|
|
STRANGEWAYS BREWERY is on the corner of Trinity Way and Great
Ducie Street. Here, Manchester's most famous beer, Boddingtons
is produced. You can taste it freshly brewed in the Brewery
Tap pub, on the left of the picture.
There are also guided tours round the brewery.
The chimney and some of the buildings are original, the rest
of what we see here is of recent origin. Though the buildings
are new, the beer tastes much the same as it always has.
The boundary between the Manchester and Salford local authorities
is just behind us - Strangeways Brewery is located within
the City of Manchester... just!
|
|
|
THIS WAS a major bridge across the river. Now it carries
just a side road, as a new bridge was built just off the picture
to the right for Trinity Way, part of the new inner ring road
round the centre of Manchester and Salford.
The border between Manchester and Salford local authorities
runs along the centre of the river - we are on the Manchester
side.
For orientation, Highland House, opposite Manchester Cathedral,
is visible in the centre right.
|
|
ANACONDA
CUT FACTS
- Serious
flooding hit Salford in 1866 and 1946, when 22,000
cusecs flowed into Salford - the channel could only
take 12 or 13,000 cusecs
- The
total cost was £2m, more than half of which
was for the purchase of property which should never
have been built next to the river.
- The
River Irwell first flowed through the cut in September
1970
|
| The
former location of one EWM reader's childhood home is
approximately mid-air over the river in the picture
on the left! The view on the right is what he'd see
now from the place where his bedroom window was. |
|
JUST HALF A MILE from the city centre, with Highland House
still visible in the distance on the left, we've reached a
wide curve in the river. If you cleaned the place up, added
some people and put a cathedral on the other bank, this could
be Durham.
Here we are looking at one of the most remarkable and least
known civil engineering projects in the local area - the re-routing
of the River Irwell, or so-called 'Anaconda Cut'.
The stretch of river in the right half of this picture is
a channel which was cut through to straighten out the Irwell
and increase its capacity. Coming from the right, where the
flats are, the Irwell used to turn north, then south in a
sharp elbow, continuing along by the foot of this picture
and on through the centre of the city.
In 1946 there was serious flooding in Salford further upstream
from here, caused by the bottleneck at this point. In fact,
flooding had been a problem for hundreds of years - the name
Strangeways actually means 'place subject to flooding'.
And so the decision was taken to straighten and widen the
river, increasing its capacity and reducing the risk of flooding.
Work started in 1951. It was only in late 1970 that water
first flowed through the Anaconda Cut, named partly after
the snake-like course of the river, and after the former Anaconda
engineering works, built on the river bank, near where the
flats are now.
While river flooding causes damage and misery in other parts
of the country, Salford is protected thanks to this remarkable
project, which more people ought to know about. Wouldn't this
make a great educational field trip for geography or science?
|
|
|
THIS IS SPRINGFIELD LANE, the continuation of Cottenham Lane.
The buildings visible here were formerly located inside the
sharp elbow course of the river, surrounding a tongue of land
on three sides.
When the river was diverted, Springfield Street was cut in
two and the warehouses now found themselves to the north of
the Irwell, which runs past the gap between the buildings
in the centre. A concrete footbridge links the two parts of
Springfield Lane.
Manchester Town Hall is visible in the distance just over
three quarters of a mile (1.2km) away
|
