pass the ghost of the stop how easy it is for a city landmark to be lost and pretty much forgotten.

I have Tony Goulding to thank for pulling me back to Mosely Street and its tram stop. 

He asked  “HI Andrew, I have just looked at an old Metrolink map (2008) and was reminded that there was originally a stop on Mosley Street. 

I am not sure, but I think it may have only had one (outward) platform. Has it had a mention in one of your tram books?"

The answer was no it was not in our first three tram books but it will appear in the next which takes the tram traveller from Piccadilly Gardens via Piccadilly Railway Station and onto New Islington, Holt Town and the Etihad Stadium.

The books will cover all eight routes and all 99 stops and as their titles indicate are the History of Greater Manchester By Tram, in which Peter Topping and I tell stories of the stops, and Peter paints them, with each book telling a bit of the history of Greater Manchester.**

The books are avaibale at £4.99 from Chorlton Bookshop, the shop at Central Ref, St Peter's Square, or from us at  www.pubbooks.co.uk 

Location; Mosley Street, Market Street & Market Street

Pictures; Mosley Street, David Dixon, 2010, From this image at geograph.org.uk; transferred by User:cnbrb using geograph_org2commons, Mosley Street, Manchester Looking north east to the north end towards Piccadilly Gardens where there will be a Delta junction, November 1990, Dr Neil Clifton / Mosley Street, Manchester  Mosley Street, Manchester Looking north east to the north end towards Piccadilly Gardens where there will be a Delta junction, Creative Commons Attribution Share-alike license 2.0, High Street, Manchester, April 1993, From geograph.org.uk; transferred by User:Wikidwitch using geograph_org2commons

* Mosley Street tram stop, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosley_Street_tram_stop

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

Always make a record ……. Shudehill before a tram or the bus

How easy it is to forget the more recent changes to our city.

The tram stop, 2023

I don’t mean that time before the rise of the giant towers which now dominate the skyline in almost every direction and are very striking scene as you travel in by tram from Cornbrook into Deansgate Castlefield.

Or for that matter the journey in to the city centre along the Oxford Road corridor or Rochdale Road from the north.

I am thinking instead of the bits in between like the entrance to Victoria Station, and the tall development at Nicholas Croft.

Into the bus station, 2023

All of which is an introduction to the Shudehill Interchange, which happened while I wasn’t looking.

My Wikipedia tells me that is a “is a transport hub between Manchester Victoria station and the Northern Quarter in Manchester city centre, which comprises a Metrolink stop and a bus station.

The tracks through the site were opened in 1992; however, the tram stop did not open until 31 March 2003. 

The bus part of the interchange opened on 29 January 2006.

Construction had initially started on the bus station in 1998 and it was planned to have been completed and fully operational by 2000, but several disputes over the ownership of the site along with two public inquiries over the course of five years resulted in the construction work on the station being halted until 2003”.*

The lonely wait, 2023

Now given the date 1992 there will be those that matter I must have had “my eyes closed for a long time”.

Which is of course possible but in reality had more to do with the simple fact that during the 1990s I rarely went to Victoria Railway Station or Shudehill.

When two trams meet, 2023

But perhaps I just wasn’t that observant to the point that when our Ben talked about getting a bus from Shudehill bus station I was a tad puzzled.

All of which has now been rectified, and as an alternative to the Second City Crossing, I will take the tram from St Peter’s Square via Market Street through Shudehill and onto Victoria.

Earlier in the week Shudehill was my go to destination, which I used as the staring point for a wander up to the Rochdale Road across to Swan Street, Eagle Street and round to High Street into the heart of the Northern Quarter.

So that is it, leaving me just to post some of the “interchange" pictures and one courtesy of John Casey when the tram tracks were in the making on their way to Victoria.

That said I have to confess that there were buses on Shudehill before the Interchange and even a horse drawn mail coach service to Ashton Under Lyne at the start of the 19th century from the Hare and Hounds.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Location; Shudehill

Tram rails in the making, 1990s

Pictures; Shudehill Interchange, 2023, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and tram rails in the making, 1990s courtesy of John Casey

*Shudehill Interchange, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shudehill_Interchange

A little bit of Manchester nearly 30 years ago ......... building the First City Crossing

I am looking at another one of John Casey’s photographs.

It dates from the very early 1990s when the construction of the First City Crossing was well under way, and this is the section by Victoria Station.

We tend to overlook more recent pictures of the city and yet they can be as revealing as any of those old black and white images from the early 20th century.

And this one is no exception.

It starts with that bus in the distance in the old livery, moves onto the actual track bed being prepared and finishes with those buildings one of which I still remember visiting when it was a Post Office.

In the last year or so they have vanished while the ones to their right behind the bus went in preparation for the construction of the Urbis which is now the National Football Museum.

Equally fascinating are the images of ghost buildings.

John took a series of pictures along the route of First City Crossing and with some stunning ones of Chapel Street around the same time and I am so pleased he has given permission for them to be featured on the blog.

Location; Manchester

Picture; down by Victoria Station circa early 1990s from the collection of John Casey

Unique pictures of Manchester after the bombing, ......... July 1996

I am in Manchester in the July of 1996 just a few weeks after the Manchester bomb which been left by the Provisional IRA in a van on Corporation Street. 

Now the story of the bomb attack and the subsequent rebuilding of this part of the city are readily available as are the dramatic pictures of the explosion and immediate aftermath.

Less often shown are photographs of the subsequent few weeks when people went to look at the damage.  

My eldest son and I must have been down there at the same time as Andy Robertson took these pictures, and it was odd how we both recollected the same feelings and above all remembered the response of other people who came, looked in silence and moved off.

And then there are the anecdotal stories like that of a friend who had to go into the damaged Mark and Spencer’s to assess the damage. 

She recalled “the great shards of glass embedded in the floor” and that “all the cash tills were open with the money just sitting there.” But above it was the overpowering smell of rotting food in freezers which had slowly started decomposing once the power had been cut.

What I find fascinating about Andy’s pictures is not only that they record that period between the bomb and the reconstruction but that they make me realize just how quickly I have forgotten what the city looked like.

And in some ways photographs of more recent times are more disorientating than those old monochrome images of the early 20^th century. 

I guess it is because with many of the old ones they are so different that you really are looking at a different place.  

But those taken over twenty years ago are almost like today and so you look at them thinking that you will see the present but are side tracked with the odd detail that confuses you.

So looking down towards the Cathedral there is much that superficially is the same including the MEN which had opened the year before.

But to our left the car park and which had once been a bus station is now an open area with fountains.  And the concrete walkway where Andy stood to take the picture has also gone, severing the overhead link with the buildings on the other side of Deansgate.  It was a bridge I remember was seldom used.

Equally fascinating is his photograph of Cateaton Street which ran from the junction of Deansgate and Victoria Street up to Hanging Ditch.  

The buildings look familiar but some have undergone new ownership, no buses now run along the road, and it terminates in Shambles Square and Exchange Square and the pub complex.  

Behind and shrouded in sheets is the old Corn Exchange which had become a centre for odd and quirky little shops.  These were forced out to the Northern Quarter after the renovation of the building and its transformation into the Triangle.

And more from Andy’s pictures later.

Pictures; courtesy of Andy Robertson

Central Ref …………… but not as we know it

Now, I know that line from Star Trek, by Dr McCoy about life but not as know it, and that seemed a fine start to reflect on this image of Central Ref from the 1990s, for while the building looks familiar, the make over a few years ago transformed the library.

And since then the area around it has also undergone profound changes, but for those I will leave you to discover for yourself.

Location; St Peter’s Square

Pictures; Central Ref, circa 1990s, from the collection of picture postcards of Rita Bishop

Lost views of Chepstow Street and the Peveril of the Peak, 1994

“I took this in 1996. I don't think you've seen it before. You won't be able to view the Peveril from this angle anymore. When re-viewing this photo just now I was rather (selfishly) hoping that that old tall building on the left had been demolished. However today it is The Rain Bar, 80 Great Bridgewater Street.”

Across to the Peveril, 1994

And with that intriguing opening comment Andy Robertson set me off on another of those journeys around the city which threw up fascinating insights into our city’s past.

So first that picture taken in 1994.

Today a whole slab of new build stands between us and the Peveril of the Peak and had Andy chanced down that way a little earlier he would have had had no chance of seeing uninterrupted from his vantage point across to the pub.

Great Bridgwater Street, 1964

I had quite forgotten the set of old buildings that ran along Great Bridgewater Street which Andy found in a 1964 photograph.

The one still standing had been home to a set of printing firms back in 1911 and the remaining section belonged to the Corporation and was the “Town yard” of the Highways Committee and included the Public Weighing machine.

And comparing the two pictures tells us quite a bit about how the owners and architects set about the design of the building that remains.

The front facing Bridgewater may have been basic but still managed to look impressive, while the rear was far more utilitarian with its loop holes on each floor to receive materials and hat large arch.

Chepstow Street, circa 1900

Delve even deeper into the area using the maps of the period and you get a sense of just how the nearby streets were crisscrossed with  arms from the Rochdale Canal.

So running off north under Great Bridgewater and then parallel with Chepstow Street was a stretch of water way that looped round terminating higher up Bridgewater Street.

Now I bet Andy has others from that period when this bit of the city was undergoing changes.
I hope so.




Picture; Looking across to the Peveril of the Peak, 1994, from the collection of Andy Robertson, Great Bridgewater Street, 1964, W Higham, m02008, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pas  and map of Chepstow Street circa 1900 from Goad’s Fire Insurance map courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

How we have changed ......... seen through the camera of Andy Robertson

Andy Robertson has been photographing Greater Manchester for nearly 40 years.

A striking view, 2018

Now on one level there is nothing unusual about that, but what marks Andy’s work off as different is that he will return to the same site recording the changes over a stretch of years.

In many cases it starts with his spotting a derelict building and with that tenacity I admire he will return photographing its demolition, the moment the builders go in to break the ground on a new development and the slow rise of that new property.

Nor is that all because he will also research the site and where possible come up with images from when that derelict building was bright, busy and happy.

Shudehill, 2017

The “Andy Local Image Collection” now consists of over 9,600 photographs and they are a wonderful history of how the Twin Cities and the surrounding areas of Greater Manchester have been transformed.

Added to which many are fine pictures in their own right, so much so that some have been used by Peter Topping who has painted them and many have appeared in the books that Peter and I have written about Manchester.

Nor are all of them of buildings.

Hulme, 1992

One of my favourites is of a shop window in Shudehill, taken last year, which perfectly captures those tiny enterprises which cluing on in the corners of the twin cities which are fast undergoing gentrification.

I first met Andy on a history walk I did back in 2012, and since then he has become a regular contributor to the blog, clocking up an impressive 388 stories with plenty more waiting to go live.

We are all familiar with the images of Manchester and Salford, taken by Victorian and Edwardian photographers and that vast collection created during the middle years of the last century.

They are plundered by everyone from professional historians, to commercial companies and of course all those fascinated by our past, which I admit includes me.

All of us use them to capture what it was like to live in the twin cities and the contrasts to the present.

Chester Road, 2017

I know that Andy’s pictures will be up there, used for decades to come and will be the bench mark to judge what we have done with where we live.

And amongst those images there are some magnificent buildings, along with a fair amount of dross.

Neither of us wallow in nostalgia and there is no doubting that places like the Quays and Media City are exciting places to visit.

That said I am not so sure abouts ome of the other new bits.

Media City, 2017

These for me include chunks of of Spinnyfield,  Redbank, and the Northern Quarter  along with  those tall new towers which march across the landscape and can be seen from miles outside the twin cities bounadries.

So that is it, , leaving me only to thank Andy and his daughter and son who like him are fired to photograph what they see.

Location; the Twin Cities and beyond, 1990- 2018 from the collection of Andy Robertson

George Cieslik‎’s Manchester ……… the coming of the tram .... part 3

It is easy now to forget that there was a time before the tram ........unless of course you can remember the old stately towering Corporation ones which disappeared at the end of the 1940s.

So here over the next few days are some of George Cieslik's pictures of the construction of the tram way.

Location; Manchester





Picture; the lost square, circa 1980s, from the collection of George Cieslik

George Cieslik‎’s Manchester ……… the coming of the tram .... part 2

It is easy now to forget that there was a time before the tram ........unless of course you can remember the old stately towering Corporation ones which disappeared at the end of the 1940s.

So here over the next few days are some of George Cieslik's pictures of the construction of the tram way.

Location; Manchester


Picture; the lost square, circa 1980s, from the collection of George Cieslik

George Cieslik‎’s Manchester ……… the coming of the tram .... part 1

It is easy now to forget that there was a time before the tram ........unless of course you can remember the old stately towering Corporation ones which disappeared at the end of the 1940s.

So here over the next few days are some of George Cieslik's pictures of the construction of the tram way.


Location; Manchester




Picture; the lost square, circa 1980s, from the collection of George Cieslik

Ghost trams ....... on seeing tram 1001 again

Now those who travel regularly on the East Didsbury and Airport lines will be familiar with the big tram depot between Firswood and Trafford Bar.

Here can be found a little bit of our Metrolink history,

Parked up,  sitting quietly, minding their own business, can be seen those blue trams, which ran the rails in the early days.

I have to say I prefer the new ones but then I have always liked the colour yellow.

But yesterday Andy Robertson that photographer of all things to do with changing Manchester and Salford sent me these two pictures with the caption “1001, the very first tram, pictured here at Old Trafford awaiting its fate”,adding  that “when I worked in The Abraham Moss in Crumpsall in 1992 the window by my desk on the third floor looked directly out on the tram line, and I saw the first trams being tested on the Bury route. 

I did a rewind back to my youth and jotted down the numbers. I spotted all 1001 to 1026 apart from 1013 which I later learned was permanently in the depot and therefore not spot-able. 

These sittings were well before The Abraham Moss tram stop was built”.

Location, a depot near you

Pictures; tram 101 and friends, 2017 from the collection of Andy Robertson

Already a lost scene ............ looking towards the bridge and the city ... circa 1990

Now I know there will be many fine accounts of Hulme  from just before it was cleared, and also stories of the Crescents and the Decks all accompanied by powerful pictures, but I wonder how many images there are of that time after the second clearance.

These are important because already the new build of low rise residential and offices and shops not to mention the MMU campus will have obliterated scenes like this.

And I think the memories of these vast open spaces will be more quickly lost than those of the communities that lived here from the middle of the 19th century.

I remember the campaign to save the Birley tree and passing through the arae on the bus wondering why it seemed to be taking so long to develop what was clearly prime lad.

But then I never followed the story and so it would be nice for those who do to add more pictures and stories of the time after that second clearance.

Andy Robertson took the picture It was taken sometime in the 1990s after Birley High School had gone and just before the last of the old late 60 and early 70s high rise blocks were taken down.





Picture; looking towards the bridge and the city, circa 1990s, from the collection of Andy Robertson

That post box which survived the IRA bomb ........ little known facts about that day no 1 ........... 11 letters

Now if you live in Manchester the chances are you will remember where you were and what you were doing when the news of the IRA bomb came through.

It went off at 11.47 am on the Saturday of June 15 1996.

Warnings had been received earlier in the day and the authorities faced a huge task of evacuating something like 75,000 people.

I was out shopping on Beech Road and could so easily have been in town with the kids.

As it was like many others I did wander into the city weeks later to view the damage.

In those first few weeks you could only get part way down Market Street and view the scene through a window in the temporary wall which prevented access to the area.

Small groups would silently stand by the window taking in the damage and then move off.

One of my friends had only just started a new job with the Health and Safety Executive and remembered visiting the Marks and Spencer’s story which she said was eerie.

"There were great shards of glass embedded in the floor; all the tills were open with the takings still in the trays and an overpowering smell from the decaying food which had been in the freezers when the power was cut."

And yesterday my old friend David wandered past the post box which had been directly beside the explosion and survived.

In sending over the picture he revealed that “a post office colleague collected the mail when able and resurrected 11 letters including 2 to a local church.”

All of which is a nice slant on that old phrase “the mail will always get through.”

Location; Manchester

Picture; the Manchester bomb post box, 2017, from the collection of David Harrop

So where is this hole in the ground?

It is a lesson in not only naming a picture but giving some detail. 

I should know I have shed loads of photographs which might as well have been taken on the moon because I never bothered to date them or give them a title.

Andy Robertson is better than me, he does name his pictures with a brief description  but the passage of twenty years can be a century when it comes to locating it today.

“I took this about 1996. 

My caption says Pall Mall behind Cross Street. I can't quite place it, can you?

The white building in the background should be a clue. That black tower centre left looks like it has come from the top a building or else it is a fancy public convenience?”

And that is the question.  No prizes just the satisfaction of helping the two of us name the hole and discover what is there now.

But we would like my old maths teacher used to say “show us your working out”, which in this case means a couple of sentences explaining how you came to the answer.

And quick as a flash with in an hour or so of the post being published we had a suggestion with a link to the map and its location.

So for those who want to go the next step just scroll down to the comments box and follow that yellow brick road, or in the case the link to google street maps.


Picture;  a hole in the ground, 1996 from the collection of Andy Robertson