...Manchester

Ungood (outer)

Mostly, if a place can not meet the site criteria, it is not listed. However, there are a few sites that we can/will not ignore. Sometimes we add ‘warning’ and ‘avoid’ flags.

See also Ungood

Exhibits

Media City

  • Media City is a place of work and residence. In daytime it can be deserted. Thought you might see Gary Lineker under an umbrella? No chance

Visits

‘Near’ days out

  • for the tourist industry, ‘near’ means something class‐based and elitist. It means you have a car, petrol money, days off work with no obligation or dependency, and are prepared to travel anything up to 50 miles in both directions

  • if you think driving round Lancashire is like cruising an American interstate, wrong

  • remember, Manchester is very big. Jodrell Bank from Bolton is car‐only and a full day trip

  • according to the tourist industry, North Wales, Cumbria and West Yorkshire are all ‘near’ Greater Manchester. In print are several articles saying you can visit the Cumbrian Lake District based, it seems, solely on a day coach trip. We note that the capital of Denmark, Copenhagen, is a two hour flight from Manchester Airport. By the tourist industry criteria, Copenhagen is therefore ‘near’ Manchester, and so a ‘day out’

Salford City

  • Transport connections

  • Basic shopping centre

  • no visit or activity attractions. If you cross‐check our and other site’s references, Salford visits are near the University or The Quays

Edgar Wood Victoria Park/Centre

  • every local guide, historian and PR hash lists this building, gives it 5 stars then calls it ‘beautiful’

  • it’s a wedding and corporate venue. No museum, no visits, tours once an epoch

  • the building is described as placed in Victoria Park. There is no ‘park’, nor a view of the building

  • Not a tourist destination nor a day out (if you want for Wood‐work, try the walk or trail. For a house visit near Manchester centre, try Ordsall Hall)

Worsley Village

  • Worsley Delp installation of artworks in a small canal basin. If you’re there, worth a visit

  • On the Bridgewater Canal. If that’s how you arrive, good place for a short walk or to get lunch

  • Notably scenic shambles of housing

  • Historical importance—the Bridgewater Canal is where modern industrial history started. About this, good signposting

  • repeatedly photographed as though it’s York. It’s not

  • sited underneath the M60/East Lancs Road junction—awash with noise and, on an evening, choked with traffic

  • Worsley Delp is ten minutes of your time. 2/5 of the area is private golf course. Worsley Old Hall is a pub, a mile from Worsley Green. RHS Bridgewater is further, 1.5 miles of urban A‐Road. Both under the M60. Worsley Woods is a scrap of land between the motorway and a B‐Road estate—a local resource, not a visit. The often‐mentioned Aviary is private

  • This (affluent) area is strong on preservation, but attractions are minor and disjoint. Imaginatively reinterpreted, the photography is a breach of the Trade Descriptions Act

Rochdale Centre

  • Recent and pleasant bus station and tram stop (c. 2015–2020)

  • New box‐shopping centre

  • Fire Services Museum. Open (Thursday–Saturday), expensive, maybe worth a visit

  • Rochdale Town Hall huge Gothic architecture currently in restoration by English Heritage

  • Toad Lane Museum, about the working‐class cooperatives that started here. Small but world class museum (which may in the future be listed)

  • Tweedale Street and Milkstone Road, but if that’s your background or interest, you’ll know about that

  • the new shopping centre is one of the smallest in any satellite town, built by architects‐who‐don’t‐live‐there. And is only the latest of two more that lie derelict in the centre

  • most of Rochdale’s notable architecture is either destroyed or neglected (including the key Drake and Yorkshire Streets)

  • aside from a statue of Gracie Fields (an important but limited interest), and exposure of a Medieval bridge, there is no attempt to engage with visitors

  • the Town Hall may be spectacular, but in fifty years no purpose has been found for it. It’s environment has been ruined, perhaps beyond redemption

  • range of shopping is flatline

  • the local museum and reference library closed in 2023. Plans not reassuring

  • above named attractions are disjoint, with no support. Note that most of them are provided by initiatives beyond the borough

  • Rochdale could and should be a major tourist town. It had architecture, and has heritage and a spectacular setting. But indifferent or bad decisions have destroyed what is not neglected. If you arrive without purpose, it seems like there is nothing there

Walks

Rochdale Way

  • Rochdale has tourist advantages other towns would grab—architecture, steep scenery, good soil, water, historic significance

  • The Pennine Edge, covered North and East, is worth a week of time

  • Path successfully avoids two town centres

  • pointless two miles sideways for the Hopwood estate. Also, path runs through a golf course—no good for anyone

  • fails to avoid one town centre

  • the loopback is through Middleton and South Rochdale suburbs. Say the path dies near Heywood and is reborn near Shaw—that’s fifteen miles of nothing‐much

  • unmaintained for years—can be waist‐deep in nettles and brambles, poor signposting and Rights of Way broken

  • 3 1/2 miles of A‐Road

Ungood