iKnow North West
Greater Manchester Accommodation
Urbis Manchester, Printworks on the right
The Incredibly 'kitsch' Trafford Centre.
The Saddleworth Museum, in Saddleworth near Oldham
Inside the Hat Museum in StockportManchester, Rochdale, Oldham, and Stockport Tourist Information UK
The Trafford Centre Manchester - have you heard of it? Looks better at night perhaps? Well it's the North West's best shopping complex if you haven't heard. Manchester has so much on offer, choose from a choice of Manchester Cinemas, Manchester theatres, Manchester Museums and art galleries and some great music venues like the Manchester Apollo and Manchester Academy on Oxford Road.
Greater Manchester has much to offer, with a fascinating industrial and social history. How about Rochdale and the history of the co-operative party and of course hometown of Gracie Fields! Take in fabulous Oldham, where you'll find one of the best Art Gallery in the North West. Branch out to Saddleworth and villages like Delph and Diggle in the Lancashire Pennines crammed with real ale pubs in a rugged and stunningly beautiful country setting. Just outside Bolton you'll find Turton Tower, an old Elizabethan country house or come further North to Ramsbottom, a village packed with speciality shopping, real ale pubs and of course the East Lancs Steam Railway. Take a trip to the superb Hat Works in Stockport. There' a lot going on just outside Manchester! - not another obelisk!!! Find Greater Manchester Hotels Find Greater Manchester Accommodation Back to Greater Manchester Tourist Information
Manchester City Guide North West
Manchester is crammed with museums on science, industry, social history and transport, many of which are now FREE to enter. Manchester has three key art galleries - the Manchester Art Gallery on Mosley Street and the Whitworth on Oxford Road. Both house prized fine art and have changing exhibitions, often reflecting art in the Manchester area. The Gallery of Costume in South Manchester also has changing exhibitions.
Manchester Cinemas are the best. Manchester Film - Independent and mainstream cinema, is alive in Manchester. The Cornerhouse on Oxford Road is a must for independent cinema lovers. Manchester is also a North West hotspot for theatre - check out The Palace Theatre or the Opera House. Both of these Manchester theatres regularly host big blockbuster touring shows, especially musicals.
Manchester has one of the best gay scenes in the country (second to Blackpool of course) located around Canal Street. There are so many clubs and dance venues you really are spoilt for choice. The Village, around Canal Street, has appeared in many tv dramas including 'Queer As Folk' and 'Cold Feet'.
Manchester United Football Club, rather in the news at the moment! You certainly get your money's worth in a visit to this globally famed club, with the museum and tour priced at adults: £8.50/Juniors & OAPs £5.75). The Manchester United Museum includes three floors crammed with exhibitions including a Trophy Room, the Legends Hall of Fame, Club History and to top it off a stadium tour where, if you must, you too can walk through the players' tunnel. Kids (and no doubt adults) can also become a commentator and record your own bit of match commentary - not as easy as it sounds!) A cafe is also on-site for your own 'little taste of Manchester United' - with walls covered in Man U memorabilia. Share a burger with Beckham, or a fry up with Ferguson - in your dreams perhaps.
Rochdale, Oldham & Saddleworth
Rochdale's roots run deep - birthplace no less to the Co-operative Movement and working class feminist Gracie Fields - once the grimiest of grimiest cotton-spinning towns, with it's namesake the Rochdale Canal which actually skirts round the town, Rochdale is a fascinating town to explore.
Oldham's Art Gallery hosts an eclectic mix of art, both local and international. Check out Tommyfield Market in Oldham as well, established over 140 years ago and one of the largest open air markets in the North West. The Oldham Coliseum Theatre hosts a great programme of theatre, comedy, dance and music with a radical twist.
Oldham's town centre has retained many of it's Victorian buildings - the original Town Hall seems to possess more charm in the fact that it's running to rack and ruin - here Churchill got his foothold on the political ladder although it took him two goes in Oldham, riding the second round on the back of his various exploits as a war correspondent in South Africa and imperialist clap trap. Oldham town hall, and its other Victorian architecture makes walking around Oldham a feast for the eyes - spot the Free Library's, old Science and Art buildings.
Branch out from Oldham town centre and you'll find some of the most picturesque villages in Lancashire, on the Lancashire side of the Pennines - primarily Saddleworth, Delph, Denshaw, Diggle, Dobcross, Grasscroft, Greenfield and Uppermill. The Saddleworth Museum has to be the place to start to explore the social history of those who have lived and worked in this area, and of particular interest here at the moment is the exhibition on Annie Kenney, suffragette and member of the Women's Social and Political Union.
The Peak Forest Canal & the Ashton Canals
Greater Manchester, not surprisingly is marked by canals weaving their way through the towns into Manchester. The Peak Forest Canal runs from Ashton through to Marple to Whaley Bridge and Buxworth and was completed in 1800. It provided a through route from the potteries into Manchester. It competed poorly with the Trent and Mersey, but happily full navigation is now restored. The Ashton Canal connects the Rochdale Canal to Manchester and when built simultaneously with the Rochdale Canal it established a new trade route from Manchester to the textile mills in Ashton. It peaked in the 1830s, and now again has been fully restored and forms part of the 100 mile Cheshire ring. Check out www.waterways.org.uk www.penninewaterways.co.uk/peak www.britishwaterways.co.uk
Ramsbottom & Bury
You may when visiting this part of the country notice one or two strange obelisk type monuments perched high up on the hills. You may be less surprised to discover that each of these vertical monstrosities signifies some important bloke from Victorian times past. In Ramsbottom, or more specifically perched atop Holcombe Moor, it's the Peel Tower - you won't miss it off the M66. Named after Sir Robert Peel, born in the area, and prime minister of Britain from 1841-1846.
Hey ho, well what else is on offer in Bury and Ramsbottom. A good place to start is the spectacular East Lancashire Railway. Hop on at Bury and ride on old steam trains all the way to Rawtenstall to fully experience the well kept secret of the beautiful countryside in the area. In Bury there's a choice of museums, including the Lancashire Fusiliers Museum and the bury Art Gallery & Museum. Like Stockport, Bury is famous for it's market which was granted a charter as far back as 1440. Black puddings are the speciality here!
Wigan & Wigan Pier
You'll need a full day at Wigan's enormous attraction - Wigan Pier. What's on offer - well there's the restored Trencherfield Mill, Opie's Museum of Memories which takes you through 100 years of domestic life in Britain - fabulous, there's a recreated coal mine (weird!) but on a serious note there's an exhibition which details the Maypole colliery Disaster where a massive explosion and fireball killed 75 men. Gas warnings were thought to have been ignored! Find out how Wigan Pier got its name, discover what people did in their Wakes Weeks off. There's also a recreated Victorian pub, and for all you kitsch lovers there's a 1980s exhibition, ahh those halcyon day, not! The whole exhibit space is set along the banks of the Leeds & Liverpool Canal.
Bolton
Almost 7% of Bolton's 258,000 population comprise of Asians like the Raja's who run a store on Fletcher Street. Originally most migrated from Kenya in the early 1970s - Bolton's multicultural mix gives it a real cultural edge. Here you'll find some of the best Asian food in the country.
Branch out from the centre and discover Turton Tower, dating from Medieval times but extended and refurbished in the Tudor and Stuart period - giving it more of that era's feel. Ancient woodland surround the house.
Check out the Last Drop Village, just north of Bolton for speciality shopping or bob over to Egerton and Edgeworth calling in at the Strawberry Duck pub after a walk round one of the stunning reservoirs in the area.
Stockport
Famous for hat making, painted by Lowry with it's notable railway viaduct running through the centre Stockport is marked by history wherever you look. There's a fantastic market up on the hill, Mr Marks from Marks and Spencer started his trade here, and although it achieved it's heyday in the Victorian era the market was granted a charter as far back as 1260.
Victorian architecture is everywhere in Stockport and of particular note is the rather grotesque Town Hall, built in the early 1900s in a Renaissance style. But clock the deco frontage of the magnificent Plaza theatre! The two key attractions in Stockport have to be the Air Raid Shelters, carved into the sandstone cliffs right in the Stockport town centre and are a 'labyrinth of underground passages big enough to accommodate up to 5000 people, and the mammoth Hat Museum.
At Stockport's Hat Museum you can view numerous displays of hats, and find out just why just a short while ago wearing a hat was an obligatory occupation in British society. Plenty of stories here also on people who worked in the industry, and how the skilled craft union of men in the hat industry resisted membership of women workers.
Tameside: Home to the Portland Basin and Industrial History Museum, a fantastic museum exploring the social history of canal workers and canal history. A must for canal lovers, this museum is located at the point where no less that three canals meet!!
