About

If you have only now come to this website—welcome. ’A Day Out in Manchester’ is a guide to Manchester, the city in the North of England.

Until the Industrial Revolution arrived, Manchester was a small inland port. Then grew. Many other cities, like Chicago in America, have their roots in industrial revolution, but Manchester has claims to be the first in modern history, is perhaps the origin of modern technology, and was the powerhouse of an empire. Like other industrial cities, Manchester fell. And like Detroit in America (which in 2013 filed for bankruptcy), Manchester’s fall was one of, if not the most, spectacular of all.

Currently, Manchester has somewhat recovered. It has been left with unusual features. Initially, Manchester itself was not important, it was the clearing house and port for satellite towns. These towns remain, and mean Manchester, unlike most other cities, is not heavily centralised. They also make Manchester, depending how measured, the second or third largest city in England.

Because this is where it started, Manchester’s history (Romans aside) is the story of the modern age. Labour disputes, civil unrest, and the thoughts, theory and writing they generated, started here. And Manchester, for about a century, spewed a stream of discovery, invention and, against all odds, art. So the city is not uniform, or of one era, it is layer on layer of caotic growth. Despite living here, the author of this site can still be surprised by what remains, who is connected and what has happened here.

‘A Day Out in Manchester’ is coded and assembled by a non‐professional who can’t get a job. This is a website he and others wished we had years ago. Many, many people have (sometimes unknowingly) contributed. You can read some of the story here.

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