#manchesterbuildingboom
In this video I go on a bike tour around Manchester’s inner ring road, which also marks the periphery of the central area. We look at construction projects, planned, in progress and completed, all of which are bringing about a huge transformation across the conurbation.
Residential towers, apartment blocks, also state of the art office developments, hotels, all are helping to turn run down former industrial districts into busy, economically active areas. We also look at some archive photos from the past, taken along Great Ancoats Street Manchester, and compare them to what’s there today.
I am cycling around on my Brompton Bike, and I’m experimenting with a new format offering more on-site on-camera commentary than before,.
#ModernArchitecture
On the AidanEyewitness channel I explore new construction, modern architecture, urban development and local identity in the Manchester and Liverpool city regions as well as connected cities further afield.
I want to highlight what’s good, weigh up the issues and in the comments, provide an opportunity for people to share their opinions, insights and insider information. I try to answer each comment asap, but please be patient if it takes longer.
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I’m next to the very busy and very noisy inner
relief road in Salford. It’s Trinity Way, about ten minutes walk from
Deansgate in that direction. And just behind me is the Renault site,
which has been acquired by developers Salboy. They’re going to build
some residential buildings on it. Now the interesting thing is that on this
corner, Salboy have acquired this site, so they will do all of that, but as we look
around, we also have on the other side, this development behind the Black Friar Pub, looking very nice in its flowers and still
another one on this corner behind the trees. Yes, there have been a few announcements in
the media over the past week, so I decided put this video together quickly, a
bit rough and ready, but it’ll do. This is the residential building Fifty5ive,
the eighth development by Salboy completed a few years ago with their construction partners
Domis, designed by Jon Matthews Architects. The Black Friar is a celebrated pub in
Salford. It’s been given a new lease of life by the surrounding residential
developments. This ornamentation with flowers flowing out of a tap,
is more a kind of installation than just decoration. The pub was
built in the late 19th century. Just behind it is the residential development
named Local Blackfriars with 380 apartments, townhouses and penthouses. It’s
got rooftop gardens and a green area between the two blocks.
That’s inside the gated area. I really like the green tiles. I mentioned in
a previous video that I like to see different colours on buildings, and there’s a variation in
the balconies towards the top, that’s interesting. It’s the work of 5Plus architects, based in
Manchester. They’ve done projects all over the UK, both new buildings and retrofits,
including Manchester’s Corn Exchange. And right next door, a new building is
going up. It’s Obsidian, a name which among other things refers to a type of
volcanic glass as well as igneous rock. It offers, according to the publicity,
cutting-edge living. Work started in April 2024 and it offers a 250-unit mix of studio,
one, two and three-bedroomed apartments. It looks quite distinctive with
its darker colour palette and south-facing stepped balconies, with
great views over the central area. It’s interesting that the current
announcements regarding development projects, that they’re located along the ‘peripheral’ road, you might say, or actually the inner ring
road, which goes around the central area, which spans both Manchester and Salford. We’re
on the west side of the Irwell here, in Salford. And I think what we’re going to do is
go around the ring road and head up in the direction of Great Ancoats Street
via another very interesting project. I’m here near UCEN Manchester, just next to the
AO Arena and this is Waterhouse Gardens and it topped out this week, I think
it’s that high bit there… We can see the brickwork being applied and as someone in the comments
told me, this is real brick. It’s one of the biggest residential projects I’ve seen around Manchester with towers
of different shapes and heights. Cycling on Dutton Street, along the
northern perimeter of the project, we can see the distinctive use of arched
features at street level. It’s brick, brick, brick, continuing the architectural
heritage of this area and the wider city. Again we see shiny green tiles within the
brickwork and patterned screens that remind me of the Middle East, like the tower of a certain
nearby residence, still in its original use. Waterhouse Gardens is a major project, built on a sloping former industrial
site. There will be flights of steps and pedestrian avenues within the public realm.
I’m looking forward to walking through it. I’m here on the corner of Oldham Street and Great
Ancoats Street. It’s very quiet, actually. Anyway, I’ve found a very interesting aerial photograph
taken from just up there. Let’s have a look at it. This aerial photo was taken in 1927. Oldham Road
is in the top left, Oldham Street at the bottom and Great Ancoats Street in the middle.
And look at that building in the middle. So that’s what stood on the site of the former
Daily Express building. It looks quite impressive, I’ve never seen it before and that smaller
gabled building next to it. The steel frame on the right is the Hudson building under
construction. There wasn’t much traffic then! And there’s the Daily Express Building shortly
after completion in 1939, just as a slight… disturbance was about to start, which would
devastate parts of Manchester two years later. This building inspired the young Sir Norman
Foster, who grew up in this house on Crescent Road, Levensulme. He was 90 years old on the 1st
of June 2025, so Happy Birthday Sir Norman Foster! A little further down Great Ancoats Street, a
photo from 1960. These two buildings survived until quite recently. The one on the right was
home to the upholstery supplies business Selhide, but it had to be demolished around 2014 as it was
deemed unsafe. I can find no information on the gabled building in the middle, which I remember
from a few years ago, or the garage next to it. All three were replaced by a
PRS project designed by Tim Groom Architects. That’s Private Rented Sector. Looking more closely at ORTO, the garage
and car spares store, I love that Ford Consul Mark II with its sun shade, it looks
new. I have no recollection of this garage, though in later years, I think a car
hire company was based here. We once hired a car and drove to France in
it. Great photo by Harry Milligan. I found one more photo labelled as Great
Ancoats Street, but I can’t identify the location. The year is 1900. Can anyone help. I
took this reference shot for comparison. I’m not sure why there’s an arrow, maybe pointing
125 years into an unimaginable future. The prestige development Number
One Port Street is well advanced, more brick here, but not on the tower. Well I’m further down Great Ancoats Street now, next to the Retail Park and just behind me
is Number One Port Street and the tower, the cladding, is nearly complete,
just one more section to add. On the retail park site, that’s
the former Ancoats Retail Park, shopping district, trading estate,
there has been a development: a new, taller fence and further down, that’s
the Stockton’s site, we’ll look at that in a moment and across here is another new
building and construction has already started. That’s going to be a 20-storey Hilton
Motto hotel, designed by… SimpsonHaugh. That’s Ancoats Retail Park in 1990, and as it
looks at the moment, and the new civil service digital campus is going to look something
like this. Work will be commencing soon. And let’s cycle down to the Stockton’s Furniture
Store site, which like those buildings we saw before, will soon be a memory. The store will
relocate to an out-of-town facility. And what’s going to happen to those businesses on the
corner. Will that building also disappear? And there it is, a visualisation of the
tower that’s set to appear on the furniture store site. £241m, a 50-storey tower and
another at 26 storeys, 758 apartments, with lots of commercial space and public realm The tower looks like something out
of a science fiction film to me. Architects… SimpsonHaugh, design
led by Re-form Landscape Architecture. So take a good look at what’s there
today. It won’t be around for much longer. And just across the street,
this area will become a new park. So that’s it, Great Ancoats Street, from
cradle of the Industrial Revolution to increasingly high-rise futuristic. It’s
taken a few years, but it’s happening now. Well that’s all for this update and I’m going
to head back out now to home base, on the train, so hit subscribe, vielen Dank fürs Zuschauen
und Auf Wiedersehen in Salford und Manchester.
25 Comments
I'm looking to keep a little more up to date with media announcements and I've adopted a slightly different style to before, just an experiment. Many thanks in advance for your comments!
The building with thew gable end on Great Ancoats Street was an electrical sub-station, first built to power the trams running in the area.
Cheetham Hill Road is a tip. There are some decent buildings, particularly the old railway station and the Synagogue but they are few and far between. It needs a complete rethink.
Great video thanks. Do you know if the Stockton ones have been given council approval?
hello Aiden, do you have any information on the site where the Vision Building was going to be built, whitworth street west
An excellent episode, thanks Aidan, covering a lot of ground. As you say, it's great to see variety in new buildings' design, and some of those start to indicate a bit less of a monotheistic approach to Manchester's future. With the Stocktons site, even SH are breaking away from their template: never thought I'd hear myself say that!
great work and thanks for doing these videos. I work in the Salford area but I think what will stop the progress is the lack of transport to the area, Salford central is such a poor station, not connected to Piccadilly and also it's so difficult to walk to this area from City centre areas. You either go Bridge Street, or the back of the old Granada or through Spinningfields (metal bridge out for over a year) or Blackfriars. Most are just real hard 20 min grafts to walk down with narrow pavements, multiple crossings, lots of buses, trucks, taxis. And not enough foot traffic at night so potentially dangerous.
britain is a joke
For a short while i worked in an upholstery warehouse on Dutton Street, never in my wildest dreams could i have imagined what it would look like Sixty years later.
Hate this age of glass slop, no character
Since you show it, I can recommend the Black Friar pub. Great service. Good food. Nice atmosphere.
I'll have to take more pictures around New Islington and Great Ancoats if it's going to be changing so dramatically in the near future. Thankfully, it's just minutes from my office.
3:46 “It’s brick, brick, brick…” Nah, it’s ugly, ugly, ugly and dehumanising, dehumanising, dehumanising…..
Hidious towers. Great looking pub.
5:20 you wouldn’t think that building was built in the 30’s
8:08 This could be a contender for my favourite high rise in Manchester
Wasn't there a sign on that "gabled building" on Gt Ancoats St saying that it was a fire station? Look at the tall doors – too big for pedestrians. I may be wrong there…
Nice work, Aiden,
Town now starting to stretch into Salford.
2:02 the grey mirrors the sky, not sure that's good
Thanks for the video. Good to see that pub thriving but otherwise the place's emerging character is creepy AF. Ikea tower blocks punctuating remorseless tatty road networks full of johnny cabs driven by robotic Noel Gallaghers telling their passengers not to look back in anger.
Where are the big nutrient tanks that the tower blocks' residents are to be grown in?
Manchester is becoming such an ugly city, pity really as it was once full of fantastic architecture.
All these buildings and 1000s upon 1000s of new city tenants. Do they add extra schools spaces, dentists, doctors, hospitals? If they do you never hear about it. You can't keep adding people and not adding capacity to services and infrastructure. The city centre around Piccadilly looks like a dustbin!
Hi Aidan what is your opinion on the recent scandal of Reneker and being given grants without them being reviewed I had a feeling this was happening. And the fact they are being accused of lying about affordable housing. They make me sick. Ruined our skyline with their ugly identical towers I hope to god the Green doesn’t get green lit.
That new brick building is the way modern buildings in UK should be built.