Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
early 1970s. Today it forms part of the Cheshire Ring from Castlefield Junction to Preston
Brook.
Castle Quay with its drawbridge
.
The canal is fed by the River Medlock, emerging from under a low bridge. It starts in
Castlefield Urban Heritage Park, Britain's first such, with the Museum of Science & In-
dustry including a Beyer-Garratt engine, a Shackleton bomber and a power station condenser.
Manchester Central, north-west England's largest conference and exhibition centre, is loc-
ated in the former Central Railway station. The Manchester Hilton includes apartments above
the 25th floor. Manchester takes its name from the British Celtic
Mamucium
after the breast-
shaped hill on which it was built, that hill now being lost among a forest of buildings.
The highly distinctive state-of-the-art Merchants' Footbridge has crossed the Bridgewater
Canal since 1995. Curved in both plan and elevation, it is supported by a single arch, like a
bowstring girder but leaning upwards and towards the inside of the curve at 60˚. Its struc-
tural integrity depends on torsion, a concept more commonly used in aircraft design than in
bridges. It is 67m long. The more traditional kind of bridging is seen at its best in the Cas-
tlefield Viaducts, massive Victorian girder structures that carry everything from the line to
Liverpool to the Manchester Metro, which follows the canal to Timperley. To build the via-
ducts involved evicting hundreds of slum dwellers from Alport Town without compensation.
Pomona Docks, on the Manchester Ship Canal, were for coastal and perishable traffic.
They were opened in 1894, the third-largest in the country, amazing for a location so far in-
land. No 3 dock was a Ro-Ro terminal, with Colgate's Wharf opposite. The land between the
two canals was previously the pleasure gardens. Pomona Palace was the location for politic-
