Grass and open fields return to Mayfield …….

It is a long time since anyone paddled in the River Medlock at Mayfield but that was what was happening yesterday in the sun.

Rivers and glowers, 2025

Mayfield is that old bit of Manchester which borders the River Medlock a little south of Piccadilly Railway Station.

Mayfield, 1819

Mayfield, 1849

In the early 19th century, it was still fields, but it was already being encroached on all sides by houses factories and foundries. 

Mayfield, 1950

And the signs were not good for either Mayfield or the land beyond the River Medlock which in 1819 was still marked as Chapel Field.

Mayfield, 2025

Within three decades both areas had been built over, with a network of mean terraced houses stretching down from the railway station only halted by the presence of the Hanover Mill, the Fairfield Print Works, the Ardwick Dye Works and the Chapelfield Dye Works which clung to both sides of the River Medlock.

And that was still the case a century later, so while swathes of terraced housing had gone the industry remained in that pocket of land bisected by the river.

Nor was that all because in the course of that century the river itself was taken away, hidden in culverts, and doomed to flow in the dark.

Flowers, football and the Medlock, 2025

But the deindustrialization of the late 20th century offered up a new chance for Mayfield, and the story of the bold plan to create the first new park in the city is there to read.

So never one to pinch other’s work I suggest you follow the links below to read about the project and its fruition.*

To which I can my own progress report which occupied the blog during 2021 and 2022.**

Leaving me just to include some pictures taken yesterday of the new park accompanied by the old maps.

Location, Mayfield

Pictures; Mayfield Park, 2025 from the collection of Andrew Simpson and Mayfield over the centuries, from Johnson’s map of Manchester drawn in 1819, the OS map for Manchester, 1849, courtesy of courtesy of Digital Archives Association,  http://digitalarchives.co.uk/  the OS map of Manchester and Salford, 1950 and Myfield 2025, courtesy of Google Maps

Grass, 2025

*Mayfield Park, Manchester, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayfield_Park,_Manchester &

Mayfield Park, https://mayfieldpark.com/

**Mayfield Park, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Mayfield%20Park

Mayfield …….. that new park or …. how to claim back a bit of nature

Now, I have yet to wander down to Mayfield which contains “the new 6.5-acre Mayfield Park ….. Manchester city centre’s first public park. A liberating urban escape for all, it will be somewhere to walk, run, play, meet, picnic and paddle along the banks of River Medlock”.*

But lots of people have, including my old chum Andy Robertson who recorded his visit at the back of September.

Some have mumbled darkly why a new park?  Going on to question the economic value of creating an exciting new green place just minutes away from Piccadilly Railway Station and 10 minutes stroll from Piccadilly. 

Well, anyone who remembers the old blighted urban landscape, with its mix of car parks, open spaces and tired buildings will I think applaud the changes.

Apart from clumps of wildflowers and the odd bits of scrubby grass, this area has not been home to heaps of nature since the mid 18th century.  

I am not sure if during its final years of dereliction, the area was full of  Rosebay willowherb which I knew as Fireweed.  

It is a striking wild plant with tall spires of large pink/purple flowers that are best seen from June to September.  

Growing up in London in the 1950s it was a common site amongst the bomb sites which were yet to be developed.  But someone will be able to tell me.

In the meantime, I will explore Andy’s pictures which follow on from his earlier adventures recording the site before and during the building of the park.  

Many of these have appeared on the blog with something of the history of the area, back before the mills, ironworks and densely packed terrace houses covered the fields.

So that is it, leaving me just to wonder when Andy will visit that other garden …. the one in the sky down at Castlefield.  

Of course I could just go myself, which I may well do.

Location; Mayfield

Pictures; Mayfield, 2022, from the collection of Andy Robertson

*Mayfield, https://mayfieldmanchester.co.uk/

**Mayfield, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Mayfield

Discovering the Medlock at Mayfield …….

I am back at Mayfield, watching the continued work to transform a shabby and neglected part of the city into something interesting and exciting.*

Opening up the Medlock, 2021

And in the process open up a forgotten stretch of the River Medlock.

Mayfield lies south of Piccadilly Railway Station and I guess would once have been a pleasant place of fields, intersected by the meandering River Medlock, but by the early 1790s it was already being developed.

So, by 1793, the first streets were beginning to nibble at the open land, and in the following year there were dye works on either side of the river. 

And within a quarter of a century rows of terraced houses competed with a variety of industrial buildings transforming the area into a place of smoky chimneys and residential sprawl.

Mayfield, 1819

All of which was pretty much how it stayed until the middle of the last century, when the decline in the industrial base of the city and the  bombs of the Luftwaffe during the last war, left great swathes of it empty land, filled by car parks and small industrial units.

But developers and city planners like nature abhor a vacuum, and the plans to a create a “new urban neighbourhood” are well under way.  

It is a “transformational mixed-use city centre regeneration project reviving a former industrial heartland into a modern innovation quarter.  

Mayfield is a 24-acre brownfield site packed with heritage and the River Medlock flowing through its core. The site has an industrial history of innovation spanning back to the 1700’s with previous lives as a parcel depot, relief railway station and textile mill. The site was left derelict for over 30 years before the next phase of its revival began. 

The river, 2021

The Mayfield Partnership – comprised of U+I, Manchester City Council, Transport for Greater Manchester and LCR – formed in 2016 with a shared vision to deliver a modern neighbourhood at the heart of Manchester. 

Overall, the brownfield site will provide over 2.3m sq ft GIA office space facilitating 16,000 new jobs, 1,500 homes, 56,000 sq ft of retail and leisure, a new 300-bed hotel and 13-acres of public realm, including Mayfield Park – the city’s first new park in over 100 years”**.

And my old friend Andy Robertson has made it one of his projects to record that transformation.

Diggers and trenches, 2021

Leaving me just to add some of his pictures showing the ongoing work

Pictures; developments at Mayfield, 2021, from the collection of Andy Robertson, and Mayfield, 1819, from Johnson’s map of Manchester, 1819, courtesy of Digital Archives Association,  http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

*Mayfield,  https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Mayfield

**Mayfield Manchester, https://www.uandiplc.com/our-places/mayfield  

In at the beginning ……. transforming Mayfield

It is not everyday that you can claim to be in at the beginning of a new urban project which will transform a tired, neglected and almost forgotten bit of the city.

But this is one of Andy Robertson’s new projects.

He is a regular contributor to the blog and many of his 663 stories are about how the twin cities and the boroughs beyond have undergone massive change over the last decade.

And always Andy is there at the beginning, photographing decaying and empty buildings, and then returning again and again as the factories, warehouses and pubs are demolished, the land cleared, and the builders get to work on something new.

This week he has been in Mayfield, that area south of Piccadilly Railway Station, and east of London Road.  It appears on the old maps as Mayfield and was developed in the early 19th century, and came to be dominated by Mayfield Station.

By the end of the last century, the railway station had closed, the densely packed terraced properties along with the mills, dyeworks and foundries had gone and the place was waiting for something to happen.

And that something is now happening, which will be “A transformational mixed-use city centre regeneration project reviving a former industrial heartland into a modern innovation quarter.  

Mayfield is a 24-acre brownfield site packed with heritage and the River Medlock flowing through its core. The site has an industrial history of innovation spanning back to the 1700’s with previous lives as a parcel depot, relief railway station and textile mill. The site was left derelict for over 30 years before the next phase of its revival began. 

The Mayfield Partnership – comprised of U+I, Manchester City Council, Transport for Greater Manchester and LCR – formed in 2016 with a shared vision to deliver a modern neighbourhood at the heart of Manchester. Overall, the brownfield site will provide over 2.3m sq ft GIA office space facilitating 13,000 new jobs, 1,500 homes, 56,000 sq ft of retail and leisure, a new 300-bed hotel and 13-acres of public realm, including Mayfield Park – the city’s first new park in over 100 years.

Consent for phase one of the scheme was granted in February 2020, which will see the creation of the 6.5-acre park, office buildings, a car park and significant public realm. Construction will begin in Q4 2020, with the first buildings estimated to complete in 2022.

Since day one of the Mayfield Partnership, the site’s heritage assets have been opened up to the city through a curated programme of placemaking-led events and projects. In 2017 GRUB moved in, attracting foodies to the railway arches on Temperance Street. In 2018, Mayfield & Co established a small community of creative independent businesses. In 2019, Broadwick Live took a five-year tenancy, with a brief to deliver a series of worthwhile events.

The first major live music events began with an ambitious programme involving The Warehouse Project and some of the biggest names in electronic dance music, all taking centre stage in the historic Depot. From 2019 through to the beginning of 2020, over 300,000 music lovers visited the site, raising the profile of the area within the city and creating an initial socio-economic uplift of £10m in its first year.  

The remaining phases of Mayfield will be developed over the next decade, and are expected to generate in the region of £7bn of socio-economic gain – creating a thriving and exciting neighbourhood for all Mancunians to enjoy”.*

I could go on but by following the link you can see just what bold plans are about to to come into being, leaving me just that Andy’s first pictures will not be the last.

Location; Mayfield

Pictures; In at the beginning …. Mayfield, 2021 from the collection of Andy Robertson

*Mayfield Manchester, https://www.uandiplc.com/our-places/mayfield  

A little bit more of the River Medlock will soon come out into the daylight

Today Andy Robertson has reignited my fascination for Manchester’s rivers, especially those that have disappeared.

He sent over a series of pictures he took at the weekend, adding, “Parts of the Medlock in Mayfield are beginning to be unculverted. If you google MAYFIELD MEDLOCK on Twitter you can see a drone video. Cathy and I went there today sadly minus drone”.*

All very exciting and part of the regeneration of Mayfield area.

And as you do I did call up the video, and then went looking for just when the great slab of concrete confined the river to a stretch of darkness.

I rather think it was much earlier than suggested in the video, which offered a date of 50 years or so ago.

The slab is there in 1933, but had yet to be put in place 40 years earlier and may have been built when Mayfeid Station was built at the turn of the last century.

Either way someone will know, leaving me just to make a note to go looking at more maps, and reread that wonderful book, The Lost River of Manchester.*

Location; Mayfield

Pictures; Mayfield, 2021, from the collection of Andy Robertson

*Mayfield, https://twitter.com/MayfieldMCR

**The Lost Rivers of Manchester, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-lost-rivers-of-manchester.html

Ashworth, Geoffrey, The Lost River of Manchester, Willow Publishing, 1987