Manchester Central Libraryis situated facing St Peters Square. It was constructed back in the 1930’s and was designed as a columned portico building in the style of the Pantheon in Rome. It was officially opened by King George V in 1934 with the writer of ‘Dirty Old Town’ Ewan MacColl ensconced in the crowd.
Manchester was ahead of the curve in being forward thinking as the first local authority to provide a free public lending facility in 1852 and the opening was attended by an illustrious writer called Charles Dickens. The library then had several homes before landing at the permanent location cited above. It is now classed as a Grade II listed edifice, remarkably alongside a fellow 237 others in Manchester.
Manchester Central Library. Image Credit Time Out.
There was an extensive £40m refurbishment in 2010 which included resolving asbestos issues which appears to be a common issue with structures of that generation. Prior to the renovation work the Library Theatre Company was in place in the basement, but the area was restructured as part of the library with the Theatre moving into the Home complex on First Street.
The Library Company had an illustrious history with Patrick Stewart (Jean Luc Picard) appearing in Billy Liar there in 1963. Others to tread the boards are Amanda Burton, Julie Walters, Bernard Hill, Liam Neeson and rather bizarrely John Noakes.
Many folk bands played the intimate 312 seat space in the mid-1960’s including the Spinners, The Oldham Tinkers (remarkably still active) and the Moston Brook Clog Dancers. Additionally, one of the city’s music shops ‘Rare Records’ put on lunch time shows for a spell.
It is now the second largest library in Britain and there are collections dedicated to the author Elizabeth Gaskell and the composer George Handel. There are also large spaces called the Shakespeare Hall and the Great Hall.
The Oldham Tinkers record cover. Image Credit oldhamtinkers.com
Beneath the latter, at one stage there were four floors full of shelfing totalling 35 miles length and contained an astonishing one million books. The humungous library brings to mind the remarkable ‘The Book That Wouldn’t Burn’ tome penned by Mark Lawrence. Methinks, that would take a little while to read your way through that lot!
During his school years the Clockwork Orange author Anthony Burgess was a regular visitor. Very periodically gigs have been staged including Slow Readers Club and Every Everything in 2014 and in 2016 Thurston Moore had a book tour date there and naturally Noasis performed earlier this year.
Another area is the Manchester Henry Watson Music Library named after the local composer who donated his works to the library. It contains one of the largest assemblages of sheet music and was opened in 1947 by Sir John Barbirolli, who was the conductor of the Manchester Halle Orchestra.
I have only crossed the threshold into the impressive building a couple of times, the first being for a photography exhibition and the latter to attend a show in the afore mentioned Music Library where I saw a combo called Jam Crew playing, whilst I listened and mulched around the bookshelves.
The aforementioned Manchester St Peters Square was in the late 17th century located on the fringes of the town of Manchester with three open sides, one wending its way down to the River Medlock. St Peters Church was then constructed, and the square was named in 1801.
On Monday 16th In 1819 the area gained national attention for all the wrong reasons when a large crowd of approximately 60k protesters gathered to demand parliamentary reform. Astoundingly at that juncture only 11% of adult males had the right to vote, let alone women!
They were met with a staggeringly disproportionate show of force when the 15th Hussars on horseback were ordered to disperse the crowd which they did with sabres drawn. In the resultant carnage, 17 people were killed and around 700 people injured.
The shameful events were subsequently coined the ‘Peterloo Massacre’, the name being a nod to the Battle of Waterloo which took place four years earlier. I recall in 2019 a memorial statue was designed and installed commemorating the 200 year anniversary.
Nowadays, it is a busy transport hub with a large metro station with four platforms located there which was initially opened in 1992.
St Peters Square. Image Credit greenblue.com
When I was traversing the square a couple of years ago, I noticed there was a random event taking place on a temporary stage in one corner. I discovered the lass performing a short promo set was a K Pop artist called Mirai, who has appeared in bands called ael and The Hoopers.