![]() St Peter's Square in January 2018 | |
Maintained by | City of Manchester |
---|---|
Location | Manchester, England, UK |
Coordinates | 53°28′40″N2°14′37″W / 53.47778°N 2.24361°W |
Construction | |
Completion | 1930s |
St Peter's Square is a public square in Manchester city centre, England. The north of the square is bounded by Princess Street and the south by Peter Street. To the west of the square is Manchester Central Library, Midland Hotel and Manchester Town Hall Extension. The square is home to the Manchester Cenotaph, the statue of Emmeline Pankhurst Rise up, Women , and St Peter's Square Metrolink tram stop and incorporates the Peace Garden. In 1819, the area around the square was the site of the Peterloo Massacre.
From 2010 to 2017, the square underwent significant redevelopment which entailed the restoration of Central Library and attached Library Walk link, the relocation of the Cenotaph to the rear of Manchester Town Hall, the creation of a new extended tram stop and the construction of two new office blocks to the south of the square; One St Peter's Square and Two St Peter's Square.
The area around St Peter's Square, then known as St Peter's Field, [1] was the site of the 1819 Peterloo Massacre. The name derives from St Peter's Church which was built in 1788-94 where the gardens are today and also gave its name to Peter Street. The church was built in the neoclassical style by the architect James Wyatt, and was once famous for its church music. It was demolished in 1907 and the Cenotaph replaced it in 1924. A stone cross (1908) commemorates the church. The square is the site for the city's Remembrance Day commemoration each year.
In the 1930s, the square was redeveloped around the construction of the Central Library and Town Hall Extension (1930–34). Plans for a rapid transit station in St Peter's Square were made in the 1970s; proposals for the abandoned Picc-Vic tunnel envisaged the construction of an underground station to serve both St Peter's and the neighbouring Albert Square. [2] The early proposals for an on-street light rail system in Manchester revived the idea of a station in the square, and the idea was retained as the project evolved, becoming a reality when the Metrolink system opened in 1992.
In 2013, Manchester City Council approved plans for the redevelopment of the square, including the expansion of the Metrolink stop to four platforms. [3] This coincided with the construction of the One and Two St Peter's Square buildings and the refurbishment of Manchester Central Library, both adjacent to the square. Numerous archaeological finds were made when construction work uncovered the former crypt of the long-demolished St. Peter's Church, [4] which had a concrete raft built over it in order to safely construct the new tram lines. [5] The outline of the church is marked in the paving around the square.
The scheme involved using £20 million of public money, [6] moving the Cenotaph, moving the Peace Gardens, demolishing an inter-war building to establish a new office quarter and closing Library Walk to the public. The plans were criticised as bland, unrealistic and private sector orientated rather than public orientated.[ citation needed ]
In response to the criticisms Darryl Lee, director of Mosley Street Ventures, said: "The developers have had lengthy and detailed discussions about their proposals with English Heritage and Manchester City Council, who have pronounced themselves happy with the scheme". An English Heritage spokesperson added: "Long before Century House was built, St Peter’s Square was envisaged as a grand civic space, and English Heritage feels that the Simpson scheme, taken with other developments which are under way, goes some way to realising that ambition. While we think that Century House makes a positive contribution to the conservation area, we feel that its loss is outweighed by the public benefits of the scheme." [7]
Rise up, Women , a statue of Emmeline Pankhurst, was unveiled on 14 December 2018 to commemorate 100 years since women were first allowed to vote in United Kingdom general elections. [8]
This is the work of Sir Edwin Lutyens and has similarities to the Cenotaph in Whitehall, London. It was inaugurated in 1924 and the ceremonies of Remembrance Day have been observed here annually since then. In 2014 the cenotaph was relocated to the north-east end of the square; opposite the Cooper Street entrance to the Town Hall.
Emmeline Pankhurst was a British political activist who organised the British suffragette movement and helped women to win in 1918 the right to vote in Great Britain and Ireland. In 1999, Time named her as one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century, stating that "she shaped an idea of objects for our time" and "shook society into a new pattern from which there could be no going back". She was widely criticised for her militant tactics, and historians disagree about their effectiveness, but her work is recognised as a crucial element in achieving women's suffrage in the United Kingdom.
Manchester Piccadilly is the main railway station of the city of Manchester, in the metropolitan county of Greater Manchester, England. Opened originally as Store Street in 1842, it was renamed Manchester London Road in 1847 and became Manchester Piccadilly in 1960. Located to the south-east of the city centre, it hosts long-distance intercity and cross-country services to national destinations including London, Birmingham, Nottingham, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Bristol, Exeter, Plymouth, Reading, Southampton and Bournemouth; regional services to destinations in Northern England including Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield, Newcastle and York; and local commuter services around Greater Manchester. It is one of 19 major stations managed by Network Rail. The station has 14 platforms: 12 terminal and two through platforms. Piccadilly is also a major interchange with the Metrolink light rail system with two tram platforms in its undercroft.
Manchester Metrolink is a tram/light rail system in Greater Manchester, England. The network has 99 stops along 64 miles (103 km) of standard-gauge route, making it the most extensive light rail system in the United Kingdom. Over the 2022/23 financial year 36 million passenger journeys were made on the system.
Manchester Victoria station in Manchester, England, is a combined mainline railway station and Metrolink tram stop. Situated to the north of the city centre on Hunts Bank, close to Manchester Cathedral, it adjoins Manchester Arena which was constructed on part of the former station site in the 1990s. Opened in 1844 and part of the Manchester station group, Manchester Victoria is Manchester's second busiest railway station after Piccadilly, and is the busiest station managed by Northern.
The Free Trade Hall on Peter Street, Manchester, England, was constructed in 1853–56 on St Peter's Fields, the site of the Peterloo Massacre. It is now a Radisson hotel.
Manchester City Centre is the central business district of Manchester, England, within the confines of Great Ancoats Street, A6042 Trinity Way, and A57(M) Mancunian Way, which collectively form an inner ring road. The City Centre ward had a population of 17,861 at the 2011 census.
Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) is a local government body responsible for co-ordinating transport services throughout Greater Manchester in North West England. It is an executive arm of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA), the city region's administrative authority. The strategies and policies of Transport for Greater Manchester are set by the GMCA and its Greater Manchester Transport Committee (GMTC). The committee is made up of 33 councillors appointed from the ten Greater Manchester boroughs, as well as the Mayor of Greater Manchester.
Albert Square is a public square in the centre of Manchester, England. It is dominated by its largest building, the Grade I listed Manchester Town Hall, a Victorian Gothic building by Alfred Waterhouse. Other smaller buildings from the same period surround it, many of which are listed.
Piccadilly Gardens is a green space in Manchester city centre, England, on the edge of the Northern Quarter.
St Peter's Square is a tram stop in St Peter's Square in Manchester city centre, England. It opened on 27 April 1992 and is in Zone 1 of Greater Manchester's Metrolink light rail system.
Picc-Vic was a proposed, and later cancelled, underground railway designed in the early 1970s with the purpose of connecting two major mainline railway termini in Manchester city centre, England. The name Picc-Vic was a contraction of the two key station names, Manchester Piccadilly and Manchester Victoria. The proposal envisaged the construction of an underground rail tunnel across Manchester city centre. The scheme was abandoned in 1977 during its proposal stages due to Westminster's lack of willingness to invest in Manchester. The view was that the scheme still retained two large and expensive-to-maintain terminal stations in Manchester while other similarly sized cities had reduced their terminals to one.
Deansgate-Castlefield is a tram stop on Greater Manchester's Metrolink light rail system, on Deansgate in the Castlefield area of Manchester city centre. It opened on 27 April 1992 as G-Mex tram stop, taking its name from the adjacent G-Mex Centre, a concert, conference and exhibition venue; the G-Mex Centre was rebranded as Manchester Central in 2007, prompting the Metrolink stop to be renamed on 20 September 2010. The station underwent redevelopment in 2014–15 to add an extra platform in preparation for the completion of the Second City Crossing in 2016–17.
High Street was a tram stop on Greater Manchester's light rail Metrolink network, located in Manchester city centre, England. It was on the east side of High Street opposite Manchester Arndale, between the present Shudehill tram stop and Market Street tram stop.
The history of Manchester Metrolink begins with its conception as Greater Manchester's light rail system in 1982 by the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive, and spans its inauguration in 1992 and the successive phases of expansion.
Manchester Cenotaph is a war memorial in St Peter's Square, Manchester, England. Manchester was late in commissioning a First World War memorial compared with most British towns and cities; the city council did not convene a war memorial committee until 1922. The committee quickly achieved its target of raising £10,000 but finding a suitable location for the monument proved controversial. The preferred site in Albert Square would have required the removal and relocation of other statues and monuments, and was opposed by the city's artistic bodies. The next choice was Piccadilly Gardens, an area already identified for a possible art gallery and library; but in the interests of speedier delivery, the memorial committee settled on St Peter's Square. The area within the square had been had been purchased by the City Council in 1906, having been the site of the former St Peter's Church; whose sealed burial crypts remained with burials untouched and marked above ground by a memorial stone cross. Negotiations to remove these stalled so the construction of the cenotaph proceeded with the cross and burials in situ.
Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive was the public body responsible for public transport in Greater Manchester between 1974 and 2011, when it became part of Transport for Greater Manchester.
The Manchester station group is a station group of four railway stations in Manchester city centre, England; this consists of Manchester Piccadilly, Manchester Oxford Road, Manchester Victoria and Deansgate. The station group is printed on national railway tickets as MANCHESTER STNS. For passengers travelling from one of the 91 National Rail stations in Greater Manchester, the four stations are printed as MANCHESTER CTLZ which additionally permits the use of Metrolink tram services in Zone 1.
This timeline lists significant events in the history of Greater Manchester's light rail network called the Manchester Metrolink.
The British Rail Class 316 was a proposed type of electric multiple unit intended for use on planned urban rail services in Greater Manchester. Intended as part of the family of EMUs descended from the prototype "PEP" stock, the class was never proceeded with as the planned services for which it was to be built were cancelled.
Rise up, Women, also known as Our Emmeline, is a bronze sculpture of Emmeline Pankhurst in St Peter's Square, Manchester. Pankhurst was a British political activist and leader of the suffragette movement in the United Kingdom. Hazel Reeves sculpted the figure and designed the Meeting Circle that surrounds it.