Underground Manchester.

[Les Leggett]

I've only just joined this forum so I can update you all with some of my knowledge.
1. During the 19th century there were river boat tours on the Irwell. The bricked up windows that can be seen were the rooms that were used to board the boats. The entrance was from street level just above and in front of the cathedral. There was also an entrance in the middle of the road in front of the cathedral to an underground gents toilets, that was there until about the 1960's before being closed off.
2. There is also an underground gents toilet right in the centre of the junction of Corporation Street / Miller Street junction. That was also closed off during the 60's. I've heard from various sources that these toilets and others around the city were the entrances to other tunnels.
3. There are ancient stories that I heard during my childhood days in Cheetham Hill that there was an underground passage from the old Smedley Old Hall into the centre of Manchester. I have never seen or heard any proof of this.
4. The underground Market, Market Street. I visited this many times. I believe that only the public entrances were blocked off and that the inner parts were utilised into the new developments.
5. Beneath Piccadilly Gardens is a nuclear shelter with passages running off in all directions. They carry communications cables to various parts of Manchester. There are various entrances around the city to these tunnels, one is off Dickinson Street, off St Peter's Square.
6. Tib Street was once the course of the River Tib. The road was built over the river and although the river has long since dried up the bed has been preserved beneath the road.
7. Hanging Dithch was also the course of a brook called Hanging Ditch that flowed into the River Irwell. To the right of the Cathedral are the remains that can clearly be seen of the old bridge that was built over the ditch. It has long since been incorporated into the building on the site.
8. The Salford Junction Canal flowed from the Rochdale Canal at Gr Bridgewater Street, under Central Station (GMEX), under Deansgate, under Granada Studios and connected with the River Irwell. The only part of this in tact is beneath Granada Studios towards Deansgate. There is an entrance to it at Granada and occasionally they use it for filming.
And finally (for now)
9. There is a tunnel under Deansgate that runs from Kendals to the building on the opposite side of the road. Both buildings were once owned by Kendals (House of Frazer) and the tunnel linked the two up.

[Phil Blinkhorn]

From memory, the toilets at the Corporation St, Miller St junction were closed when they started construction work for the CIS and New Century Hall.

I think I've mentioned before that the building on Tib St behind what is now Debenhams was an annexe warehouse for Rylands and the basement used to be (in the mid 1960s when I worked for Rylands) very damp, especially after heavy rain which begs the question just how dried up was (is) the Tib.

The Kendal Milne tunnel was in regular use well into the 1970s - perhaps even into the 1980s.

[aidanorourke]

I seem to remember going through that tunnel on a visit to Manchester from the Gulf in 1994. Would that be too late? It's amazing how memory plays tricks.

Thanks very much to Les Leggett for that info!

[Phil Blinkhorn]

You are probably right Aidan. I would imagine it was used by KM staff as long as they had the two buildings and probably by shoppers as well. The building on the opposite side from the main building used to be the furniture and carpet departments.

[Henry Mantell]

I remember using that in the mid seventies to look at carpets!
I'm afraid I don't remember later than 1980!

[Damon]

My friends and I have been looking into some of the underground structures beneath the streets of Manchester.

The underground telephone exchange and network was named Guardian. Similar installations exist in Birmingham (Anchor) and London (Kingsway). There were rumours of another in Glasgow, but no evidence to substantiate this has come to light.

Amec have been working on the site of the main surface building at 55 George Street for a couple of years now. As I understand it, the main tunnel network is still used for cable runs and comms equipment, but the main central facility which would have kept communications up in the event of war is long outdated and I believe is being stripped and renovated for use as secure storage or possibly server rooms for internet security companies (as has happened in former nuclear bunkers).

I believe there was an indoor entrance to the exchange in Rutherford House, and there are (were) definately two ventilation and access blocks in Ardwick (Lockton Close) and Salford (Islington Street). Both have now been demolished and the shafts vented and capped.

The air raid shelters in Stockport are extensive, and very easy to get lost in (I'm talking the full network, not the tour section). I have entered the Dodge Hill Shelter, and a few friends have been into the Brinksway Shelter. There's not a lot to see in there except silt and the occasional rotted remains of a bunk frame.

The shelters underneath Gmex and Great Northern have us intrigued. We have information as to a number of possible entrances to them, and hopefully these seeds will bear fruit.

All this talk of actual underground streets has me practically chomping at the bit, however most major cities have similar word of mouth tales. Still, who's to say we won't find something.

[anthony99]

it would be great if we could get hold of a lot of pictures of these sites!

if only

[anthony99]

just found some pictures of the manchester and salford junction canal that runs under granada studio's

Subterranea Britannica: Sites:


id just thought i would share it!

[Phil Blinkhorn]

Interesting photos. The brickwork arching mirrors the undercrofting to GMEX and, when GMC took over the old Central Station site, this caused a great deal of headscratching as to the best way to deal with it, given the almost nightmare proportions of the preservation/restoration/pointing work.

In the end the whole undercrofting was restored and re-pointed - over 20 years ago now - but many of us were left wondering just how many labourers were used when the original building was in construction and just how well they were managed, given the intracacy of the construction.

[droylsden_kid]

Originally Posted by Les Leggett

6. Tib Street was once the course of the River Tib. The road was built over the river and although the river has long since dried up the bed has been preserved beneath the road.

When we were digging out the Rochdale Canal, behind near where The Rain Bar now is, just below the 4th Lock up from Castlefield Jcn, there is a Bench Mark symbol carved on the towing path coping stone. In the canal bed at this point is a chain connected to a wooden trap-door. When the canal is drained, this trap-door can be lifted to let any further water out of the canal pound between the 3rd & 4th locks. This I believe is let away through the course of the River Tib.
This we were told by the then remaining Lock Keeper Tommy Stansfield who lived in the canal House at Chorlton Street bridge, then I think in his 80's, who also recalled that the last time it had been lifted was about 90 years before when his father had been Lock Keeper and a boat loaded with bitumen had sunk in that pound.

John