Friday 26 June 2015

Manchester (Part 5: Lots more clocks)

Back now to the city centre for the final part of this rather disjointed look at Manchester's clocks. this is a quick canter through a whole range of locations across the city.

We start with the Crown Court in Minshull Street (there is probably some poor joke in there about getting there in the nick of time, but we won't stoop that low in the comedy stakes - that would just be too trying. And there is no truth (the whole truth and nothing but the truth) in the rumour that it is about to be closed and turned into a hotel - a Jury's Inn).





Next up, the RSA building on New York Street. In many ways a rather absurd clock, being so far up in the air and without many of the usual visual aims to make the time clear.





We of course have to pay a visit to the Town Hall, the triangular masterpiece of Alfred Waterhouse completed in 1877.


The clock tower, looming over the main entrance, is 87 metres tall.




Hancocks, a jewellers on King Street, has this simple but elegant clock.




Debenhams, in Market Street, is a somewhat larger shop, which dates from 1932.




 
This next building is the cathedral.
 






Ah fatso's - feeding the people on Piccadilly. Perhaps the minute hand has got so fat it has fallen off.



Although all is well on the other face.



On now to the St James's Building of 1913 in Oxford Road.


If I had been more organised this would have featured in the same posting as the Palace Hotel, as there it is lurking in the background.




This next clock is a small off-the-shelf model displayed outside a café on Station Approach.


Altogether larger is the 12 foot diameter Potts clock of 1880 to be found on what I will call the G-Mex building, although it now seems to be called the rather boring City Central.


Whatever it is now called, it was once the Central railway station, opened in 1880 and closed in 1967, before eventually being converted into an exhibition space.




I love this next building on Quay Street for the sheer boldness yet simplicity of its clock.





And finally, a cheeky look into the Midland Hotel. The image of the clock is somewhat blurry as it is taken from the other side of the road looking into the foyer. So more of a private clock than a public one, but included because it can be seen from the highway.




 

 



Wednesday 24 June 2015

Manchester (Part 4 : Reddish)

Reddish - bit of an odd name. But I love the wit of having a local open space named as Reddish Green (its on the map, truthfully). Oh, and looking at the map also shows that we are in the borough of Stockport rather than Manchester, but Manchester Part 4 this posting shall remain.

My trip to Reddish was on the quest of a local clock tower, but my view out of the bus window was filled with this huge building.


This is Houldsworth Mill (also known as Reddish Mill), completed in 1865 and covering 260,000 square metres (although of course when it was built metres didn't exist in these parts).



The mill was financed by Sir William Henry Houldsworth (1834 - 1917) to produce cotton (which you might of guessed a Manchester / Stockport mill would have done).  When cotton production ceased in the 1950s, the building became a warehouse for a mail order company. A more recent conversion has created a mixture of apartments, shops and start up units.







And so on to the quested clock. Which of course is a memorial to Sir William Henry Houldsworth, unveiled on 11 September 1920.







The monument was designed and built by Messrs J and H Patterson of Manchester, and is made of sandstone with pink granite pillars (pink being of course rather reddish).