ITINERARY No.15 Northern Quarter Start your Literature Festival experience as you mean to go on soaking up the city atmosphere in the MANCHESTER Northern Quarter, where Manchester creatives have made their spiritual . Here among the design agencies, LITERATURE boutiques and vintage shops are craft beer houses and independent coffee shops galore, perfect for some light FESTIVAL pre-festival browsing and grazing. If its brunch-time, 12—25 October 2015 it’s got to be Common or Koffee Pot.

There’s shiny vinyl to be had in Piccadilly Records or try We like words in Manchester. the neighbourhood’s penchant for tea and cake with sticky This city has inspired novels, poems, delights at Fig + Sparrow. The new independent coffee-shop- political speeches and song lyrics, many cum-bookstore, Chapter 1 Books, is perfect for kicking off still tucked away in the venues where the your shoes and curling up with a good read. Manchester Literature Festival sprawls. That’s right, the joy of MLF is that it takes Art is everywhere, embedded in the pavements, on the old public toilets in Stevenson Square, on street corners the whole city as its site, and, companion or more conventionally in excellent galleries like the Centre piece to your well-thumbed brochure with for Chinese Contemporary Art and Manchester Craft & its staggering 80+ events in 14 days, here’s a Design Centre where you can buy handmade crafts and handy-guide to help you get around. jewellery direct from the maker. Art even marks the Quarter boundaries with the blue and white tiled street-signs made creativetourist.com by the local Majolica Works.

At night, take in a live performance with gigs at the Band on the Wall or Night & Day; try some jazz with your pizza Northern Quarter at Matt & Phreds; or head to the diminutive pub The Castle 1 Common aplacecalledcommon.co.uk for live music and some of the city’s best live literature nights 2 Koffee Pot thekoffeepot.co.uk 3 Picadilly Records piccadillyrecords.com tucked away in the snug. 4 Fig + Sparrow figandsparrow.co.uk 5 Chapter 1 Books twitter.com/chapter1uk 6 Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art cfcca.org.uk 7 Manchester Craft and Design Centre craftanddesign.com 8 Band on the Wall bandonthewall.org 9 Night and Day nightnday.org 10 Matt & Phreds mattandphreds.com 11 The Castle thecastlehotel.info Top: Picadilly Records Check venue websites for opening times. Bottom: Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art Cathedral Quarter Quietly becoming one of the nicest spots in the city centre, the Cathedral Quarter oozes with medieval charm. is where you will be heading for this year’s Gaeia Manchester Sermon where Elif Shafak takes to the pulpit. Its higgledy exterior (thanks to extensions and bombs) belies a building that is 600 years old, recently restored again to better set off its stained glass, much of it gloriously modern.

The path behind takes you to a patch of grass connecting the entrances of the (a must-see for football fans of all denominations) and Chetham’s Library, the world’s oldest public library where the books, then more valuable than the building itself, were once chained to the shelves. Here amongst 100s of treasures is the first printed edition of John Donne’s poems and perhaps most famously, the desk where Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels penned The Condition of the Working Class in England. For MLF, Eleanor Marx (yes, daughter) is the subject of a conversation between her biographer Rachel Holmes, and journalist Anita Sethi. (15 October, 8pm, Portico Library). Top: Manchester Cathedral Bottom: The Royal Exchange Food? Well, for stellar afternoon teas it’s got to be Proper Tea; with wines and nibbles at Hanging Ditch Wine Merchants; or enjoy the glamour in San Carlo Bottega on the second- floor of Selfridges. With all the digging going on for the Metrolink tram expansion, the view outside is admittedly looking a little grim, blurred a little by the ten slowly-turning

Cathedral Quarter Tilted Windmills by Manchester-based “punk professor”, 1 Manchester Cathedral manchestercathedral.org John Hyatt. 2 National Football Museum nationalfootballmuseum.com 3 Chetham’s Library chethams.org.uk 4 Proper Tea properteadeveloper.com For now, let the the road-works be your guide, and follow 5 Hanging Ditch Wine Merchants hangingditch.com them down to the Royal Exchange where a theatre is 6 San Carlo Bottega sancarlobottega.co.uk poised for take-off inside a Victorian Great Hall. 7 The Royal Exchange royalexchange.co.uk 8 Mr Thomas’s Chophouse tomschophouse.com Productions here enjoy a critical reputation that echoes Check venue websites for opening times. its past commercial success - once 80% of the world’s cotton was sold here - and many of the festival’s headline events will squat inside the set of a powerful revival of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible (until 24 Oct, times vary). For food and drink, nearby Mr Thomas’s Chophouse is a Manchester institution with its narrow bar, tiled walls and steaming suet puddings. Salford & Spinningfields Beyond the Cathedral, the River Irwell marks the divide between Manchester and Salford, where herons and cormorants fish from the banks. A detour to the very far reaches of The Crescent delivers up the lifetime work of labour historians Ruth and Edmund Frow at The Working Class Movement Library, a unique archive of material dating back to the 1760s. It’s a bit of a walk (or bus ride) but a stop by The New Oxford pub on Bexley Square to sample one of their 100+ beers will put you right, or call in at Lupo Caffè Italiano on Chapel Street for truly the best coffee and Sicilian home cooking, outside of, well, Sicily.

Back over the river is the People’s History Museum

Salford & Spinningfields where Paul Mason and Robert Harris fans should make 1 The Working Class Movement Library wcml.org.uk political pilgrimage. Alongside the exhibits and political 2 The New Oxford thenewoxford.com archives is Show Me the Money, a compelling exhibition 3 Lupo Caffè Italiano lupocaffe.co.uk 4 People’s History Museum phm.org.uk charting boom and bust. On one wall is an unassuming cash point. There’s no slot to insert your card – instead, it puts out a £5 note at a random point throughout the day. Now there’s an incentive.

Top: Show Me the Money at People’s History Museum Untitled 2 from Real Fight Club © Immo Klink Bottom: The Working Class Movement Library City Centre For book-lovers the city centre offers up a stack of libraries and archives. First amongst equals, architecturally at least, is Basil Champneys’ stunning confection, John Ryland’s Library, whose atmospheric neo-Gothic columns protect the world’s oldest remaining fragment of New Testament text.

Not to be beaten, the Central Library’s iconic rotunda is inspired by Rome’s Pantheon and in the hushed surrounds of the domed reading room it’s mischievous fun to test the echo. A recent transformation has stripped the building back to reveal elegant 1930s beauty and downstairs its quite possible lose a happy afternoon immersed in films from the BFI or North West Film Archive.

Tucked up a flight of stairs off Mosley Street is The Portico, the city’s oldest subscription library. Its member list reads like a literary who’s who: Charles Dickens, Charlotte Bronte, Peter ‘thesaurus’ Roget. Eric Cantona, the poet-footballer, loved this bolt-hole, its domed ceiling and hogwarts-like reading rooms, a worthy setting for many of the festival’s most intimate events.

Food in these parts abound. Simon Rogan’s acclaimed cuisine in the Midland Hotel sets the bar at one end of the Top: The French at the Midland Hotel Bottom: Matthew Darbyshire’s An Exhibition for Modern Living dining spectrum, with Chinatown delivering authentic at Asian punches at the other. Try Siam Smiles for Thai food worth travelling for or cut straight to the fine wines of Cooper Street’s Salut nearby.

City Centre Manchester Art Gallery holds pride of cultural place 1 John Rylands Library library.manchester.ac.uk/rylands around here, with Matthew Darbyshire’s An Exhibition for 2 Central Library librarylive.co.uk 3 The Portico theportico.org.uk Modern Living supplying the inspiration for author Ned 4 The Midland Hotel the-french.co.uk Beauman’s MLF commission. 5 Siam Smiles facebook.com/siamsmilescafe 6 Salut salut.co.uk 7 Manchester Art Gallery manchesterartgallery.org Check venue websites for opening times. Oxford Road and environs Let’s start a bus ride away at the Whitworth. Newly reopened and festooned with awards, its beautiful gallery spaces house a mix of historical displays and contemporary commissions. Heading the billings this month are Bedwry Williams, Cornelia Parker and Richard Forster. The Whitworth’s busy café floats in the trees overlooking an art garden and the park.

Whilst easy to spend a day here, turn right for a trio of historic buildings that speak volumes about Manchester’s past: Elizabeth Gaskell’s House, the Pankhurst Centre Middle: Nyaba Ouedraogo: The Phantoms of Congo River and , once described as Manchester’s at “water palace”. Or head back left, through the 70,000 students, two universities, theatres, a conservatoire, a concert hall, an art-school, five hospitals and a workforce Oxford Road and environs of 60,000 that make up this part of town. 1 The Whitworth whitworth.manchester.ac.uk 2 Elizabeth Gaskell’s House elizabethgaskellhouse.co.uk En-route is Manchester Museum home to some six million 3 The Pankhurst Centre thepankhurstcentre.org.uk 4 Victoria Baths victoriabaths.org.uk objects, as well as surprising contemporary exhibitions such 5 Manchester Museum museum.manchester.ac.uk as The Phantoms of Congo River. Photographs by Nyaba 6 Deaf Institute thedeafinstitute.co.uk 7 Goodstock vinspired.com/goodstock Ouedraogo take Joseph Conrad’s 1899 novel Heart of 8 Kukoos kukoos.co.uk Darkness as a starting point. 9 Bakchich bakchich.co.uk 10 International Anthony Burgess Foundation anthonyburgess.org 11 HOME homemcr.org Ignoring the temptations of the Grade I-listed former Check venue websites for opening times. Deaf Institute and second-hand shop Goodstock, there are great places around here to refuel such as street food specialists Kukoos. A new Lebanese restaurant Bakchich is right around the corner from the International Anthony Burgess Foundation, where Kuwaiti writer Mai Al-Nakib is reading as part of the festival and there’s no better way to browse Burgess’ numerous publications in the bookshop than with a glass of the Foundation’s house beer in hand.

Finally, to HOME, this new kid on the block only opened in May 2015. The stripped back industrial chic décor, cosy sofas and delicious pizzas are a comforting nod back to its old roots, but the new galleries, theatres and cinemas screens are in a different league. Throughout the festival you can catch 1927’s Golem, described as a giant, graphic novel brought to life (until 17 Oct, times vary). …

And if all that has whetted your appetite for more then how about downloading the new Manchester Cultural Walking Tour, narrated by DJ Mary Anne Hobbs, and get exploring. Available free on iTunes.

creativetourist.com

With thanks to all the partners who make Manchester such an exciting place to live, study, and visit.