Open Days in Manchester
I've been meaning to post some photos I took during the Heritage Open Days this weekend.
On Saturday, I stuck to the far end of Didsbury. I started at the former Wesleyan College, which I remember as Didsbury Teacher Training College (when I was at primary school a lot of the students did teaching stints with us), though it later became part of the polytechnic and thus is currently part of Manchester Metropolitan University. MMU is due to pull out in a few years so we aren't quite sure what will happen next.
The chief buildings on show were the original house - I couldn't get a very clear statement on the building's date, though we were told it became a theological college in 1842 - and a Methodist chapel, which was vaguely dated somewhere between 1875 and 1900. This picture was taken looking up a Georgian staircase in the house.
I then realised that if I walked fast I would just have time to spend a few minutes in The Towers - a "calendar house" built around 1868 as a private house for one of the Guardian Taylors, known to me as the Shirley Institute, from the time when it was used by the British Cotton Industry Research Association, and now part of a "modern and vibrant business park" (ie there are a lot of modern buildings around it. All that's on show is the entrance hall and staircase which has some fine stained glass windows.
I posted a photo of the stained glass windows at The Towers after a previous open day, but it seemed a pity not to post them again...
After that I went to see the Old Parsonage, originally built around 1650, extended a couple of centuries later; when I was a child it was an art gallery (we had a Turner!), then it was rented out as offices, and it's recently been leased from the council by a trust set up by Didsbury Civic Society on condition that they do it up, which they are doing; it's now described as a "community hub", with some offices on the first floor and various meeting rooms available for hire. And then I went on to St James, the original parish church, which has mediaeval origins but is mostly seventeenth and nineteenth century. I didn't take any photos of these as my batteries had run out.
But next day I went to the local mosque, which is in a former Congregational Church (early twentieth century originally). They're very keen to show people round, encouraged photography, and kept me talking for a long time, presenting me with a Qur'an on my departure (I didn't like to tell them that I had one already and that this copy is too big for the shelf on which I keep religious books, but I have several Bibles and I suppose I will fit it in somewhere). A young blonde woman announced her conversion to Islam while I was there, and I was amused by one of my guides saying that, as an atheist, I was already halfway to Islam, because the central tenet is "There is no god but Allah" and I'd got the first half.
This is the main prayer hall. It's a bit confusing when you come in, because the church was obviously focused on the wall where the altar would have been, and that didn't face Mecca, so the mihrab is on what one first reads as the "side" wall. The pulpit is original; a digital clock shows how long it is until the next time of day for prayer. I think the lines on the carpet are to show worshippers where to line up.
This is the wudhu area in which men wash their faces, hands and feet. There is a separate wudhu area for women.
After washing one's feet, naturally one needs to dry them...
After the mosque I fitted in Christ Church, a late nineteenth-century church which isn't all that interesting in itself but was hosting an exhibition on the Victorian Society. This consisted of a lot of boards with photos and detailed information, and there was rather too much to take in. But it filled in time before I caught a bus into town for my main objective of the day, Gorton Monastery. (Technically it should be a friary because it was a Franciscan establishment.) This was built in the 1860s, and the architect was E. W. Pugin (son of the one who did the Houses of Parliament); it closed as a place of worship in the 1980s, and began to fall into ruin, so that in 1997 it was placed on a list of 100 Most Endangered Sites in the World. But a trust has raised money for the building's restoration, and it's now available for conferences, dinners, (civil) weddings, etc etc. I'd been meaning to go and see it for years, but it's not particularly convenient for me to get to, so I was finally spurred into it by a Peterloo link.
This is the exterior of the main building, seen from the cloisters.
And this is looking up the nave.
The high altar is half restored, and I liked the way it was covered with candles.
The altar itself is still rough brick - it was vandalised after the monastery closed - but I found its roughness rather moving.
This is the Lady Chapel. It's interesting that, although the building is officially no longer a religious site (otherwise they wouldn't be allowed to host civil weddings), it is still clearly regarded as such by many of those using it. That reminded me of some mosques in Turkey which are officially museums (because Ataturk removed their religious status when he created a secular state) but are still regarded as holy by the locals. I lit a candle, too.
I suppose eventually all the paint will be redone, but I rather like the mixture of ruin and restoration.
This is the main crucifix.
One of the big projects the trust has undertaken was the restoration of the Twelve Saints. These statues were removed in 1989, and were about to be sold at Sotheby's a few years later when they were recognised. The auction was halted, the council managed to buy the statues, and after many years waiting they were restored and finally, this year, replaced in their original positions high above the nave. In a way it's a pity they're so far away now, though apparently they were on display in the Town Hall at one time and were further damaged by passers-by patting or kicking them. I loved photos of them being driven home to the monastery in the backs of lorries, and gathered inside a metal storage container.
This one is St Clare, founder of the order of nuns.
And this is my mother's favourite saint, St Anthony of Padua, who frequently found lost things for her.
And finally, this is the Gorton Visual Arts' project "Chaos", which caused me to go to Gordon this weekend.
The work was inspired by accounts of St Peter's Field after the massacre in 1819, with banners and items of clothing lying where they had fallen as the campaigners fled from the soldiers; the group wanted to recreate the atmosphere with plaster casts of modern equivalents, and they plan to take it into local primary schools in order to talk about Peterloo. We talked to the project leader about their plan to create a tapestry telling the Peterloo story.
Also posted on Dreamwidth, with
comments.
On Saturday, I stuck to the far end of Didsbury. I started at the former Wesleyan College, which I remember as Didsbury Teacher Training College (when I was at primary school a lot of the students did teaching stints with us), though it later became part of the polytechnic and thus is currently part of Manchester Metropolitan University. MMU is due to pull out in a few years so we aren't quite sure what will happen next.
The chief buildings on show were the original house - I couldn't get a very clear statement on the building's date, though we were told it became a theological college in 1842 - and a Methodist chapel, which was vaguely dated somewhere between 1875 and 1900. This picture was taken looking up a Georgian staircase in the house.
I then realised that if I walked fast I would just have time to spend a few minutes in The Towers - a "calendar house" built around 1868 as a private house for one of the Guardian Taylors, known to me as the Shirley Institute, from the time when it was used by the British Cotton Industry Research Association, and now part of a "modern and vibrant business park" (ie there are a lot of modern buildings around it. All that's on show is the entrance hall and staircase which has some fine stained glass windows.
I posted a photo of the stained glass windows at The Towers after a previous open day, but it seemed a pity not to post them again...
After that I went to see the Old Parsonage, originally built around 1650, extended a couple of centuries later; when I was a child it was an art gallery (we had a Turner!), then it was rented out as offices, and it's recently been leased from the council by a trust set up by Didsbury Civic Society on condition that they do it up, which they are doing; it's now described as a "community hub", with some offices on the first floor and various meeting rooms available for hire. And then I went on to St James, the original parish church, which has mediaeval origins but is mostly seventeenth and nineteenth century. I didn't take any photos of these as my batteries had run out.
But next day I went to the local mosque, which is in a former Congregational Church (early twentieth century originally). They're very keen to show people round, encouraged photography, and kept me talking for a long time, presenting me with a Qur'an on my departure (I didn't like to tell them that I had one already and that this copy is too big for the shelf on which I keep religious books, but I have several Bibles and I suppose I will fit it in somewhere). A young blonde woman announced her conversion to Islam while I was there, and I was amused by one of my guides saying that, as an atheist, I was already halfway to Islam, because the central tenet is "There is no god but Allah" and I'd got the first half.
This is the main prayer hall. It's a bit confusing when you come in, because the church was obviously focused on the wall where the altar would have been, and that didn't face Mecca, so the mihrab is on what one first reads as the "side" wall. The pulpit is original; a digital clock shows how long it is until the next time of day for prayer. I think the lines on the carpet are to show worshippers where to line up.
This is the wudhu area in which men wash their faces, hands and feet. There is a separate wudhu area for women.
After washing one's feet, naturally one needs to dry them...
After the mosque I fitted in Christ Church, a late nineteenth-century church which isn't all that interesting in itself but was hosting an exhibition on the Victorian Society. This consisted of a lot of boards with photos and detailed information, and there was rather too much to take in. But it filled in time before I caught a bus into town for my main objective of the day, Gorton Monastery. (Technically it should be a friary because it was a Franciscan establishment.) This was built in the 1860s, and the architect was E. W. Pugin (son of the one who did the Houses of Parliament); it closed as a place of worship in the 1980s, and began to fall into ruin, so that in 1997 it was placed on a list of 100 Most Endangered Sites in the World. But a trust has raised money for the building's restoration, and it's now available for conferences, dinners, (civil) weddings, etc etc. I'd been meaning to go and see it for years, but it's not particularly convenient for me to get to, so I was finally spurred into it by a Peterloo link.
This is the exterior of the main building, seen from the cloisters.
And this is looking up the nave.
The high altar is half restored, and I liked the way it was covered with candles.
The altar itself is still rough brick - it was vandalised after the monastery closed - but I found its roughness rather moving.
This is the Lady Chapel. It's interesting that, although the building is officially no longer a religious site (otherwise they wouldn't be allowed to host civil weddings), it is still clearly regarded as such by many of those using it. That reminded me of some mosques in Turkey which are officially museums (because Ataturk removed their religious status when he created a secular state) but are still regarded as holy by the locals. I lit a candle, too.
I suppose eventually all the paint will be redone, but I rather like the mixture of ruin and restoration.
This is the main crucifix.
One of the big projects the trust has undertaken was the restoration of the Twelve Saints. These statues were removed in 1989, and were about to be sold at Sotheby's a few years later when they were recognised. The auction was halted, the council managed to buy the statues, and after many years waiting they were restored and finally, this year, replaced in their original positions high above the nave. In a way it's a pity they're so far away now, though apparently they were on display in the Town Hall at one time and were further damaged by passers-by patting or kicking them. I loved photos of them being driven home to the monastery in the backs of lorries, and gathered inside a metal storage container.
This one is St Clare, founder of the order of nuns.
And this is my mother's favourite saint, St Anthony of Padua, who frequently found lost things for her.
And finally, this is the Gorton Visual Arts' project "Chaos", which caused me to go to Gordon this weekend.
The work was inspired by accounts of St Peter's Field after the massacre in 1819, with banners and items of clothing lying where they had fallen as the campaigners fled from the soldiers; the group wanted to recreate the atmosphere with plaster casts of modern equivalents, and they plan to take it into local primary schools in order to talk about Peterloo. We talked to the project leader about their plan to create a tapestry telling the Peterloo story.
Also posted on Dreamwidth, with
comments.