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Tuesday 27 February 2018

Northern Quarter street art


On a cold but sunny Saturday, Judderman and I went for a mooch round the Northern Quarter of Manchester, looking for street art. There is plenty of it and here is a sample of what we found . . .



























Mayfield Station, Manchester (permission visit)

On a rare sunny February morning, Judderman and myself turned up at an appointed meeting place for a guided tour of the abandoned Mayfield Station, near Piccadilly in Manchester. I had looked at this site, with a view to an explore over four years ago, but to no avail, as the place is securely locked up. So the next best thing was to book on a Jonathan Schofield tour, which was extremely popular, with around 25 people on this particular tour! Our tour guide was very knowledgeable, had a sense of humour and didn't mind if some of us wandered off a little to get as many shots as possible. Oh and did I mention that the sun was shining? In Manchester? The only down side was a biting wind coming in from Siberia . . . !


A little history of the place (shamelessly stolen form Wikipedia as I have the memory of a sieve and can't remember much of what our tour guide told us!)
"Manchester Mayfield is a former railway station in Manchetser, England, on the South side of Fairfield Street next to Manchester Piccadilly Station. Opened in 1910, Mayfield was constructed as a four-platform relief station adjacent to Piccadilly  to alleviate overcrowding. In 1960, the station was closed to passengers and in 1986 it was permanently closed to all services. After years of abandonment and many proposed development schemes, the station roof was dismantled in February 2013. Manchester Mayfiled Railway Station and the surrounding 6.2 acre site is the property of London and Continental Railways, the residual government-owned corporation and former partner in Eurostar. "


"Manchester Mayfield was built alongside Manchester London Road Station (Later Piccadilly) to handle the increased number of trains and passengers following the opening of the Styal Line in 1909. The LNWR had considered constructing a new platform at London Road between the MSJAR's platforms 1 and 2, which were renumbered 1 and 3 in anticipation, but this was abandoned in favour of the construction of Mayfield; the platforms nevertheless remained renumbered. Four platforms were provided and passengers could reach London Road via a high-level footbridge. Mayfield suffered the effects of bombing during World War II, when it was hit by a parachute mine on 22nd December 1940."

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"The site was converted into a parcels depot which opened on 6 July 1970. Royal Mail constructed a sorting office on the opposite side of the main line and connected it to Mayfield with an overhead conveyor bridge which crossed the throat of Piccadilly Station. The depot closed in 1986 following the decision by Parcelforce, Royal Mail's parcels division, to abandon rail transport in favour of road haulage. The building has remained disused ever since with the tracks into Mayfield removed in 1989 as part of the remodelling of the Piccadilly Station layout."



So on with the tour! First stop was on the abandoned platforms (now roofless)




                                                  I really liked the reflections.





                                    It was so cold that half of the water was frozen solid!











Next stop was back the way we had come and round the back to the underground part of the site.




This part was quite dark but there were some nice reflections in the puddles.










                                                        A warning about Asbestos!














Our tour guide set up his laptop to show us the plans for the proposed regeneration of the site and also a trailer for for one of the very first Zombie movies form the 1970s called " The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue" which featured one of the former buildings on the Mayfield site. 








An hour and a half had passed very quickly and it was time for the tour to end. Despite time restrictions and not being allowed to look around the old ticket office, (damn you Health and Safety!) I enjoyed this mooch.