We Must Cherish Our City... Warts and All
Phil Grffin
I ONCE saw graffiti neatly pencilled on the crumbling wall of the third floor
ladies toilet in Royal Mill Ancoats. It said: "I wish Johnny would follow
me home in the blackout".
This must have been written in 1941, sometime between the blitz and the implementation
of the Factories Act of that year, banning toilets that opened directly onto
the factory floor. Errant toilets were simply abandoned, never to be whitewashed
again. The work of Johnny's admirer survived until recently. Survived, that is,
until the latest wave of Urban Regeneration.
Whatever else of Manchester's heritage is conserved for future generations it
was important to save the mills on Redhill Street in Ancoats. A handful of people
recognised this in the early 1990s and persuaded English Heritage to stump up
cash to keep the wreckers out.
Grim Ancoats, the first industrial suburb that so shocked the world in the 19th
century, looted by the unemployed and torched by the excluded in the late 20th,
is now climbing the property ladder.
Ceramic hobs and Philippe Stark fittings gleam where looms and spindles chattered
and roared. Property developers to the rescue of our heritage? Not exactly. Not
knights in shining armour. Not unless you count the odd chief executive in a
shiny car.
Listed buildings are a liability once they have no economic life, and that's
as true for cinemas as it is for castles and churches. On the other hand, buildings
have always been recycled. I grew up in Levenshulme where, in the 1960s a cinema
became a Catholic church and the local town hall an antiques market. Big old
Victorian pubs become computer salesrooms and high street banks make vet's surgeries.
St Benedict's church in Beswick is the UK's highest indoor climbing wall, and
a Baptist chapel on Burton Road in West Didsbury is the headquarters of the British
Mountaineering Council. Nearer my God to thee.
Chunks of the city centre were deserted as the economy changed gear mid-century.
Robust, elegant textile warehouses in the grid of streets behind Piccadilly Plaza
were all but abandoned. In the early 1980s, no town planner could have pointed
to the near perfect, ready-made China Town that it became. Chinese pensioners
were among the first to move into the city centre. Chinese housing associations
built on Faulkner Street and Princess Street, and developed apartments above
the Via Fossa on Canal Street. Meanwhile, Northern Counties Housing Association
was converting grade II listed warehouses on Whitworth Street, and new apartments
built around Granby Row and Piccadilly Village. The city centre was beginning
to move, and attitudes to listed buildings changed. Pretty soon the decaying
warehouses on Princess Street and Portland Street were rising in value for the
first time in 50 years.
Saviour
Loft living may now be so yesterday, but the fashion for stripped timber floors
and bare brick walls was the saviour of hundreds of thousands of square feet
of Victorian and Edwardian industrial and commercial buildings.
Carol Ainscow of Artisan set the ball rolling with the city's first "loft
style" apartments at 42-44 Sackville Street. Ian Simpson Architects converted
the Grand Hotel, a grade II listed building on Aytoun Street, into apartments.
Innumerable commercial buildings, some listed, some not, have been converted
to residential in the Northern Quarter.
Urban Splash was an early converter when it and architects Stephenson Bell tackled
a tricky clutch of buildings on Oldham Street that became the Smithfield Building.
Regrettably, in the hands of less able architects than these, making Georgian,
Victorian and Edwardian buildings work as apartments has too often meant slapping
horrible tin sheds on top. Look at the old postal sorting office on Newton Street.
The huge parquet floors have gone, and the labyrinthine cellars. The walls have
been retained, but with that roof, was it worth it?
Some buildings have been brought back from the brink by the enthusiasm for city
centre living. The mock-Elizabethan black and white building on Great Ancoats
Street next to the Daily Express was looking much the worse for a few centuries
of wear. In fact, it is a late 19th century café and women's shelter,
redeemed by Manchester Methodist Housing Group and architect Ian Finlay.
There's a terracotta faced building next on Great Ancoats Street, now apartments.
Terracotta was fashionable in industrial cities in the early 20th century, largely
because it scrubs up well. The Northern Quarter is dotted with them, and city
living has reintroduced them in their refurbished glory on Church Street and
Hilton Street.
Oxford Street has the Midland Hotel and The Refuge building, now the Palace.
Whitworth Street is the Grand Canyon of Terracotta, running from the Palace to
the junction with London Road. Here, probably the city's finest terracotta masterpiece,
the Fire Station and Coroner's Court has been shamefully left to rot by owners
Britannia Hotels. Recent proposals to bring this gorgeous building back into
public use should be encouraged. The lesson of the last decade in Manchester
has been to cherish our city, and to nurture it, not to let it rot for profit.
Not all residential lead conversions are wonderfully successful. Most of what
has happened in Macintosh Village makes me wish we could start again. Refurbished
brick cliff faces barely relived by serried rows of regular small windows can
be as forbidding as ever a downtrodden mill hand must have found them.
The Ancoats mills have scale and, on Red Hill Street, an open aspect across the
Rochdale canal and emerging New Islington. The Murray's Mill development, by
architect Richard Murphy is looking to add character and distinction with new
built elements. If and when Ancoats Urban Village completes its renaissance a
new type of neighbourhood will emerge, of tight streets and tall buildings not
dedicated to sweated labour. I hope the new residents will thank their forbears
for it.
Across the Irwell from Quay Street on the Salford bank and Irwell Street is Riverside
House, that used to be the Old Veteran Hotel and the site of a brewery. Riverside
House hasn't been vacant for long and, frankly, looks ripe for "development".
The building has no listing as yet, and no great architectural merit, beyond
being rather pretty.
Saved
I'd say it should be listed on the basis of its history and the history of the
site. I think there's been a licence here since the early 1800s. The early 1990s
building for Customs and Excise that is next door to Riverside House on the Irwell
bank is no great shakes, and the brick and stone building from the late 19th
century should be retained on the basis that it softens the blow of the later
one. Riverside House should be saved and well treated.
We are getting better at recycling old buildings. Bruntwood who are even now,
along with architect Stephenson Bell, tackling the Piccadilly Plaza, have effectively
revamped even unloved 1960s brutes such as the Parcel Force building behind Piccadilly
Station, and the sorting office on Lever Street. We are learning to cherish our
city, warts and all.
Old buildings in proportion with new make the sort of mix that gives a city its
identity. An old building is not necessarily a sick building, and demolition
should be the treatment of last resort.
The Joshua Hoyle building on Piccadilly, so long an eyesore, is now the front
end of Malmaison. I regret the DHSS building on Aytoun Street may finally give
way to a tower. I regret that the attractions of Johnny and the blackout are
no longer memorialised in Royal Mill. But enough of the mills of Ancoats have
been reinvented for new uses, and the world story of manufacture and globalisation
can still be illustrated by their scale and presence.
One day, sooner rather than
later, we may be able to walk through the refurbished splendour of the London
Road Fire Station, have a coffee and listen to some music. That's what we do
in modern cities, and, thank goodness, Manchester has many fine buildings to
do it in.
