Manchester Urban Institute Edited By

Manchester Urban Institute Edited by Sarah Butler, Andrew Karvonen, Laura Partridge and Kevin Ward STORIES / Page 1 Pete Abel 22 CONTENTS Page 2 Grace Barry 26 3 Vicky Bridge 31 Figures 06 4 Ian Carrington 34 Preface 07 5 Sharon Doyle 38 Acknowledgements 08 6 Ali Hanbury 43 7 Michael Hebbert 47 Oxford Road and 8 Naomi Kashiwagi 52 The University of Manchester 09 Professor James Thompson 9 Naomi Kashiwagi 56 Associate Vice President - Social Responsibility, 10 Cath Keane 61 University of Manchester 11 Henry McGhie 65 12 Aamar Mahmood 70 Oxford Road Corridor - Where pioneering ideas are brought to life 11 13 Cheryl Martin 73 Claire Lowe 14 Steve Millington 78 Partnership Manager, Oxford Road Corridor 15 Rosie Nyabadza 82 16 Rosie Nyabadza 86 Introduction 12 Sarah Butler, Andrew Karvonen, 17 Jackie O’Callaghan 88 Laura Partridge and Kevin Ward 18 Laura Partridge 93 19 Rosie Stuart 97 Manchester’s Oxford Road 18 20 Ken Thompson 102 Sarah Butler Author 21 Anne Tucker 105 22 Alison Walker-Twiste 109 The stories 21 23 Vincent Walsh 113 Editors 117 Manchester Urban Institute 118 STORIES FROM THE ROAD FROM STORIES Stories from the Road Stories from the Road / Page Figure 1: Oxford Road area in the early 1850s Preface as captured on the Ordnance Survey 5 foot plan 30 During 2015, Manchester writer, Sarah Butler, mapped Manchester’s ‘Corridor’ using the stories Figure 2: Oxford Road in the Edwardian era of people who have lived, worked and travelled along according to Ordnance Survey 25 inch mapping 42 Oxford Road. Funded through a Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF), awarded through The University of Manchester, these stories generate Figure 3: The tram and bus routes along Oxford Road and surrounding main roads shown on this 1930s era a layered picture of this rapidly changing part of the public transport map 51 city and what it means to the people who experience it. Stories from the Road offers an alternative map of The Corridor. It celebrates the individual stories Figure 4: Extract from Bartholomew’s Town Plan which inform, create and question our cities and their of Manchester from the late 1930s. 60 production and reproduction day in and day out. Figure 5: The bold vision for a new cultural and education Website: www.mui.manchester.ac.uk zoning set out in the 1945 City of Manchester Plan 69 Email: [email protected] 7ZLWWHUb#8R08UEDQ Figure 6: Extract from Geographia Plan of Manchester and Salford from the early 1950s 77 Website: www.urbanwords.org.uk Figure 7: The Manchester Education Precinct Plan, 1965 85 Website: www.sarahbutler.org.uk Twitter: @SarahButler100 Figure 8: Selnec bus route map, mid-1970s 92 Figure 9: Extract from City of Manchester Inner Area Land Use Map, 1985 101 Figure 10: Aerial photograph of the Oxford Road area, 1995 108 Figure 11: Oxford Road Corridor, 2017 116 FIGURES PREFACE www.mui.manchester.ac.uk www.mui.manchester.ac.uk 06 07 Stories from the Road OXFORD ROAD AND THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER Acknowledgements Oxford Road and The University of Manchester This work was funded by a four year award (2011-2015) to cities@manchester from The University of Manchester’s James Thompson Higher Education Innovation Funding (HEIF). This award Associate Vice President - supported a range of initiatives that explored the place Social Responsibility, University of Manchester of academics and the campus in the wider Greater b Manchester city region. We acknowledge the financial I’m delighted to introduce Stories from the Road from support of this fund. the perspective of The University of Manchester and hope it provides a valuable insight into the importance A number of others have supported this work: Caitriona of the Oxford Road to the life of the University, this Devery, the former cities@manchester administrator, area of the city, and to the region more broadly. Claire Lowe, the Partnership Manager at Oxford Road Corridor, Professor James Thompson and Dr Sally Sagar No one who has worked or studied at The University of at The University of Manchester, who awarded and oversaw Manchester can forget the influence of Oxford Road on the HEIF award that funded this project, and Martin Dodge his or her collective experience of the city. I personally in the Department of Geography, University of Manchester, studied at both The University of Manchester and who helped us with the maps. Manchester Metropolitan University in the late 1980s. The Oxford Road was the very real route between Finally, we thank all those who shared their stories with us! both institutions for me, and also a daily place of living, studying, eating, demonstrating - and, of course, partying. It is central to people’s memories of, and of course stories of, working, studying, and living in this great city. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS THOMPSON JAMES www.mui.manchester.ac.uk www.mui.manchester.ac.uk 08 09 Stories from the Road OXFORD ROAD AND OXFORD ROAD CORRIDOR - THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER WHERE PIONEERING IDEAS ARE BROUGHT TO LIFE Oxford Road Corridor - Where pioneering ideas are brought to life Claire Lowe Oxford Road dissects our campus – sometimes in a way that is assumed to be between the sciences on the east side Partnership Manager, Oxford Road Corridor and the humanities on the west, sometimes between old b buildings and new, but also between those bits of the campus Manchester has a history, present and a future as a that are in Moss Side and Hulme and those that are located revolutionary city. Now something new and radical is in the ward of Ardwick. It is as crucial a part of the identity happening in the city. Culture, science, health, education and of the University as it is part of the city – with the success commerce are coming together to create a magnetic new of one, bound up in the success of the other. But it has also home for today’s innovators on Oxford Road Corridor. provided a route map for the University – connecting the b student residencies in Fallowfield, to the campus, and then From a multicultural, dynamic and eclectic exchange of ideas, onto St Peter’s Square and the city to the north. Oxford Road we’re creating a sustainable community – rich with culture, quite simply is an artery for the University, feeding our built on solid foundations of training and education – and students and staff into the amazing city of Manchester. revealing the benefits of knowledge for all to enjoy – a place where pioneering ideas are brought to life. It reminds us that we can only exist in partnership with this city – as part of its lifeblood. We only thrive by being in :HšUHPDNLQJWKHXQVHHQVHHQbŞbVKDULQJDOOWKHKLGGHQJHQLXV a mutually enriching relationship with its businesses, other of Oxford Road Corridor, it’s the home for the creators, the higher education campuses, and with its cultural institutions. SLRQHHUVDQGWKHH[SHULPHQWDOb This explains why we are enthusiastic partners in the Oxford Road Corridor initiative that seeks to harness the collective 7KH2[IRUG5RDGb&RUULGRUPHDQVVRPXFKWRVRPDQ\ innovation, creative energy and educational power of this SHRSOHbŞbLWšVZKHUHDFDGHPLFVDQGFOLQLFLDQVUXEVKRXOGHUVZLWK district for the benefit of all who live and work here, and business, where communities are welcomed to interact with all more widely for the city and its region. The University of kinds of culture, where students find a vibrant place to study Manchester strives for outstanding work in our research and live. and teaching, but also has a priority of social responsibility. In many ways Oxford Road is a symbol of this – demonstrating We are happy to sponsor the publication of Stories from the that the University and the city are mutually reliant, Road, it’s full of fascinating tales, set in this truly remarkable both inspired by and responsible for the success of area that brings us inspiration as we work, study, live, play and each other.Ũ do business in the Oxford Road Corridor. 7KHVWRULHVVKRZZKDWKDVKDSSHQHGKHUHbOHWšVPDNH Stories from the Road spark a thousand conversations! Ũ CLAIRE LOWE www.mui.manchester.ac.uk 10 11 Stories from the Road INTRODUCTION Introduction Introducing Oxford Road Sarah Butler, Andrew Karvonen, Oxford Road and the surrounding area has been influenced Laura Partridge and Kevin Ward by a variety of planning movements over the last century as Manchester has sought to revive its decaying industrial fabric. Victorian Gothic architect Alfred Waterhouse was hugely Enter Manchester LQIOXHQWLDOLQWKHHDUO\WZHQWLHWKbFHQWXU\DQGRYHUWKHQH[W few decades the Garden Cities movement was also to have Manchester has been termed the ‘shock city’ of the industrial a bearing. The 1945 City of Manchester Plan was by far the revolution; the first major industrial city to emerge in most ambitious and influential vision for the Oxford Road. WKHPLGHLJKWHHQWKbFHQWXU\7KHFLW\HQMR\HGVLJQLILFDQW Some of the designs and principles first aired in this plan are economic success at the height of the industrial era. However still shaping the redevelopment of the area over seventy years this success came at a human cost. The city became as later, for example, with the removal of cars from sections of the known for those poor social conditions as for its factories and Oxford Road to form a Parisian-style boulevard of green space. PLOOVWKDWZHUHIDPRXVO\GRFXPHQWHGE\)ULHGULFK(QJHOVbLQ 1845. Environmentally, Manchester became known for its Post Second World War, the area on and around Oxford Road terrible environmental conditions, with chimneys, polluted- continued to undergo significant change. Several thousand millstreams and smoke-filled skies every bit as symbolic Victorian terraced houses in Ardwick, Hulme, Moss Side of the industrial age as the Spinning Jenny. and Rusholme were flattened over the course of the 1950s and 1960s. Communities were broken up and populations Over the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth distributed across Greater Manchester.

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