The lost tram ….. or fifteen streets and a vanished way of life

 So, there I was on Fair Street close to Piccadilly Railway Station beside a tram destined for Bury via Victoria Station.

The lost tram on Fair Street, 2025

By any tram planner’s route this was a lost tram, and more to the point was sitting empty and alone in a siding outside a rival railway station.

Bury via Victoria beside Piccadilly Railway Station, 2025

Was it lost or out for a jolly and just decided it had had enough?

I do not know.

But it was an object lesson on just what you can come across while navigating the city from Mayfield Gardens to Store Street.

I am convinced I would have found the best route but as ever Street Google did it far quick than I could have hoped to do.

And guided by it we traversed 15 roads passing what had once been a hive of activity, including goods yard, small businesses, canal wharfs, St Andrew’s Church and heaps of now vanished houses.*

Where we would have walked in 1894

Old stuff and new, Fair Street, 2025

As late as the early 1950s there was still much to remind you that this had been an industrial place, dominated by the railway and canal and mixing storage facilities, with dye works, textile mills, printing and metal working.

But on a sunny Saturday morning as we walked the fifteen streets there was little of all that to see.  Plenty of open spaces, vying with car parks and small businesses with plenty of ghosts.

Location; north of Mayfield

Pictures; the lost tram, Fair Street, 2025, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and Where we would have walked in 1894, from the OS map of South Lancashire, 1894 courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

*The Mornington Crescent journey.  Arthur Street, Hoyle Street, Temperance Street, North Western Street, Crane Street, Fairfield Street, St Andrew’s Street, Adair Street, Portugal East Street, Fair Street, Congou Street, Chapeltown Street, Sparkle Street, Store Street

Looking for the lost Aqueduct Street … and finding Paradise Walk and a canal

I have finally done Paradise Walk.

Following the steps to Paradise, 2025

It’s a rather uninviting set of steps leading from Store Street up an alley which twists a bit and comes out on Ducie Street.

For about half its length part of the walk is bounded by the wall of the Ashton Canal aqueduct which crosses Store Street.

It was Sean Kelly who alerted me to its presence a few years ago, with “Could I suggest Paradise Walk, off Ducie Street, Andrew? It’s a sort of short cut and I suspect a lot of history......”, adding “it's been well poshed up, relatively, since around 2000. Wonder whether the Central Library archives have a photo”.

Aqueduct Street, 1894

And straight away I did a bit of research, wrote a few stories for the blog but never did the walk.*

Central Library’s archive had nothing on Paradise Walk but a succession of OS maps through the 19th century into the 20th show its route, but not as a walk but as Aqueduct Street, replete with 25 houses.

They were there by 1849 and still show up in 1951, but had gone just two decades later, and some time after that had been shifted slightly to the east and reduced to a narrow path.

Still even as such it’s a little bit of our past and one of those walks which are fun to do.

Perhaps a bit claustrophobic, and spoilt by spray paint messages pretending to be art. 

And having done the walk it is possible to access the towpath beside the canal along the aqueduct with fine views of Store Street below.

Location; Paradise Walk, Store Street and a canal

Travelling Paradise Walk, 2025

Pictures; the steps of Aqueduct Street, 2025, from the collection of Andrew Simpson and Store Street, 1894, from the OS map of South Lancashire, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

*Paradise Walk, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Paradise%20Walk

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

When history is just a series of adventures

Now I do take history seriously, both in the research and in the writing but as someone once said “always have a bit of fun everyday”

Sir Robert Peel and friends, 2016

And today in the company of Peter Topping I am off on some historical adventures, collecting the pictures to support  our new tram book.

This will be the fourth in the series, The History of Greater Manchester By Tram.  It is a unique, perhaps quirky way to tell the history of Greater Manchester by using all 99 stops on the eight routes of the tram network.*

The Milk Maid, 1906

I write about the history of each of the stops and the surrounding area, and Peter produces a collection of original paintings of significant places and buildings.

And together they make up a history or the region.

So today we are off to Piccadilly Gardens, the Railway Station and New Islington, pausing to make the pictures which fit the stories.

They include the memorials, the old BBC building, with a look at the new Mayfield Gardens and that nightmare for motorists which is Stoney Brew.

We will even take the train from the Railway Station to the first stop on any of the lines, just to come back and check just how much the skyline behind Piccadilly has changed since I regularly made the journey half a century ago. 

And for those in the know I want to find the exact location of the Milk Maid on Parker Street while Peter wants to stand where students once painted a trail of footsteps from Queen Victoria’s statute to the site of the public lavatories..

So silly adventures in a good cause.

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

Location; Piccadilly Gardens, the Railway Station and New Islington

Pictures; Sir Robert Peel and friends, Piccadilly, 2016, and The Milk Maid, from a 1906 picture postcard from Tuck and Son, courtesy of Tuckdb, http://tuckdb.org/about 

*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