A Trip to Manchester: Salford Quays, MOSI & the People's History Museum

Time for the last part of my trip to Manchester (you can find part one here, and part two here).

It was tricky to decide what to do with my last full day in the city - so many places to visit, and just one day left! Eventually I settled on visiting Salford Quays, not least because that meant I had an excuse to take the tram which is something I'd not done before and which I was nerdishly excited about (I am easily amused, I know).

 

So, I got the tram out to Salford Quays station in the morning... and immediately realised that I should have gone one step further along the line! Luckily it wasn't raining, so I had a (slightly breezy) morning walk along the Quays...

 

... enjoying the water and the peace and quiet...

 

 

... and arriving at the Imperial War Museum North just after it opened for the day.
 
They were in the process of installing their new exhibition when I visited, so I just looked round the main exhibition space. It's one large room, with displays around the irregular-shaped walls covering different periods in history and assorted war-related themes, and a few large items in the middle, like a tank and a piece from the World Trade Center (which I found very moving).

Once an hour all the lights go down and a 360 degree "Big Picture Show" is projected on the walls, so you have to stop and watch that for ten minutes or so before you can carry on looking at the exhibits. To be honest I found this a little frustrating so when the second show came on I decided to skip the final few displays and go have a cuppa instead. The museum was jam-packed with visiting school groups but the cafe was almost empty, it was great to sit and have a quiet cuppa and to look out over the Quays.

Then I walked over the bridge to see the Lowry paintings at The Lowry. It was interesting to learn more about Lowry and his work and I was delighted to also find an expanded version of the excellent Jonathan Yeo Portraits exhibition I saw at the National Gallery in the autumn.

 

After looking at the art I caught the tram back to Manchester city centre and headed to MOSI for a proper look round after my brief earlier visit. The Museum of Science and Industry is huge, taking up several former warehouses and transport sheds spread across one large site.

There are galleries dedicated to communication, to sewers, to gas and electricity, to trains and to planes, and more. After my trip to the school-children-packed War Museum that morning it was surprising to see MOSI so quiet - in several of the galleries I walked around the entire place without encountering another person, almost like I'd snuck in after hours.

The big spaces are perfect for housing huge turbines, large pieces of industrial machinery, steam engines, helicopters etc... but some of the displays felt like filler (the perils of having such a huge space to fill!) and there was a lot of distance to cover to see everything.

After a while I felt a bit like I was just walking around looking at "stuff" ("oh yes, there's another big engine of some kind, that's nice") rather than really taking any of it in so I thought it was probably a good time to leave! My non-science-loving brain definitely wanted a cuppa and a sit down instead of more science-y stuff.

I think if I lived closer to Manchester I'd love to explore this place slowly, one hall at a time, but trying to see it all in one go meant that the ratio of my interest in the subject to the amount of stuff there was to see didn't work out well.

I walked back to the hotel via Manchester Art Gallery, taking advantage of the Thursday late opening to look round the Time Machine exhibition - revisiting some of my favourite pieces from the in-gallery installation and using my Art Pass to visit the ticketed exhibition. As well as some large (and rather fabulous) sculptures, there was a video interview with Joana about the exhibition, and lots of books about her work that I enjoyed flicking through as I'd never encountered her work before seeing it in Manchester. 

Finally, the next day I squeezed in a quick visit to the People's History Museum. Of course, the weather decided to turn gloriously sunny just as I was about to go home! Typical.

I'd not read anything about the museum before my trip so I didn't really know what to expect. It turned out to be one of my favourite museums of the week, covering lots of different social and political movements in an interesting way and with a wonderful collection of banners (apparently they have the largest collection of historic trade union and political banners in the world).

The museum (and it's lovely-looking cafe) is definitely on my list of places to come back to if (or rather, when) I come back to Manchester for another visit... I was very annoyed to have to rush away to check out of my hotel and catch my train home!

Planning your own Manchester trip? I've mapped all the places I visited on this Pinterest board. 

A Trip to Manchester: the Museum, the Library & the Town Hall

Time for part two of my Manchester trip! You can read part one here, and part three will be posted at the weekend.

On my third day in the city I decided to walk to Manchester Museum. This seemed like a great idea at the time as it was a lovely sunny morning but actually I ended up doing so much walking during the day that looking back I really should have taken the bus (my feet would have thanked me!).

I did enjoy my walk up Oxford Road though, admiring the interesting buildings along the way...

 

... and popping into the University's Holden Gallery, to see the Wundercamera exhibition which was themed around galleries and museums, their collections, displays, spaces and visitors. I thoroughly enjoyed this, and since I'd not planned on visiting the gallery until the minute I walked past the building and saw the sign for the exhibition it was an unexpected treat.

I had a cuppa and a tasty cake in the Museum cafe when I arrived, then slowly explored the building and its collections.

There's a great mix of displays here, from Ancient Egyptian artefacts to archery equipment, from zoological collections to minerals, meteorites and gemstones.

The collections are housed in a mix of modern and Victorian gallery spaces (the main building was designed by the same architect who designed the Natural History Museum in London). I loved the inclusion of some objects that referenced the museum's history like Victorian cabinets filled with slides, collections displayed in drawers with their original hand-written labels, etc.

Particularly delightful is the Vivarium which is kind of like an aquarium but with lizards and frogs... some of which are very tricky to spot :)

After visiting the museum I walked back into town and popped into the Central Library which is quite striking both inside and out. It had only just re-opened when I visited and was buzzing with people exploring the refurbished space. What a wonderful place to have as your local library!

Just next door to the Library is the famous Midland Hotel, which is a delicious great lump of a building.

After having some lunch nearby, I walked across town....

 

... via the Roman Ruins which it turns out are much more extensive than I realised when I visited them (oops). I'm not sure what the connection is between Roman ruins and a statue of some sheep but it was a nice statue!

 

Just across the road from the ruins is the Museum of Science & Industry. After realising just how huge it was I decided to explore MOSI another day but couldn't resist having a look round the Textiles Gallery and seeing all the looms, etc (Amazing). Next time I visit the city I must go back at one of the times when they operate the machinery!

 

I walked back into the centre...

 

 

... stopped for a cuppa and cake in a cafe and then visited the Town Hall on my way back to my hotel.

Manchester's Town Hall is another wonderful building. Most of it was closed to the public when I visited as they were preparing for an event but one of the staff kindly let me sneak upstairs for a quick look around (so kind!) which was great (though it was a shame not to be able to see the famous murals up close) and a lovely end to the day.

A Trip to Manchester: Art, Crafts, Museums & Victorian Architecture

One of my New Year's Resolutions was to "get out of the house and go places and see people" - go on lots of Nice Days Out, meet up with friends for a cuppa instead of just saying "we must have a cuppa sometime!" and then never getting around to it, and step outside my comfort zone and take a couple of longer trips on my own.

For my first solo trip I decided to go to Manchester, kinda on a whim because it seemed pretty cool when I'd visited it for a day a few years before and because I found a cheap train ticket & affordable hotel while looking up the prices of trips to various places and thought "why not?" and booked it on the spot.

March seemed an age away when I booked the trip in January but (as they tend to do) the weeks rolled by very quickly and all of a sudden I was on a train heading North. I don't know about you but I love long train journeys. There's something so deliciously relaxing about them, being able to sit and read and/or stare out of the window as countryside and towns flash by.

I couldn't check in to my hotel for a few hours, so I headed to Manchester Art Gallery and stowed my luggage in a locker while I explored the gallery then had a cuppa in their cafe. 

This was a great start to my trip!

There are lots of paintings on display (including a room dedicated to the Pre-Raphaelites, whose work I have great affection for) but also some delightful collections of objects in the Gallery of Craft & Design. I really enjoyed the temporary exhibition about the (now closed) Manchester Art Museum set up in the late 1800s by Thomas Horsfall, not least because I'm always interested in Victorian reformers and philanthropists. The exhibition was co-curated by some local primary school children and I especially enjoyed their thoughtful explanations for why they'd selected and paired particular objects for the exhibition.

The highlight though was Joana Vasconcelos' exhibition Time Machine. There's a ticketed exhibition of some of Joana's large sculptures (which I visited later in the week when I realised I could get in free with my fabulous Art Pass) but also lots of joyful pieces dotted through the main collection, with lace-covered statues,  rainbow crochet creations bursting from picture frames and a fabulous textile "infestation" taking over the museum's atrium. The exhibition runs until the start of June - do go along if you can, but if you can't you can check out some photos & more info here and here.

 

After checking into my hotel I took a trip on the Ferris Wheel in Piccadilly Gardens. When I first spotted the wheel I was tempted to try it out (I don't think I've ever been on one before) but thought "no, it's a bit pricey, I should save my money"... but realising I was going to see it every time I looked out of my hotel window and was totally going to give into temptation eventually I went for a ride.

The company's website says there's a "fascinating commentary" during the ride but fascinating is really not the word I would have used! The views were great though (hurrah for a well-timed bit of sunshine) and it was nice to start my week's stay with a literal overview of the city I was visiting.

 

The next morning I got up early and headed to the Cathedral because a) it was the only place on my "places to visit" list that seemed to be open before 10am and b) since starting to go on Nice Days Out I've discovered I really, really enjoy looking around churches. 

Manchester Cathedral didn't disappoint. It's a wonderful building, with a dark and intricately decorated interior lit with some fab modern stained glass windows. I enjoyed a quiet, contemplative start to my day wandering around the building and learning about it's history from an informative leaflet. 

 

Near the Cathedral is the National Football Museum which wasn't on my list of places I'd planned to visit as I'm not remotely a football fan, but it was free and I thought it would be silly to just walk past without having a look...

... and actually, I really enjoyed it! There was a lot of memorabilia connected to footballers I'd never heard of, but I enjoyed the displays about the early days of football and learning about the history of the game. After the quiet hush of the Cathedral it was quite a contrast to be in this busy, noisy space full of happy schoolkids playing all the interactive games and shrieking with delight at the "smells of the locker room" display (where you could sample scents like oranges, linament and sweaty socks).

After the Football Museum I walked back into the town centre for a money-saving teabreak in my hotel room...

 ... then went for walk in the city's Northern Quarter.

I visited the Chinese Arts Centre for a modern art fix...

 

... then had a look around the lovely Craft & Design Centre. The building is filled with little studio-shops where you can buy work directly from the artists and makers. It's like attending a great craft fair - wonderful work, the chance to chat to the people who made it - with the added bonus of being able to peek into peoples workspaces and see work in progress.

 

 

Next I headed to the Police Museum which I knew was only open that day (Tuesday). This is a great little museum. The volunteers are friendly and well-informed and there are lots of different exhibits about the history of policing in Manchester, including a fascinating but slightly grisly room with objects connected to real crimes. The building is a former police station, so you can visit the charge office and the cells and there's a replica courtroom upstairs too.

 

After the Police Museum I walked around the corner...

... to visit the palace of crafty goodness that is Fred Aldous. Upstairs there's delicious stationery (oh my goodness I could spend so much money in this section) and quirky gifts and downstairs there are art and craft supplies as far as the eye can see. Wonderful stuff.

 

I loved the bird-themed art by Matt Sewell opposite the store!

 

  
I had some lunch, then went for a wander around the city centre admiring the delicious Victorian architecture...

 

 

... then spent a couple of happy hours looking round the John Rylands Library which is a delightfully bonkers neo-Gothic building.

There was an exhibition on and displays of some of the books from the collection but the main attraction (for me, at least) was exploring the building, visiting the fabulous reading room and (an added bonus) reading the various entertaining comments written on luggage tags by visitors the previous week, and dotted throughout the building.

 

Then it was time to head back to my hotel, put my feet up after all that walking... and eat dinner & plan the next day's adventures, while watching the lights of the Ferris wheel and fountains down in Piccadilly Gardens.

Part two of my Manchester trip will be posted next week :)