6 August 2016 Burrs Country Park Caravan Club site, Bury, Greater Manchester

Another glorious summer day with 28 degree temperatures; who would have thought it!

Chris sat up until some obscene hour last night watching the opening ceremony of the 2016 Olympic Games, and so we slept late into the morning. Despite this we still managed to organise ourselves, breakfast, prepare lunch and faces ready for the public, in time to catch the same 10am bus into Bury and link through to the tram to the city.

We alighted at the Victoria Station and after yet another discussion about paying for the use of public toilets, set off to explore the streets, buildings and retail areas immediately about; Manchester Cathedral, the Corn Exchange, Exchange Square, Manchester Arndale, Market Street through to Piccadilly Gardens, Chinatown, a second visit to the exterior of Town Hall and Albert Square,  and then across to the River Irwell, St Ann’s Church and the Square of the same name, then back through the crowd packed Market Street before jumping back on the tram and heading home. 

Manchester Cathedral

Manchester Cathedral dates back to the 15^th century, however the residual architectural form is a mishmash rehashed over and over as it has been resurrected from one disaster after another. In 1940, a 1000 lb all but destroyed the interior, making it by all accounts the second worst damaged cathedral after Coventry Cathedral. Then the IRA bomb of 1996 blew the roof off, and the passing of time has brought other challenges. 

Today as we entered, first impressions were all about reconstruction, scaffolding and safety barriers. The church interior is such a mix of sacred, building and everything in-between. We struck up conversation with Dympna, one of the PR folk hovering about to engage the tourist in conversation. Unlike her male colleague who looked like he might try to either convert or bleed us for a substantial donation for construction work, Dympna was just a beacon of welcome warmth, the sort who once drew me into the Christian Church wanting to share their aura, but today was just a fascinating fount of local knowledge. She spoke of the role the cathedral plays in the multi-cultural and multi-faith city that is Manchester and her own experience during the 1996 IRA bombing. We could have spent all afternoon with her, but there were other tourists who might have born more fruit than us, the free-loaders from New Zealand. 

We lunched in Exchange Square, seated on the rows of concrete seats above cafes and bars, already full of Saturday afternoon socialisers. We checked out the Corn Exchange, now a super-duper modern smart food hall for the discerning, not the sort of food halls you find in shopping centres frequented by plebs such as us. 

It was here that the IRA bomb went off and is here that major redevelopment has gone on, with construction of modern glass-clad shopping centres. One of these, the Arndale, is a massive shopping centre, which was already in existence before 1996. Nowadays it has a retail floor space of just under 140,000 square metres, not including the department stores of Selfridges and Marks & Spencer’s which are connected via link bridges, thus making it one of the largest shopping centres in the United Kingdom.

Market Street was already packed on our first walk through, families of every age and ethic mix you could imagine. It was truly amazing to feel the vibrancy of the crowds, seemingly in harmony with the mix of colour,  age and faith, all enjoying the atmosphere enhanced by the buskers, the evangelists, the mobile street stalls selling toy bubble blowing gadgets and chirping toy cats. Even the many many homeless squatting and lounging about the streets added to the scene. 

The Town Hall

Reaching Piccadilly Gardens, no less crowded, we sought refuge in the McDonalds and sat at a window bench enjoying our delicious decadent sugar and calorie filled sundaes, while watching the folk pass by outside.

Packed with calcium and bad-fats, we wandered down toward Chinatown, encountering many gay couples drifting up from Manchester’s gay quarter, apparently one of Britain’s most vibrant. Had we been unfortunate enough to arrive here in a few more weeks, we might have been subjected to Manchester Pride when this group of people who choose to draw attention to themselves in such an unnecessary manner.

Albert & others watching over the Square

Chinatown proved to be rather disappointing; ethic restaurants are tucked away off shabby streets and one can only hope their premises are regularly checked by the council health officers if the access streets are anything to go by. 

The Town Hall revisited today looked so much better without the rain, and we paused for a while in Albert Square, where wedding parties were lining up awaiting their turn for a civil ceremony. Prince Albert watched over the confused scene from his stone plinth, erected there six years after his death, supposedly because he had been such a supporter of all things industrial.

We found the 1709 neoclassical St Ann’s Church pleasing, and certainly more appealing for prayerful practice than the Cathedral. St Ann’s Square kept us for a while, entertained by an excellent younger singer, and then we moved on again. 

Nearby we found the Royal Exchange, a stunning building which like so many has had several metamorphises. The current grade II listed building, previously used for a commodities exchange, is the last of three versions. The first was built in 1809. Then the second, to meet the growing demands of the cotton trade, was constructed between 1867 and 1874. It was extended and modified again between 1914 and 1931 to form the largest trading hall in England. In its heyday it was the largest room in the world and employed seven thousand people. 

The theatre inside the Royal Exchange

This, like so many other buildings in Manchester, was seriously damaged in the Second World War, taking a direct hit at Christmas in 1940. Its interior was rebuilt with a smaller trading area. It closed for trade in 1968 and the old trading board still shows the last day’s prices for American and Egyptian cotton.

Inside the building, aside from admiring the wonderful marble features, we were flabbergasted by the latest remodelling of the structure. Actually this is a little misleading, to say “structure”, because the basic structure has been untouched. But in 1976 it became home to the Royal Exchange Theatre, and now houses a space-aged theatre-in-the-round pod which sits in the heart of the building. An audience of seven hundred can be accommodated and during a performance, they are shut into the pod so the performers and support crew can move about the pod as they move sets and such. We were quite horrified by this ugly industrial structure which sits centrally in this very lovely building. It is however very popular and  in 1999, after repair of bomb damage, was awarded “Theatre of the Year” in the Barclay’s Theatre Awards, then just this year, the Regional Theatre of the Year by “The Stage”.

Our smelly evening visitor

Chris had been suffering a painful back all day, despite the gout tablets he had been ingesting during the day and the day before, so we called it a day, arriving back in Bury soon after 3pm, too late for the bus but too early for the next. We decided to walk back to the Country Park, and so we set off down through the streets, to the River Irwell, following blackberry and raspberry lined cycle paths. Berries had to be sampled and we agreed they would be at their peak in a couple of weeks, however in fear of missing out, we made the most of the free fruit this afternoon.

As the day closed in this evening, the steam train stopped on the embankment above the camp, providing for great excitement in the camp, for all but my unappreciative husband, although he did have the grace to draw my attention to the stationery engine, puffing away for some obscure reason. A little bonus to my day.