The Victoria Arches are a series of bricked-up arches built in an embankment of the River Irwell in Manchester. They served as business premises, landing stages for steam packet riverboats and as Second World War air-raid shelters. They were accessed from wooden staircases that descended from Victoria Street. [1]
Regular flooding resulted in the closure of the steam-packet services in the early 20th century, and the arches were later used for general storage. Following the outbreak of the Second World War they were converted into air-raid shelters. They are now bricked up and inaccessible, the staircases having been removed in the latter part of the 20th century.
Sailings to Pomona Gardens were very popular with courting couples, who liked to watch the Eel-catchers, admire views of Trafford Park Woodlands, and gaze at the peaceful farms and orchards. But the increasing smells from the river stopped it all.
Anon (1993, p. 21.)
The arches were built to create new industrial space, during construction of a new embankment along the River Irwell, built to support a new road. The embankment was completed in 1838. [2]
In 1852 the life-boat Challenger was built and launched from the Arches. [3]
Victorian-era passenger trips along the Irwell were very popular, despite increasing levels of river pollution; in 1860 the Irwell was described as "almost proverbial for the foulness of its waters; receiving the refuse of cotton factories, coal mines, print works, bleach works, dye works, chemical works, paper works, almost every kind of industry." The Rivers Pollution Prevention Act 1876 (39 & 40 Vict. c. 75) was designed to solve such problems, although it was largely ineffective. However, it laid the groundwork for the more draconian legislation that followed. [4]
The Manchester Ship Canal was opened in 1894, and by 1895 the Ship Canal Company, who encouraged passenger traffic, had opened at least one landing stage. [5] [6] Two of its steamers, Shandon and Eagle, are known to have used the landing stages. [7] These boats could carry 900 and 1,100 passengers respectively. During the first half of 1897 more than 200,000 passengers were carried on trips around Manchester Docks, with holiday seasons the most popular periods. [6] Competition for passengers was fierce, with at least two landing stages being operated by different companies. The ferries would occasionally carry musicians, for passenger entertainment. [8]
The landing stages suffered problems with flooding of the Irwell and do not appear to have remained in business for long, being closed in 1906. [1] In Underground Manchester; secrets of the city revealed, author Keith Warrender quotes the recollections of a Manchester City News writer, originally published in 1923:
I became acquainted with those arches in the sixties, for my father, a master joiner and builder, had a workshop there. Two approaches thereto were provided, one by a flight of steps near the Cateaton Street side of the old churchyard, and the other at the corner of Victoria Street and Fennel Street. The arches were lofty and spacious, and had previously been used as a copper and iron works, in connection with which was a tall chimney by the cathedral steps. Part of the chimney was damaged by lightning and the upper part was taken down in 1872. I believe the lower part remained until the old buildings at that point were demolished, not many years ago. [9]
He continues, quoting another letter from the Manchester Evening News in 1960 which says;
At the time I knew it well, 1898, one or two of the arches were used as a battery station by Manchester Electricity Department and two or three others as meter testing and storage departments. Also there was the first testing station for the department where the prototypes of all apparatus used by electricity users in the city were tested. The tunnel was bricked up, about level with the end of Fennel Street. From its gradient it would reach approximately water level at the Irk at the bottom of Hunt's Bank, and the other end would reach street level at St Mary's Gate. The roadway was one cart track wide. The entrance was in Victoria Street alongside the door to a tobacconist's shop near Cathedral Yard. [9]
During the Second World War the arches and tunnels surrounding them were converted into air-raid shelters. [10] [11] [12] The conversion took three months and with additional brick blast walls added, cost £10,150, providing shelter for 1,619 people. [9] The cobbled surfaces shown in some of the pictures on the Manchester City Council website show the same network of tunnels before their conversion to air raid shelters. The land covered by the arches included a street, which led at the west end to a wooden bridge over the River Irk. The old road was covered over in an improvement scheme that began in 1833. [9]
The steps and landing stages have been closed to the public for many years. In 1935 less elaborate steps were in place, [13] some of which remained until 1971. [14] Photographs taken in 1972 show the arches to be barred, some are covered with metal grilles. [15] As of 2009 none of the steps remain, and the original Victorian railings along the embankment have been replaced with a stone wall and new railings.
The stages also connected with public toilets that used to be in front of the cathedral. While now disused and closed to the public in 1967, Manchester Central Library maps demonstrate their proximity to the landing stages on the river, and both stage and toilets are accessible from one another. Explorers have accessed the landing stages and documented their current condition, including taking photographs. [2] There was an underground entrance to the stages from the premises of Thomas Cook & Son, which stood on the corner of Victoria Bridge. [9] Evidence of the building was reportedly found inside one of the stages in the form of fire-damaged timber purlins, albeit in very poor condition. It has been suggested that the landing stages might be reopened to the public as a tourist attraction. [1]
The arches are visible from the three surrounding bridges, and from the northwest shore of the river. They are all bricked up, some with small ventilation apertures left in place.
The Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal is a disused canal in Greater Manchester, England, built to link Bolton and Bury with Manchester. The canal, when fully opened, was 15 miles 1 furlong (24 km) long. It was accessed via a junction with the River Irwell in Salford. Seventeen locks were required to climb to the summit as it passed through Pendleton, heading northwest to Prestolee before it split northwest to Bolton and northeast to Bury. Between Bolton and Bury the canal was level and required no locks. Six aqueducts were built to allow the canal to cross the rivers Irwell and Tonge and several minor roads.
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.
Air raid shelters are structures for the protection of non-combatants as well as combatants against enemy attacks from the air. They are similar to bunkers in many regards, although they are not designed to defend against ground attack.
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.
Barton upon Irwell is a suburb of the City of Salford, Greater Manchester, England, with a population of 12,462 in 2014.
Manchester Exchange was a railway station in Salford, England, immediately north of Manchester city centre, which served the city between 1884 and 1969. The main approach road ran from the end of Deansgate, near Manchester Cathedral, passing over the River Irwell, the Manchester-Salford boundary and Chapel Street; a second approach road led up from Blackfriars Road. Most of the station was in Salford, with only the 1929 extension to platform 3 east of the Irwell in Manchester.
Liverpool Road is a former railway station on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in Manchester, England; it opened on 15 September 1830. The station was the Manchester terminus of the world's first inter-city passenger railway in which all services were hauled by timetabled steam locomotives. It is the world's oldest surviving terminal railway station. With tracks running at a first floor level behind the building, it could also be considered one of the world's first elevated railway stations.
The Victoria Tunnel is a subterranean wagonway that runs under Newcastle upon Tyne, England, from the Town Moor down to the River Tyne. It was built between 1839 and 1842 to transport coal from Leazes Main Colliery in Spital Tongues, to riverside staithes (jetties), ready for loading onto boats for export.
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.
Park Bridge Railway Station was a railway station on the Oldham, Ashton-under-Lyne and Guide Bridge Junction Railway (OA&GB) that served the village of Park Bridge, in the Medlock Valley near Ashton-under-Lyne's border with Oldham. It was sometimes known as Parkbridge, and one photograph of the station shows the station name board with the name as one word and immediately adjacent the signal box with it shown as two. The station opened on 26 August 1861 when the line opened.
Shambles Square is a square in Manchester, England, created in 1999 around the rebuilt Old Wellington Inn and Sinclair's Oyster Bar next to The Mitre Hotel.
Peel Park is a public urban park in Salford, Greater Manchester, England, located on the flood plain of the River Irwell below Salford Crescent and adjacent to the University of Salford. It was the first of three public parks to be opened on 22 August 1846, for the people of Manchester and Salford, paid for by public subscription. The park was the main public venue for the 1851 royal visit of Queen Victoria to Manchester and Salford and has been the subject of a number of paintings by the Salford artist, L.S. Lowry.
The River Irwell Railway Bridge was built for the Liverpool & Manchester Railway (L&MR), the world's first passenger railway which used only steam locomotives and operated as a scheduled service, near Water Street in Manchester, England. The stone railway bridge, built in 1830 by George Stephenson, was part of Liverpool Road railway station. The bridge was designated a Grade I listed building on 19 June 1988.
Greengate is an inner-city suburb of Salford in Greater Manchester, England. It is bounded by the River Irwell, Victoria Bridge Street and Chapel Street, Blackfriars Road and Trinity Way. Greengate is the original historic core of Salford and sits within the easternmost part of the City of Salford. Greengate is currently experiencing a period of intensive development activity and growth, benefiting from its location just across the River Irwell from the City of Manchester.
Victoria Bridge is a stone arch bridge in Greater Manchester, England. Completed in 1839 and named after Queen Victoria, it crosses the River Irwell, connecting Salford to Manchester.
Blackfriars Bridge is a stone arch bridge in Greater Manchester, England. Completed in 1820, it crosses the River Irwell, connecting Salford to Manchester.
William Street retaining wall is a heritage-listed embankment at William Street, Brisbane City, City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It was built from 1889 to 1970s. It is also known as William Street & Queens Wharf Road retaining walls and North Quay porphry wall. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992.
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