| River Medlock | |
|---|---|
 River Medlock running under Oxford Street/Oxford Road, Manchester | |
 | |
| Location | |
| Country | England |
| Physical characteristics | |
| Source | |
| • location | between Oldham and Saddleworth, Pennines |
| Mouth | |
• location | River Irwell |
• coordinates | 53°28′26.67″N2°15′12.31″W / 53.4740750°N 2.2534194°W |
| Length | 16 km (9.9 mi) |
The River Medlock in Greater Manchester, England rises near Oldham and flows south and west for 10 miles (16 kilometres) to join the River Irwell in Manchester city centre.
Rising in the hills that surround Strinesdale just to the east of Oldham, the Medlock flows through the steep-sided wooded gorge that separates Lees from Ashton-under-Lyne and the Daisy Nook Country Park with its 19th century aqueduct carrying the disused Hollinwood Branch Canal over the shallow river. [ citation needed ]
The final miles of the river flowing to the River Irwell have been extensively modified. The river is culverted underneath the car park of the City of Manchester Stadium (the site of a former gasworks). It is visible flowing through Mayfield Park and under a bridge on Baring Street, close to Piccadilly station, before running again in a culvert beneath the former University of Manchester Institute of Science & Technology campus (London Road (A6) to Princess Street), then under Hulme Street, until it appears briefly at Gloucester Street before flowing under the former gasworks at Gaythorn, reappearing at City Road East.[ citation needed ]
At the point where Deansgate and Chester Road (A56) meet (under the Bridgewater Viaduct), the river meets the Bridgewater Canal head on, where a sluice gate (a listed structure) allowed water to feed the canal, until the water quality of the Medlock became too polluted for canal use. Normally, the level of the river is several feet below the level of the canal, and the river is carried in a tunnel under the Castlefield canal basin, reappearing at Potato Wharf, where it is supplemented by excess canal water draining into a circular weir. When the river is in flood, the tunnel cannot cope and river water enters the canal, flows across the basin, and exits via the weir and manually operated gates. One-quarter mile (400 metres) further on, the Medlock enters the Irwell adjacent to the bottom gate of the disused Hulme Locks.[ citation needed ]
In the latter part of the 18th century the river was navigable at least between the Bridgewater Canal (at Deansgate) and the site of India House (on Whitworth Street). At India House was the entrance to a tunnel used to carry coal to a wharf at Store Street (by Piccadilly station). [1] [2] The tunnel mouth is still visible. The tunnel was rendered obsolete by silting of the river and the construction of the Rochdale Canal.[ citation needed ]
The area just south of Oxford Road railway station enclosed by the railway line and the loop in the river was known as Little Ireland, and was described by Friedrich Engels as "the most horrible spot" of the area. [3] It is commemorated by a red plaque on the wall of 8 Great Marlborough Street, about half-way between New Wakefield Street and Hulme Street. [4] [5]
About 3⁄8 mile (600 metres) west of the plaque, there stands the Statue of Friedrich Engels at Tony Wilson Place. [6] The statue was moved from Ukraine after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, [7] and has the now-culverted flow of River Medlock between Anne Horniman Street and City Road East beneath.[ citation needed ]
The telephone exchange name, and subsequent dialling code for the area around Strinesdale, Moorside, and Grains Bar, was Medlock Head, abbreviated to MED for dialling. This was so at the time of the introduction of Subscriber Trunk Dialling to the area in the 1960s. The name owed less to local geography than to technology. The code MED was rendered as 633 on the telephone dial. MAI, the code for Oldham Main, was 624. Post Office Telecoms equipment of the day worked better when discrete local geographical areas, then with relatively few subscribers, had similar prefixes. These numbers, and others beginning with 6, remain in use in Greater Manchester, prefixed by 0161.[ citation needed ]
The Bridgewater Canal connects Runcorn, Manchester and Leigh, in North West England. It was commissioned by Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater, to transport coal from his mines in Worsley to Manchester. It was opened in 1761 from Worsley to Manchester, and later extended from Manchester to Runcorn, and then from Worsley to Leigh.
Castlefield is an inner-city conservation area in Manchester, North West England. The conservation area which bears its name is bounded by the River Irwell, Quay Street, Deansgate and Chester Road. It was the site of the Roman era fort of Mamucium or Mancunium which gave its name to Manchester. It was the terminus of the Bridgewater Canal, the world's first industrial canal, built in 1764; the oldest canal warehouse opened in 1779. The world's first passenger railway terminated here in 1830, at Liverpool Road railway station and the first railway warehouse opened here in 1831.
Guardian Exchange was an underground telephone exchange built in Manchester from 1954 to 1957. It was built together with the Anchor exchange in Birmingham and the Kingsway exchange in London – all believed to provide hardened communications in the event of nuclear war; as well as linking the UK government in London to the US Government in Washington, D.C. by means of a secure and hardened transatlantic telephone cable making landfall near Oban and running through Glasgow, Manchester and Birmingham. Today, the underground site is used for telephone cabling. Constructed at a depth of below 35 metres (115 ft), the tunnels are about 2 metres (80 in) in diameter. The exchange cost around £4 million, part of which was funded by the United Kingdom's NATO partners.
The River Irwell is a tributary of the River Mersey in north-west England. It rises at Irwell Springs on Deerplay Moor, approximately 1+1⁄2 miles north of Bacup and flows southwards for 39 mi (63 km) to meet the Mersey near Irlam. The Irwell marks the boundary between Manchester and Salford, and its lower reaches have been canalised and now form part of the Manchester Ship Canal.
The River Irk is a river in the historic county of Lancashire in the North West England that flows through the northern most Lancastrian towns of the ceremonial county of Greater Manchester.
Hulme is an inner city area and electoral ward of Manchester, England, immediately south of Manchester city centre. It has a significant industrial heritage.
Deansgate is a main road through Manchester City Centre, England. It runs roughly north–south in a near straight route through the western part of the city centre and is the longest road in the city centre at over one mile in length.
Market Street is one of the principal retail streets in Manchester, England. It runs from its junction with Piccadilly and Mosley Street, close to Piccadilly Gardens, in the east to where it meets St. Mary's Gate at the crossroads with Exchange Street and New Cathedral Street in the west. St Mary's Gate then continues to where it meets Deansgate (A56). Other major streets crossed are High Street, Corporation Street, Cross Street and Fountain Street.
The A5103 is a major road in England. It runs from Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester city centre to junction 3 of the M56 motorway and is one of Manchester's principal radial routes.
The transport infrastructure of Greater Manchester is built up of numerous transport modes and forms an integral part of the structure of Greater Manchester and North West England – the most populated region outside of South East England which had approximately 301 million annual passenger journeys using either buses, planes, trains or trams in 2014. Its position as a national city of commerce, education and cultural importance means the city has one of the largest and most thorough transport infrastructures which is heavily relied upon by its 2.8 million inhabitants in the Greater Manchester conurbation and further afield in the North West region. Public transport comes under the jurisdiction of Transport for Greater Manchester.
The Manchester and Salford Junction Canal was a canal in the city of Manchester. It was originally built to provide a direct waterway between the Mersey and Irwell Navigation and the Rochdale Canal. The canal opened in 1839 and was abandoned in 1922.
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.
The River Tib is a minor tributary of the River Medlock in Manchester, England. It has been culverted along its entire length since about 1783 and now runs beneath Manchester city centre. Tib Street and Tib Lane are named after the watercourse.
Stanney Brook is a watercourse in Greater Manchester, England. It originates in the Burnedge area of Shaw and Crompton, and flows through Milnrow into Rochdale before joining the River Roch at Newbold Brow. Alone among the watercourses of Milnrow and Newhey, it does not pass through the centre of either village, and flows directly into the River Roch, rather than first into the River Beal. Its name derives from the Lancashire dialect word "stanner", a ridge of stones. It is also unusual in that the borough in which it rises, changes, depending on the wetness of surrounding moorland. The brook drops 100 metres in a little over 5.5 kilometres, or 330feet in 3.5 miles. It is culverted four times, generally is only 60 cm (2 ft) wide, and rarely exceeds 90 cm (3 ft) in width at any point.
The Hulme Locks Branch Canal is a canal in the city of Manchester. It is 200m in length and was built to provide a direct waterway between the Mersey and Irwell Navigation and the Bridgewater Canal. The canal opened in 1838 and was superseded in 1995 by a new lock at Pomona Dock 3. As both of its locks remain closed, the canal is now overgrown.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Manchester in north west England.
Moston Brook is a stream in Greater Manchester in north-west England and a tributary of the River Irk. The brook is formed at the confluence of Bower Brook and Hole Bottom Brook. This occurs near the Rochdale Canal in Failsworth in the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham. It flows southwest, forming the border between Moston, Manchester and Failsworth before being culverted almost all of the remaining route to its meeting the River Irk. It has a total length of about 3.7 miles.
Walverden Water is a minor river in Lancashire, England. It is approximately 2.6 miles (4.2 km) long and has a catchment area of 5.04 square miles (1,304.23 ha).
Manchester is a city in Northwest England. The M3 postcode area of the city includes the western part of the city centre. The area contains 79 listed buildings that are recorded in the National Heritage List for England. Of these, five are listed at Grade I, the highest of the three grades, two are at Grade II*, the middle grade, and the others are at Grade II, the lowest grade.