Ancoats and Northern Quarter

Ancoats and Northern Quarter

From the top of Station Approach, travel over London Road on the footbridge, turning right onto Auburn Street where we’ll see Manchester’s other Crown Court, Minshull Street, staying on Auburn Street back to London Road.

---

Cross over at the lights for Ducie Street, look out for the Joshua Hoyle Building. The Ducie Street area is renowned for its imposing red brick warehouses.

Continue on Ducie Street just past Jutland Street until we reach the particularly nice wall painted sign for H. A. Howard & Sons Ltd.

---

Here we can join the Ashton Canal Tow Path and cross Store Street on the aqueduct, past the historic cargo lifts.

After going under Great Ancoats Street, we find Lock Number 1 and then by the side of Lock 2 the Lock Keeper’s Cottage.

In 1792 a group of shareholders put forward a proposal for an Act of Parliament to establish what was to be the Manchester, Ashton under Lyne and Oldham Canal, to transport coal to Manchester. Approval was given and the scheme was completed in 1796.

---

Cross the Islington Arm Bridge at New Islington Basin and turn left, across the water again on a small swing bridge and up to Old Mill Street.

---

Take a quick left and right to go down the left side of New Islington Marina and Cotton Field Park.

A modern bridge now takes us onto the cobbled Redhill Street, turn left back towards town, the complex of mills here is called Murray’s Mills, seven of the mills are Grade II* listed.

---

Walking around the Ancoats area you might come across some brass eyepieces set into walls, these peepholes give you can glimpse into Manchester’s industrial past. There could a dozen of these Peeps in this area including a Pickleometer, a Canal Privy and Murray’s Klaxon. See how many you can find!

Head up Bengall Street, left into George Leigh Street and left again into Sheratt Street.

At the end of Sherratt Street is the Hallé St. Peter's, part of the Hallé Orchestra it provides a home for the Hallé’s rehearsals and recordings, its choirs and Youth Orchestra, space for education workshops and small performances, there’s even a café, all in a restored, Grade II listed, former church.

---

From the former church turn left into Blossom Street and then right into Murray Street back to Redhill Street. Turn left for Royal Mills built between 1910 and 1912 in the Edwardian Baroque style.

Royal Mill, and its companion Paragon Mill are cotton-spinning mills, six-storey and nine bay buildings designed to house electrically-powered mules, the first generation of those purpose built for electricity.

---

From Redhill Street turn right into Henry Street and you will eventually reach George Leigh Street. Turn left and then right to follow the Daily Express Building round to Great Ancoats Street, an Art Deco glass fronted building with rounded corners, the printing of newspapers commencing in 1938, after only 35 years it became Grade II* listed building. The printing presses stopped in the 1980s and it’s now offices.

---

A little further down the road is the Crown & Kettle pub, a lovely pub worthy of internal inspection. Cross over Great Ancoats Street, at the lights and head down Oldham Street towards the Northern Quarter.

---

As you wander down Oldham Street look at for a few small traditional boozers, The City, Gullivers, Castle Hotel and the Freemount.

In the Northern Quarter you might be totally oblivious to the blue-on-white and white-on-blue street signs in a special typeface designed by Tim Rushton called Cypher.

The blue-on-white signs run north / south and the white-on-blue signs run east / west.

---

This area of the Northern Quarter is renowned for its music stores including Vinyl Revival, Piccadilly Records and Vinyl Exchange.

As a tribute there’s a music quiz in the pavement, all Manchester related.

The twenty cast iron triangular tiles were designed by Tim Rushton and called “Sound Bites”.

---

Continuing on Oldham Street towards Piccadilly we’ll see the entrance to Afflecks, a vibrant and eclectic indoor market, packed full of independent traders who put their heart and soul into their products.

Turn right into Piccadilly and right again into Tib Street where the former department store Debenhams was, the building was originally built as a warehouse by J. Gerrard & Sons of Swinton for the Rylands textile company (Rylands & Sons Ltd) which was founded by the entrepreneur John Rylands.

The building was designed by the eminent Manchester architects, Fairhursts, in an Art Deco style, clad in Portland stone and features a decorative corner tower and eclectic 'zig zag' window lintels. It became Debenhams in 1973, closing in 2021 and now being converted into office, retail, and leisure spaces. There’s a great video on YouTube by Urbandoned.

---

On Tib Street look out for another one of those cast iron electricity junction boxes with the Manchester coat of arms on it.

Look out for the poem in the pavement by Lemn Sissay called Flags, the poem runs for about a mile down Tib Street towards Swan Street, originally installed in 1998. rewritten and restored in cast iron in 2021.

Continue on Tib Street, looking up for the ceramic tile mosaics modelled on the pixelated arcade games like Space Invaders, Pac-Man and Super Mario Bros., by Invader an anonymous French street artist whose work can be seen worldwide.

---

Stay on Tib Street heading north to Afflecks, the former Affleck & Brown department store which originally opened in the 1860s.

The galvanised tree sculpture on the side of the building is 17m wide and contains more than 200 leaves and branches, the sculpture was created by Manchester blacksmith David Hyde.

The tiled mosaic On the Sixth Day on Short Street was based on the legendry t-shirt designed by Leo B Stanley.

The other tiled mosaics on Tib Street represent everything about Manchester from music to football to Coronation Street.

---

A lot of the mosaics in the Northern Quarter were designed by Mark Kennedy a mosaic artist of more than 30 years and he can be seen on the corner of Hilton Street and Oldham Street.

This area was once very popular for buying pets and one of the mosaics celebrates this, look out for more street art in this theme.

Continue up Tib Street, which becomes a narrow street filled with independent shops, restaurants and bars.

Near Thomas Street is an electricity substation which seems to display a different piece of street art every time I go past it, some say there’s a Banksy under the many layers of paint.

There’s a painted steel and stone sculpture called New Broom on the corner of John Street and Thomas Street, it was commissioned when the Northern Quarter was being regenerated and is a reference to the area being cleaned-up.

---

Go right down Tib Street until we reach Whittle Street on your left, through Brightwell Walk and turn left after the Wheat Sheaf pub into Oak Street and there is the former fish market, now the Manchester Craft and Design Centre a home to some of the region's most talented independent designers and makers with contemporary jewellery, ceramics and art for sale.

Turn right by the side of the craft centre into Copperas Street, about halfway down look out for Mr Smith’s Dream on your right.

---

Street art in Manchester changes very quickly, one day it’s there, next day it’s been painted over or replaced with a new building.

A bit further down from the craft centre, at the junction of Oak Street and Carpenters Lane is a mural of a woman’s fractured face by Liverpool-based, Brazilian street artist Liam Bononi.

And at the end of Copperas Street is a mural from Squid Game by Akse, a French born graffiti artist of Vietnamese heritage, based in Manchester.

From Copperas Street turn left onto High Street at the decorative facade of the Wholesale Fish Market, each panel above the gates tells a fisherman’s story.

---

If the market gates are open wander through to the appropriately named Salmon Street or alternatively go round and right onto Thomas Street, towards Shudehill Interchange, a bus station and tram stop, cross over the road and walk down the right hand side of Shudehill.

The Washhouse is a laundrette themed bar and onto Withy Grove, you can’t miss the Withy Grove Stores sign for a desk and safe shop.

---

The Printworks is currently undergoing a £20m digital refurbishment so there’s very little to see at the moment inside or outside.

The Printworks was developed gradually from 1929 and became the largest newspaper printing house in Europe and known by many names including Withy Grove Printing House, the Chronicle Buildings, Allied House, Kemsley House, Thomson House and Maxwell House. The printing presses stopped in 1986.

Continue on Withy Grove, turn right and follow Corporation Street past the National Football Museum, of course the world's biggest and best football museum, it’s also free if you can prove you’re a Manc.

Follow Todd Street between the football museum and City Buildings to Victoria Station Approach and we’re back where we started.

---

If you wander anywhere around Manchester city centre, you’ll see the Manchester bees on everything from bins, walls, mosaic flooring, signs and bollards, in the summer of 2018 there was even a swarm of giant bees as part of the public art event ‘Bee in the City’.

The bee is the symbol of Manchester and being a city of industry, there’s no other creature better than this hard-working insect to represent it. The symbol of the bee dates back to the 18th and 19th centuries, when Manchester was at the heart of the Industrial Revolution. Technology and industry were thriving in the city, known to some as ‘Cottonopolis’ because of the amount of cotton fabric it produced.

The Mancunian factories were also sometimes referred to as ‘bee hives’ because the workers within them were so occupied and productive like ‘busy bees’. In 1842, the bee was first officially incorporated into the Manchester coat of arms, which included a globe with seven bees to show how the people of Manchester worked and traded across the seven seas.

Post your photos of Manchester bees on Twitter with #ManchesterCircular and we'll add them to our Bee Gallery.

---