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This trip started at my birthplace, or at least my first home, 40 Capital Road. That said, you will now know that whatever I say about Manchester will carry a certain amount of bias. Our first serious stop was at Liverpool Street Railway Station, the world's first passenger railway station. Opened in 1830 by the Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington, it only operated as a passenger station for another 15 years, but is now fully restored.
Liverpool Street runs through Castlefields, an area of Manchester that takes its name from 'The Roman Castle in the field'. This is where the city was born, sadly that meant that most of the castle has been buried under the development of the industrial revolution. Next to the castle is the Duke of Bridgewater canal, Britain's first canal. Opened in 1760, Bridgewater and his engineer James Brindley built the canal to carry coal in from the Duke's mines in Worsley. The Duke made his fortune out of this canal, he owned the water not the canal! And anyone who wanted to take their goods out to the coast had to pay the Duke to travel on his water. We visited the aqueduct at Barton. Also designed and built by Brindley and the Duke, this was one of the wonders of the world, nobody had seen water travel over water before. The stone aqueduct that Brindley built in 1761 over the River Irwell was replaced by a steel swing bridge aqueduct in 1894 over the new Manchester Ship Canal.
Manchester Airport is without doubt one of the city's great success stories, opened in 1938 it covers 1500 acres of land, serves 14.8 million passengers a year, which is 30% of all UK holiday flights, and it is the 16th largest airport in the world. Whilst we were there we looked at the Alcock and Brown statue. Both Manchester lads, they were the first to fly non-stop across the Atlantic, June 1919, in a Vickers Vimy, powered by Rolls Royce engines, and Rolls first met Royce in Manchester at the Midland Hotel.
The Free Trade Hall stands on the site of the Peterloo Massacre on Peter Street in the city centre. Not long after Waterloo, Peterloo was the name given by a Manchester journalist to a massacre in 1819 when mounted guards were sent to break up a meeting in support of electoral reform. Inside the Hall, which is soon to be turned into a hotel, we met Nigel Ogden presenter of BBC 2's The Organist Entertains. Nigel looks after the world famous 1930's Wurlitzer Organ that is based in the hall, and will supervise the movement of all 10 tonnes and 1,400 pipes to a new home soon.
Sir Bob Scott has been pushing harder for Manchester than anyone else for over twenty years, he's opened four theatres, tried for two Olympic bids, and is now set to bring the Commonwealth Games to the city. We met up with him inside the Town Hall. Built in 1877 by Waterhouse, this stunning building has a 286 ft clock tower which houses 'Big Abel', a bell named after Abel Heywood the Mayor who campaigned for the new building.
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