Criticism of my views on Piccadilly Gardens and the redevelopment of Manchester

[Phil Blinkhorn]

On a point of fact, there never was a vista of the old Grand Hotel across Piccadilly Gardens. The Grand Hotel was on Aytoun St and is behind and totally hidden by the Portland Hotel and Nos 7 and 9 Portland St when viewed from the gardens.

The Portland was originally built in 1858 as a warehouse, to a design of Edward Walters, for E & J Jackson. The facade is grade 2 listed. The whole block was designed by Walters, who also designed the Free Tade Hall. No 7 was built for Kershaw, Leese and Sidebottom in 1852 and No 9 was built in 1851/2 for Brown and Sons. They are also grade 2 listed.

Hickson, Lloyd and King eventually took over the bulk of the properties as their textile and general goods warehouse. By the late 1960s they had gone and a company called Benleys operated for a few years from Nos 7 and 9 after which the buildings became vacant.

By the mid 1970s the Portland had taken over Nos 3 and 5 and GMC and GMPTE were using 7-9.

[Henry Mantell]

I was quite underwhelmed by the concrete wall this week, my first encounter with the monstrosity as I haven't been in the "gardens" since late 70's.
I missed my chance to ride the wheel but gather that a two third version of London Eye will find a home in Manchester next year. I have experienced the Eye and feel Manchester deserves an experience like it.
I have mixed feelings about Manchester compared to my memories of the 1960's and 1970's. The least favourite part is Piccadilly!
PS the view from the Hilton Tower upper floors at night is magical

[jonko]

Well, ok I may have got the name of the hotel wrong, but you know the building I mean. If you stand in the (gardens!) and look right there is a office block with cafes on the ground floor made from horrible cheap looking materials - the building behind it is a classic looking building (maybe it's the Portland but I will check in the morning when I go past it). the view of thie building and the piccadilly approach is now obscured by the new build.

[aidanorourke]

Again I have to agree with Jonko's robust but in places almost poetic description of the original gardens.

I don't think I'm the only one who misses the Manchester that was and is being swept away in the mad rush of development we are seeing at the moment.

And I don't think I'm the only one who thinks that the controlling Labour group on Manchester City Council are getting more and more out of touch with the people they are supposed to represent.

[aidanorourke]

A letter from David Appleton of Bolton-based landscape architects, The Landscape Group, has added further to the many voices of criticism of Manchester City Council's post 2000 Piccadilly Gardens. He says the new gardens were 'destined to failure from the start'. the letter appeared in the MEN Postbag Page on 10 March. He was responding to Ed Bennis who said in Postbag 2 days earlier that the gardens were 'muddy awful'. Rob Taylor says the gardens should be dug up and restored 'to their former glory'.

I've been campaigning against Manchester City Council's actions since September 1999, when I published an open letter to Manchester City Council on my site Eyewitness in Manchester, part of Manchester Online.

Eyewitness in Manchester: Piccadilly Proposals: Letter to Manchester City Council

I am now considering what action to take. Any suggestions?

[Ashtonian]

Here's a good example for students of architecture to take note.
I remember my visit to Manchester in the summer of 2004.
The Gardens were interesting and full of people.
The problem with the area is in fact those dozens upon dozens of little black poles holding up the electric wires for the light rail trams that travel up and down there. I actually felt those poles to be a nuisance! I'm older, remember the trolley buses, their power lines were higher and the poles larger and further apart. Of course, it might me just me.

In Ashton, we have a saying, "It's all right" and is expressed in a sort of lack of emotion, semi if no interest. It's like your mum asks if "chippy allright for your tea?" You say "it's all right" .

That's the feeling the gardens give me. There's nothing horrific about them, they're not a disaster, they're just, well, not anything really!
Nothing to really photograph, though I did stitch a panorama together and have it somewhere and might dig it up and post it on my Manchester page at
Ashtonian's Photo Galleries at pbase.com. I always prefer the alleys and back streets of Manchester.

What puzzles me however is why they kept those anachronistic statues.
They, so don't belong there!

[aidanorourke]

As was pointed out by the distinguished architectural historian John Archer, who recently celebrated his 80th birthday, the statues formed an ensemble along what used to be the esplanade in front of the Infirmary, demolished 1908. This esplanade survived mostly unchanged until 2000, when Manchester City Council went and dug up 200 years of Manchester history.

A fundamental error of the landscaping around the statues is the way they have laid the edge of the grass to run continuously with the edge of the base of the statue.

This to me is completely wrong, and seems to run counter to classical rules of geometry. The base of the statue when viewed from above is all about squares within squares. The base should have a square paved area around it, forming an outer border, it not be marooned on three sides in a 'sea' of grass, with the fourth side tacked onto the paved area.

This is only one of many the hopeless flaws of this failed scheme, which pays no respect to the historic environment and least of all to the statues.

I wonder if, from a feng shui point of view, the new gardens are channelling negative energy and bad karma. Not that I know much about that sort of thing or believe in it particularly, but as we all know, bad buildings and misconceived urban developments can have all kinds of unexpected negative effects on cities and the people who live in them. Manchester has suffered terribly through countless bad planning decisions through the post war years, and the problem continues today unabated.

There is only one solution to Manchester City Council's post-2000 Piccadilly Gardens, they should be removed, and the office building at the end should be demolished, just like the Crescents, Fort Ardwick, the Salford University Tower and other failed structures that should never have been built.

[Ashtonian]

Well well well well well
what do we have here?

The real PG's I expect, being fixed again. Latest pics hot off the press!

Flickr: Photos from perplexed

I was looking for a the giant pebble picture and came across this great site

I particularly like the comment "perplexed" says when you mouseover the box to the right in the gardens picture. Now that's humour.