Manchester Victoria … more than just a railway station

Manchester Victoria still retains that grandeur which allowed it once to boast it was the gateway to the north, Scotland and Ireland as well as the Continent.

And to underline that boast the elegant and ornate iron and glass canopy announced the destinations that its trains served in 1909 with the equally impressive map which picked out the rail routes of the old Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company.

 

I have often written about it’s past from the opening in 1844 to the station’s expansion over part of  Irk Town and the cemetery at Walker’s Croft and on to nibble way at the former Manchester Workhouse site, concluding with the uncertain period of the 1980s and the arrival of the tram.*

But despite its elegance it has always struck me as a messier railway station than Piccadilly with its busy concourse or the iconic timber entrance to Manchester Oxford Road.

You get the sense that the successive changes and developments have left it as a place where all the bits that make it work have been left on show.

Which echoes the mantra of my Maths teacher in the 1960s that “always show the working out that leads to your answer, even if you are wrong it’s the evidence of how you worked at it and tried to get there”.*

And that seems exactly what you get with that spaghetti like set of tracks leading in and out of the station.  

It isn’t pretty but it is how you get out and on to Shudehill.

In the same way the new bits that link the station with the AO Arena make no concessions to hiding anything away.  

The arena opened in 1995 and consigned those through railway platforms into a subterranean place made all the more claustrophobic by the sheer number of passengers destined for towns across Lancashire and Yorkshire and transported in a variety of work a day trains.

I might be wrong, but I have yet to see any of those sleek inter city trains which will whisk you from Manchester Piccadilly south or thunder north to Scotland.

All of that said Victoria still has lots to see from the war memorials to the wooden booking hall and former first class buffet.

And that will do for me.

Location; Victoria Railway Station

Pictures; Victoria, 2025-2026 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

* Mr. Gubby, Samuel Pepys Secondary Modern School, 1965

*Victoria Railway Station, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Victoria%20Railway%20Station

&

Market Street to Victoria, The History of Greater Manchester By Tram, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2025/03/victoria-railway-station-one-with-lot.html

“Take your picture Mister” ……. photo booths we have all known

The photo booth has and is still more than just a box where you can get your picture taken.

Photo-Me, 2026

Many will have fond memories of group pictures which might be just two friends larking around or one of those silly nights out when the challenge was to see how many could pile in and be recorded.

And on a more serious or practical level the photo booth was the perfect and cheap way of getting an ID picture, even if the results were sometimes grim.

I could never quite get the hang of the curtain at the back or worse was never prepared for the camera flash resulting in a few gawking images, with half closed eyes and worse still at least one of the back of my head.

Once they were everywhere, from Post Offices to shops and railway stations.

Manchester Victoria Railway Station, 2026

But like telephone boxes you see few of them these days and so when I do encounter one, I do a double take and reflect a little on their demise.

I suppose like the picture postcard they are victims of the mobile phone with its camera feature which at an instant can take a photo exactly as you want tailored to the moment.

Of course, such a photo might not pass muster when it comes to the demands of an official record.

And anyone who has struggled with uploading a selfie for a passport will know that the only recourse is one of those chains of professional photographers.

Still, I feel rather sad that the photo booth no longer is the first go to place for a quick snap and so having come across “Photo-Me” at Manchester Victoria I began pondering on the history.

To my surprise it goes back to the 1880s with the first recognizable boots turning up in the 1920s.

And the rest as they say is all down Wikipedia and never one to steal someone elses’s research I will suggest you follow the link.*

And for those curious to relive their youth there is a fine example of a photo booth in that wonderful and magical store, which is Fred Aldous in Stevenson Square.  

They have a “Photo-Me Model 17 Black and White booth from 1968. It was manufactured right here in the UK but spent most of its life in a Woolworth’s store in Canada”.**

Me, 1970

And I rather think it was in a Woolworth’s store in town where I had my ID picture taken in 1970.

Alas like my hair the photo booth has become a thing of the past. 

So while some still exist and do a good job I doubt that many 14-year-olds will seek them out, and even less spend heaps of money retrying to get the right picture or the silliest one.

Location; the past and Manchester Victoria

Pictures; “Photo-Me”, Manchester Victoria, 2026, and me in 1970, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Photo Booth, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photo_booth

**Fred Aldous, https://www.fredaldous.co.uk/pages/photobooth?srsltid=AfmBOorZHgkMwL8Agu6-ZWs0TcwSVe4lATt2QSwz8LSDb1LnHuRB9ZKF

And if you want a station ….. we’ve got one to spare ….. Manchester Victoria

Now that’s a bit unfair because Manchester Victoria remains a busy and vital part of our rail network.

But during the 1960s it did seem eclipsed by some of the other Manchester and Salford railway stations.

Across the city London Road got a makeover at the beginning of that decade along with a new name and with its fast InterCity express trains seemed to stand for all that was new and exciting about the 1960s.

Not to be outdone Oxford Road got that new frontage which with its sweeping bold timber design looked equally an embodiment of a new age.

Leaving Central and Exchange to roll over, give up the ghost and depart the scene.

And by what seemed a cruel joke both became car parks.

Nor did Victoria escape the retreat from the great days of the railways.  In the 1970s it must be said it was becoming a tad shabby, despite its stunning exterior and equally wonderful interior.

We used it get trains home to Ashton-Under-Lyne some evenings and Victoria was the jumping off place for journeys back to Newcastle.

But there was this sense that it was in decline.  

The much-vaunted Picc Vic Tunnel connecting Victoria and Piccadilly had been shelved, many of the services had been diverted to other stations and only a handful of platforms remained with a chunk of the station sold off for the construction of the Manchester Arena.

All a sad end to what had once been a thriving and important railway hub which in 1909 boasted 17 platforms and that grand exterior.

To which in 1929 was added an extension linking it to Exchange Railway Station.

Back in the 1970s I hardy noticed the poignant war memorials including that discreet sign to the number of wounded men who returned as hospital patients during the Great War.  

And only gave a glance to the magnificent booking hall, the mosaic lettering above the First-Class Café, or that elegant glass and ironwork at the front of the railway station.  To which can be added the tall tiled map of the destinations which the old Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company served back at the beginning of the 20^th century.

And today I doubt few using the tram interchange to make journeys out to Bury and Rochdale will ever know of those dreary decades or that some of the railway station is built over part of the cemetery at Walker’s Croft which is believed to contain the remains of 40,000 people, many of whom were paupers.  

Or that later the site of the old workhouse on New Bridge Street was also engulfed by another period of Victoria’s expansion.

It remains one of those rarely talked about stories that the development of many of our railway stations resulted in the clearance of some of our worst inner-city slums.  So, while part of Little Ireland vanished under the Oxford Road railway viaducts, Victoria did for properties in Irk Town which was notorious as an area of poor housing and sanitation.

If I was at all fanciful, I might imagine their collective ghosts wandering the platforms, but if such spirits are a foot they will have to share the space with the heave of passengers who today use Victoria, whether it be using Timmy tram or like me out by train to Walkden.

Leaving me to reflect that it was a jolly good job Victoria didn’t go the way of Central and Exchange.

Location; Manchester Victoria

Pictures; Manchester Victoria, 2025-26, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Travels by train …… Manchester Piccadilly … Manchester Victoria

It was exactly a week ago that the "train took the strain”, or to be more accurate I met our Saul on one railway station and took the train from another to meet up with our Ben in Walkden.

Waiting for the off, platform 11, Manchester Piccadilly, 2026

And that pretty much is that. 

A brace of trains, Manchester Piccadilly, 2026

Ticket Gates, Manchester Piccadilly, 2026

Only to say Manchester Piccadilly is a station I often use, while Manchester Victoria is usually just for the trams.

Moody Manchester Victoria, 2026

But on the Wednesday, we took the train to Walkden from Manchester Victoria and used a platform I last stood on over half a century ago.

Back then it was one of the platforms to catch trains to Newcastle.

Location; Manchester railway stations

Pictures; Manchester Piccadilly and Manchester Victoria, 2026, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

On a railway station ......... 1978

It is a scene that was once replicated on countless railway stations with slight variations for over a century and a bit.

We are on Victoria Railway Station sometime around 1978 with me and a Pentax K1000.

It was a smashing camera, so much so that I bought two.

You could take them anywhere, and I did, from Greece to France and plenty of other places.  It didn’t mind the heat survived plenty of rough handling and just bounced when I dropped it.

I had wandered into the railway station looking for the ordinary and humdrum.

Today forty years later, it and the other photographs I took that day seem less humdrum and more a set of images out of a museum.

Location; Manchester

Picture; loading the luggage, Victoria Railway Station, 1978, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Victoria Railway Station ……... the one with the lot

It’s the Manchester railway station that has heaps more than just a set of platforms, some fast food out lets and lots of passengers.*

True Victoria does have all these, but it also has plenty of history on display and more than a bit you can no longer see.

It starts with that bold assertion of just how many places you could travel to back in 1909, all of which are there to see on the sweeping glass and iron canopy at the front of the station.

They were “Leeds, Harrogate, Bradford, York, Scarborough, Newcastle, Hull, Belgium, Liverpool, Southport, Bury, Blackpool, Fleetwood, Goole, Ireland, and Scotland”

And if you want more there is the magnificent, tiled map taking up three quarters of a tall wall which lists the network of towns across the North as well as eleven destinations in Wales and Ireland and twenty-one European seaports and concluding with “and the Continent”.

To which can now be added the stops along the way to Bury, Oldham and Rochdale on the Metro lines.

The station also has the memorial to those men from the Lancashire  & Yorkshire Railway who served in the Great War.  

It is made of bronze I and  lists their names flanked by the effigies of Saint George and Saint Michael with  a smaller plaque to the men from the company’s goods yard who also served.

Less ornate but no less moving is the small plaque beside an arch which once led to a separate platform from which thousands of soldiers departed Victoria during that war.

It is simple but elegant and reads “To the Memory of the Many Thousands of Men Who Passed Through This Door To The Great War 1914-18 And Those who Did Not Return”.

For as long as I can remember the arch was fronted by a wooden door which became more and more dilapidated, doing little for the dignity of the memorial.  But in 2015 the space was filled with a glass panel on which a map records the location of Commonwealth War Cemeteries, to which was added a tiled plinth and lighting.

And beside it there is at present a memorial to those who were killed or hurt by the Arena bombing on May 22nd, 2017, which is matched by the impressive Glade of Light memorial close by.

Each of these memorials are an essential part of the station and are seen by thousands each day.

Less visible are parts of the city which were destroyed or built over during the construction and expansion of the railway station.

These include Cemetry at Walker’s Croft where up to 40,000 were buried, some of whom were paupers and some were Cholera victims.

Nearly 170 years later the lost cemetery became the focus of concerns during the modernization of the railway station with the Manchester Evening News reporting in 2013 that “Human remains lying in a mass pauper’s grave under Manchester Victoria station are to be dug up”**

No less grim and still within the confines of the station is the site of the Manchester Union Workhouse.  It had opened in 1793 and fronted New Bridge Street and Ducie Street.

In the 1850s a new workhouse was built at Crumpsal and part of the Manchester site was sold to the railway company who extended the station in 1875, followed forty-five years later when the remaining buildings were cleared to expand the goods yard.

And the same expansion had seen the demolition of some of the slum properties in Irk Town to accommodate the new viaduct which carried trains out of the station.

At which point I could dig deep into the story of the railway’s presence on the site but it’s a long and a tad bewildering tale involving rival railway companies which regularly merged with others.

Suffice to say that Manchester and more specifically Victoria Railway station were at the heart of railway development. The station was opened in 1844, just fourteen years after the first passenger railway station was opened on Liverpool Road by the Liverpool and Manchester Railway company.

By the mid-1840s six railway companies operated from the station and it was one of the biggest passenger stations in Britain.

But during the 1970s and 80s the station seemed in decline. The much-vaunted Pic Vic Tunnel connecting the two railway stations had been shelved, many of the services had been diverted to Piccadilly and only a handful of platforms remained, with a chunk of the station sold off for the construction of the Manchester Arena.

All a sad end to what had once been a thriving and important railway hub, which in 1909 boasted 17 platforms and that grand exterior façade. 

To which in 1929 was added an extension linking Victoria to Exchange Railway Sation.

But as we know stories can have happy endings, and with the arrival of the Metro the station has had a new lease of life, which has included a new roof, the modernization of the concourse area which has retained the iconic wooden booking hall, and the former First Class buffet and stationer’s.

So yep Victoria has got the lot.

Leaving me just to add in an outrageous way the Station, surrounding area along with Shudehill and Market Street are the subject of our new trams book due out later next month.

It is book three in the series of The History of Greater Manchester by Tram  and will be available like the other books at Central Ref, Chorlton Bookshop, and Waterstones on Deansgate as well as from us at www.pubbooks.co.uk, price £4.99***

Which will be followed by books exploring the metro line across the city to the Etihad Stadium, Salford and Altrincham.

Location; Manchester Victoria Railway Station

Pictures; at the station, 2025, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*And yes Piccadilly Railway Station was London Road Railway Station with an impressive main entrance which was demolished for its 1960s reicarnation and subsequent makeover at the start of the 21st century, while Oxford Road has reatined its dramatic 1960s "new look" replacing the wooden shack.

**Bainbridge, Peter, A grave undertaking... Victoria Station cemetery is departing from Platform 1, Manchester Evening News, April 9, 2013, https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/grave-undertaking-manchesters-victoria-station-2573159 

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

At Victoria Station ............... on the morning of December 23 1940

This is platform 16 in Victoria Station on the morning of December 23 1940 just hours after the all clear had sounded on what had been the first night of the Manchester Blitz.

Now the story is pretty well known and so rather than retell the events of the two nights with the dismal record of death, and the destruction of property I will just linger on these two pictures.

I wasn’t there and given that the events were 77 years ago there will be few who were.

But the photographs vividly convey the damage, from the collapsed and twisted metal to the empty roof devoid of glass.

And of course there would have been that powerful smell of smoke which got everywhere and would cling to your clothes long after you had left the scene.

The images come from the collection of David Harrop and were I think press photographs.

Of course there will be people with up todate pictures of Victoria Station but I leave it up to them to post them as a comparison

Pictures; Victoria Station, December 23 1940 from the collection of David Harrop

A little bit of our railway history …….. rescued from the skip

I am looking at a collection of railway history, dating from 1854 through to 1893, which were destined for a skip.

Happily, they were rescued, and for that we have Steve Casson’s dad to thank.

Despite not quite knowing what to do with them he knew they deserved more than being thrown out.

There are twenty of them in all and they consist of the plans for building schemes along the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, and given that they were found in Manchester Victoria Railway Station, the plans relate to Manchester, Lancashire, and Derbyshire.

All but one was handwritten, and they specify the materials to be used, the methods of construction and the time allotted for the work.

All of which offers up a fascinating glimpse of how one railway company went about improving its track, viaducts, and buildings.

So in the May of 1862 the company set about replacing a timber viaduct over the River Roach, with a brick one, while five years later work was about to commence on for “the necessary excavation and filling in, the Diversion of the River Irwell and the arching over of the River Irwell and Trough Syke Brook with the building of a hut in front of the present arch over the Irwell”.

In some cases, the company was responding to other civil engineering projects being undertaken by canal companies and local authorities which necessitated alterations to the railway’s buildings.

And then there are the intriguing constructions, like “the erection of four cottages at Bacup in the County of Lancaster”, in the June of 1870.  I would like to think that they were homes for railway workers, and with a bit of detective work it might be possible to find them.

Which in turn raises the interesting question of whether some of these “works” are still there to day.

Of these the two that fascinate me are “the Works required in Building a Bridge under York Street and Widening the Viaduct at Victoria Station”, in 1854 and for covering stairs at Ducie Bridge two years later.

Now someone may well beat me down there to see if there is any evidence for the two projects.

In the same way, there will be someone who knows the Starkie Bridge at Padiham, near Burnley, which was the focus of a critical letter written by Thomas Chaffer on December 4th 1872, which was a “Report on the alterations made by the engineers of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Co., in the construction of the Starkie Bridge at Padiham, Burnley”.

He was the Bridgemaster and highlighted what he felt were the failings in the construction, concluding, it “is a style of work that I should not entertain without a seven years guarantee or even more time, so I think there is considerable risk in the stability of such a construction in an Arch of the Span, and without the guarantee of the Railway Company for upholding the same, I would not entertain its construction at all”.

That said, someone responded in the margin with comments, finishing  with the rebuttal “no guarantee can be given”.

And that is it, other than to say a big thank you to Steven Casson, and the promise that in quieter times I will approach the Science and Industry Museum at Castlefield and the Archives at Central Ref to see if either would like to accept them.

In the meantime I shall pour over each one for other hidden gems.

Location, Manchester, Lancashire, Derbyshire

Pictures; from the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway archive, 1854-1893, donated by Steve Casson, and Victoria Railway Station, 1855 C.W. Clennell, m63270 courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

A little bit of Victoria Railway Station in Southern Cemetery ………… Walkers Croft

Now, I have to confess the title is a little misleading, but its close enough.

If you wander down to Victoria Railway Station and head off to platform 1 there was this plaque.

Never one to waste words I will let the inscription say it all.

And will conclude with a thank you to John Anthony Hewitt who sent it over in a response to an earlier story by Tony Goulding on the memorials at the railway station.*

John Anthony added “There is another memorial plaque at Victoria Station, Andrew. The attached photograph was taken 30th March 2011 showing the plaque located on the fence at the end of platform”.

I will in time revisit Walkers Croft Cemetery, but the way the blog works, I bet someone will get there first.

That said there is some speculation that after the renovation to the station the sign is still there, to which John Anthony writes, "I think it is still there, but it was moved to platform 1. If my memory is correct, then it will be somewhat hidden from view by Greggs and the Arena footbridge lift. My 2011 photo shows it was on platform 2, erroneously mentioned as platform 1, now corrected. I will have a look next time passing through Victoria".

In the meantime I couldn’t resist a sidesway look at that old Music Hall favourite  "They're moving father's grave to build a sewer", which I know John Anthony will not only appreciate, but will be able to sing along to word perfect. **

Location; Victoria Railway Station

Pictures;  brass plaque, platform 1, Victoria Railway Station, 2011, from the collection of John Anthony Hewitt

* Victoria Station … another story from Tony Goulding https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2020/12/victoria-station-another-story-from.html

**They're moving father's grave to build a sewer

They're moving father's grave to build a sewer

They're moving it regardless of expense.

They're moving his remains to lay down nine-inch

drains

To irrigate some rich bloke's residence.

Now what's the use of having a religion?

If when you're dead you cannot get some peace

'Cause some society chap wants a pipeline to his

tank

And moves you from your place of rest and peace...

Now father in his life was not a quitter

And I'm sure that he'll not be a quitter now.

And in his winding sheet, he will haunt that privy

seat

And only let them go when he'll allow.

Now won't there be some bleedin' consternation,

And won't those city toffs begin to rave!

But it's no more than they deserve, 'cause they had

the bleedin' nerve

To muck about a British workman's grave.

Victoria Station … another story from Tony Goulding

This is “Sylvia” one of the Manchester Bees commissioned as Bee No. 41 of the “Bee in the City Sculpture Trail” in response to the bombing of the Manchester Arena on the 22nd May 2017. 

The decoration, green white and purple stripes give a clue to the question “who is Sylvia?” 

They were the colours adopted by the women’s suffrage movement and one of its leaders Old Trafford-born Sylvia Pankhurst. It is now located on the concourse of Victoria Station although it was originally in the Peoples History Museum. Designed and decorated by Sneaky Racoon.(1) 

It carries the inspirational words “Bee the Change” across its back and was sponsored by the trade union UNISON.

Close by is the semi-permanent memorial to the victims of the Arena bombing – the Manchester Angels.

These are the most recent, but by no means sole, points of historical interest at this 175-years-old station as adjacent to this memorial to the 22 “angels” is what has come to be known as The Soldiers Gate. 

It being the entrance used by tens of thousands of men embarking on trains which would eventually take them to the various killing fields of Flanders and the Dardanelles during World War 1, many not to return. 

In recent years, a door has been fitted to the gateway with a series of holes to represent a map of the Western Front with each one being the location of one of the cemeteries of The Commonwealth War Graves Commission containing over 1,000 graves. 

Their different sizes proportional to the number of graves or memorial names at that site.

The station is one of my favourite places in Manchester as despite it having been damaged during the Christmas Blitz of 1940 (and latterly by the I.R.A. bomb of Saturday 15th June, 1996) it has somehow retained some of its period features while also encapsulating the City’s ethos of continual change and renewal. 

There is the Metrolink interchange only yards from the wooden paneled booking office and the tiled map of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway’s Network.

The redevelopment of the station during the last decade has renewed interest in the historic Walkers Croft cemetery said to contain the remains of up to 40,000 people; many cholera victims. 

The cemetery was closed in 1832 and rather callously built over as the station expanded during the 19th century. 

The redevelopment of the 21st century has been more sensitive as remains found have been re-interred in Manchester’s Southern Cemetery and a plaque positioned to mark its existence.  

During recent trips through Victoria on the Metrolink Bury line I have noticed this building site adjacent to the platform and could not help wondering are there any bodies being uncovered?

Location; Manchester

Pictures; All pictures by Tony Goulding, 2020, except, 1940 bomb damage by J. B. Easton.m 63291 Courtesy of Manchester Library, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council. http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Note:

1) Real name, Anna Mullin