Category: Manchester

Manchester Venues 186 to 187

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.   

Manchester Venues 184 to 185 – Piccadilly Gardens

Christmas markets are essentially street bazaars which are linked to the celebration of Yuletide and traditionally take place within the four-week Advent window. The initial concept of them evolved in the last knockings of the Middle Ages and mainly in the German speaking areas of Europe. Early mentions of December markets roll all the way back to Vienna in 1296 but the first recognised reference to a Christmas market was the Striezelmarkt which took place in Dresden in 1434.

They are large open-air gatherings with food, drink (traditionally mulled wine) and seasonal goods for sale. The food offerings can range from Nussknacker (candy toasted almonds) and Christstollen (stollen). The markets undertook a significant modern day revival in the 1990’s and spread their wings to a considerable number of European cities. The first occurrence in England was in Lincoln in 1982 before the larger cities caught the bug with the commencement in 1997 of the Manchester (Frankfurt) Christmas Markets,with the German city initially providing support.   

Manchester Albert Square Christmas market. Image Credit whatsonmcr.co.uk

I have attended a couple of actual markets in Germany including an excellent one in Stuttgart where the facilities now include additional elements such as ice rinks, funfair rides and my own favourite model railways which I am eternally fascinated by. The Manchester shindigs have always personally felt like a paler imitation of the originals. However, despite my reservations they have grown exponentially from the inaugural version which was based solely in St Anns Square into the hugely popular event it is nowadays with three hundred stalls now dotted across many parts of the city with a large footfall attending.

It used to create a considerable nuisance when attending December gigs and then encountering a plethora of inebriated punters on astoundingly busy trains back to Preston. Also, my commute back home after work requires me to devise a different route than normal to reach my destination of Piccadilly station.   

The central hub of the markets was always Albert Square but that has been closed for restoration for the last few years, but it is planned to be reopened for this year’s event. In the interim one of the main areas centralised around Manchester Christmas Market Piccadilly Gardens.

In the 18th century this particular location was donated to the city by Sir Oswald Mosley, Lord of the Manor of Manchester on one fundamental condition that the space be retained in public use in perpetuity.   

L S Lowry ‘Piccadilly Gardens’ picture. Image Credit King and McGaw.

The Gardens were initially designed as an ornamental sunken garden after World War I on the former location of Manchester Royal Infirmary, the Infirmary then moving to its current location down Oxford Road. Prior to building the gardens other schemes including building an Opera House or a new location for the Cathedral were proposed but then discounted. The local painter L S Lowry also utilised the backdrop for his 1954 painting titled ‘Piccadilly Gardens’.

It was subsequently flattened out in 2002 with a central water feature and a concrete pavilion designed by the Japanese architect Tadao Ando with a curved concrete wall to obscure the metrolink line, this all resulted in an overall cost of £20.7m. It is an extremely rare green space in the city centre and contains a transport hub with buses and trams running directly through and adjacent to it. For many years prior to its move to Oldham Street, the famous Piccadilly Records was also located nearby.

Within the village created, room was made for a stage for the purposes of providing musical entertainment. Within the auspices of the 2023 event, I saw an act called General Drummer play there.

Earlier this year another innovative shindig was initiated via the generation of the Manchester Piccadilly Gardens MCR Live Hub with a stage located in another corner of the Gardens. It was designed as a city centre gathering point taking place between early July until the end of September and was part of the wider MCR Live 25 event which deliberately coincided with the Burnage Boys comeback tour.

Manchester MCR Live Hub Stage area. Image Credit ihmanchester.com

Other attractions were the Music for the Senses trail containing murals, mosaics and Guitar Street (located in reality on King Street), where you could find 50 donated guitars, some from musicians including Doves, PINS and Pixies. Commendably at the curtailment of the trail the instruments were auctioned to raise funds for grassroots venues and music projects across Greater Manchester.

Manchester artist Lazerian also created a Cathedral of Sound, a sound installation built from hundreds of reclaimed acoustic guitars. The Live Hub area was staged fully outdoors to embrace the weather in the summer months and contained a bar, street food and a plethora of beer garden picnic tables. They had DJ sets and live musicians, and I saw a couple of local artists called Sabrina and Gordy performing there.