Cathedral Gardens is an open space in Manchester city centre, in North West England. It is bounded by Victoria railway station to the north, Chetham's School of Music to the west, the perimeter of Manchester Cathedral and the Corn Exchange on Fennel Street to the south and Urbis to the east.
Cathedral Gardens comprises wide areas of grassy plots, surrounded by paved walking areas and stylised concrete sitting areas. On the west side, is a short water feature. [1] [2]
Until the Industrial Revolution, Manchester was little more than a small market town, and the town was centred on the cathedral. The area where Cathedral Gardens now stands was enclosed by small cottages. During the Industrial Revolution Manchester expanded rapidly, and its centre shifted further south. Cathedral Gardens is overlooked by Chetham's Library, where Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote.
After Victoria railway station was built in the 1860s, the site housed travellers, hotels and shops until urban planning in the 1980s, demolished the hotel which faced south on Fennel Street and the Corn Exchange. The site was used as a car park until the regeneration of Manchester city centre.
The Provisional IRA planted bombs on mainland British cities for thirty years. Manchester was targeted in the 1990s, which culminated in the Manchester IRA bombing on 15 June 1996.
The bomb exploded on a Saturday morning while Manchester was hosting the 1996 UEFA European Football Championship and was the largest bombing on British soil. It created devastation for half a mile around the explosion site. The Marks and Spencer store was damaged beyond repair but nobody was killed.
After the 1996 bombing, the government, granted Manchester City Council several million pounds to redevelop the most damaged sites in the city. After an international competition, several architects were charged with creating an accessible open space linking St Ann’s Square to the cathedral. After the completion of the new Marks and Spencer flagship store (then the largest in the world) and the Urbis gallery, Cathedral Gardens was opened to the public.
At around 22:35 on 22 May 2017 a bombing at the nearby Manchester Arena killed 22 people and injured at least 59. [3] [4]
Manchester is the most-populous city and metropolitan borough in North West England and Greater Manchester, England. The city has the country's fifth-largest population at 547,627, lying within the United Kingdom's second-most populous urban area with a population of 2.7 million and the third most-populous county at around 2.8 million. It is fringed by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east. The city is surrounded by outlying towns and the neighbouring city of Salford. These two cities and the surrounding towns form a large continuous conurbation. The local authority for the city is Manchester City Council.
Chetham's School of Music is an independent co-educational music school in Manchester, England. Chetham's educates students between the ages of 8 and 18, all of whom enter via musical auditions. Students receive a full academic education alongside specialist group and individual music tuition.
Manchester City Centre is the central business district of Manchester in North West England, within the boundaries of Trinity Way, Great Ancoats Street and Whitworth Street. The City Centre ward had a population of 17,861 at the 2011 census.
Urbis was an exhibition and museum in Manchester, England, designed by Ian Simpson. The building opened in June 2002 as part of the redevelopment of Exchange Square known as the Millennium Quarter. Urbis was commissioned as a 'Museum of the City' but visitor numbers were lower than expected and a switch was made in 2005-6 to presenting changing exhibitions on popular-culture alongside talks, gigs and special events. Urbis was closed in 2010, after the opportunity arose for Manchester to host the National Football Museum. In 2012, the building re-opened after a complete re-fit as the permanent National Football Museum.
Manchester Cathedral, formally the Cathedral and Collegiate Church of St Mary, St Denys and St George, in Manchester, England, is the mother church of the Anglican Diocese of Manchester, seat of the Bishop of Manchester and the city's parish church. It is on Victoria Street in Manchester city centre and is a grade I listed building.
Corn Exchange, Manchester is a grade II listed building in Manchester, England. The building was originally used as a corn exchange and was previously named the Corn & Produce Exchange, and subsequently The Triangle. Following the IRA bomb in 1996 it was renovated and was a modern shopping centre till 2014. The building was sold to investors and has been re-developed into a dining destination with food outlets.
The history of Manchester encompasses its change from a minor Lancastrian township into the pre-eminent industrial metropolis of the United Kingdom and the world. Manchester began expanding "at an astonishing rate" around the turn of the 19th century as part of a process of unplanned urbanisation brought on by a boom in textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution. The transformation took little more than a century.
The 1996 Manchester bombing was an attack carried out by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) on Saturday 15 June 1996. The IRA detonated a 1,500-kilogram (3,300 lb) lorry bomb on Corporation Street in the centre of Manchester, England. It was the biggest bomb detonated in Great Britain since the Second World War. It targeted the city's infrastructure and economy and caused significant damage, estimated by insurers at £700 million, a sum surpassed only by the 1993 Bishopsgate bombing, also by the IRA, and the 2001 September 11 attacks.
Piccadilly Gardens is a green space in Manchester city centre, England, on the edge of the Northern Quarter.
Exchange Square is civic square in Manchester, England. The square was created after the IRA 1996 Manchester bombing. This reconstruction included the structural relocation of two pubs to make room for the new Marks & Spencer store.
Manchester Arndale is a large shopping centre in Manchester, England. It was constructed in phases between 1972 and 1979, at a cost of £100 million. Manchester Arndale is the largest of the chain of Arndale Centres built across the UK in the 1960s and 1970s. It was redeveloped after the 1996 Manchester bombing.
New Cathedral Street is a pedestrianised retail street in Manchester city centre, England. It runs between Exchange Square and Exchange Street. The street is home to the Manchester branch of Marks and Spencer and Selfridges, and Harvey Nichols, the largest Ted Baker and Hugo Boss stores outside London, Lacoste, Louis Vuitton, Reiss, Henri Lloyd, Massimo, Zara and Burberry.
The Culture of Manchester is notable artistically, architecturally, theatrically and musically. Despite being the 5th largest city in the United Kingdom by population and the second largest conurbation, Manchester has been ranked as the second city of the United Kingdom in numerous polls since the 2000s (decade), with an influential culture scene helping to elevate Manchester's importance in the national psyche. This has helped the city's population grow by 20% in the last decade, and made the universities the most popular choices for undergraduate admission.
The architecture of Manchester demonstrates a rich variety of architectural styles. The city is a product of the Industrial Revolution and is known as the first modern, industrial city. Manchester is noted for its warehouses, railway viaducts, cotton mills and canals - remnants of its past when the city produced and traded goods. Manchester has minimal Georgian or medieval architecture to speak of and consequently has a vast array of 19th and early 20th-century architecture styles; examples include Palazzo, Neo-Gothic, Venetian Gothic, Edwardian baroque, Art Nouveau, Art Deco and the Neo-Classical.
Sir Howard Bernstein was the Chief executive of Manchester City Council at Manchester Town Hall from 1998 to 2017. Originally joining the Council as a junior clerk, he became the Chief executive in 1998, responsible for setting development goals and encouraging investment in the city. He is Honorary Professor of Politics at The University of Manchester.
Clayton Hall is a 15th-century manor house on Ashton New Road, in Clayton, Manchester, England. It is hidden behind trees in a small park. The hall is a Grade II* listed building, the mound on which it is built is a scheduled ancient monument, and a rare example of a medieval moated site. The hall is surrounded by a moat, making an island 66 m by 74 m. Alterations were made to the hall in the 16th and 17th centuries, and it was enlarged in the 18th century.
Corporation Street is a major thoroughfare in Manchester city centre. It runs from Dantzic Street to the junction of Cross Street and Market Street. Major buildings located on or adjacent to the street include the Arndale Centre, Exchange Square, The Printworks, Urbis and New Century Hall next to the CIS Tower.
Corporation Street Bridge is a skyway which crosses Corporation Street in Manchester city centre, Manchester. The bridge replaced the old footbridge, which was damaged beyond repair in the 1996 Manchester bombing. The bridge is shaped in the form of a hyperboloid and links the Marks & Spencer/Selfridges building to the Manchester Arndale.
The 1992 Manchester bombing was an attack by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) on Thursday 3 December 1992. Two 2 lb (0.9 kg) bombs exploded which wounded 65 people and damaged several buildings in the city of Manchester.
The Glade of Light is a memorial in Manchester, England, that commemorates the victims of the Manchester Arena bombing of 2017. It opened to the public in January 2022 and an official opening event has been planned for spring. The memorial is in the form of a garden with a stone centrepiece inscribed with the names of the 22 victims. Individual 'memory capsules' commemorating each victim have been included in the memorial and are situated within the stone centrepiece.