Manchester

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Saturday in Manchester.

Our apartment is about 3 minutes walk from the no 86 bus into the city so we have bought a weekly ticket on a smartcard that seems to give us Manchester wide travel for the week at fairly good value.

Today we went on a “free” walking tour of the central city area. We find these walking tours good value as they help us to orient ourselves in the city and give us some clues on where we should go, over and above what we have researched ourselves. It is pot luck with the tour guide, some are a complete waste of time but this one was very good. I found the history of the universities and the Irish troubles interesting. The Peterloo massacre fits into the times of Alison’s family history interest.

Sunday we took the train out to Todmorton, about half an hour out of the city, to meet my cousin Jane and her husband Kevin. It was really great to meet and catch up with some family matters. Knowing we were walkers they took us on a spectacular hike up to a lookout, Stoodly Pike, overlooking a large sector of the south Pennine moors. It was a hot day by English standards so the late pub lunch with a couple of pints near the end of the walk was particularly welcome. Alison has some good pictures on her facebook page.

Monday.

Alison joined the Manchester Family History Society and has arranged a day today with a local researcher to help her delve into the local archives. I have a free day to myself so I visit the Manchester art Gallery. A very impressive gallery with a particularly strong collection of nineteenth century pre-Raphaelites. Their general collection is arranged thematically so there is a room of ships at sea or another of pictures telling a story. It means you can come across an individual Blake or a Hogarth amongst a room full of street scenes. There are some specialist collection of course, such as the 16^th century Dutch masters or the modern local painters. A really interesting gallery with a really strong collection of top quality material and really well curated. I had a wonderful day by myself and Alison was thrilled to find an unexpected land purchase document for one of her early 19^th century relatives of particular interest.

Tuesday.

We had intended to travel out to Blackpool today but we are both feeling tired of being constantly on the go, so we had a more restful day. We were only half hearted about Blackpool anyway. In the afternoon we went to the Science and Industry museum. We particularly wanted to get some insights into the cotton industry as this was the centre of the industrial revolution with cotton and railways and one branch of Alison’s Manchester family were “machine makers” in the early nineteenth century. It was a bit disappointing however as the main cotton gallery was temporarily closed. It was one of those museums that is trying to appeal to people who don’t really like museums. The train area was good with machines contemporary with the Stephenson’s “Rocket” of the 1820’s. We are giving our bus tickets a good workout.

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