Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
al meetings with Disraeli speaking to 28,000 people in one hall, not to mention many con-
certs and shows. The botanical gardens were opened in 1831, John Dalton selecting it as the
cleanest suburb in Manchester after a tour in which he wiped leaves with his handkerchief to
check for pollution. In 1857 it was the site of an Art Treasures exhibition with an even larger
Crystal Palace exhibition in 1887. It was all cleared to build the docks, a process repeated
when the docks became an Enterprise Zone for redevelopment in 1981. Now they are better
known as Salford Quays with such amenities as The Lowry theatre and gallery and the Im-
perial War Museum North. It is also the home to MediaCityUK, the principal tenant of which
is the BBC.
One of the more dramatic buildings has a chain and hook on each side, each link of
the chain being several metres high, the chains being freestanding and leaning in towards
the building. The adjacent arched bridge crosses the Manchester Ship Canal. Throstle Nest
bridge must be the most clearly named bridge on the canal system. Trafford Park was the
workshop of the world in the world's first planned industrial estates. It was built on a former
deer park owned by the de Trafford family since the time of Cnut and sold in 1896. Activity
in the complex peaked during the Second World War, when 75,000 people were employed
there, producing Lancaster bombers, Rolls Royce aero engines, the PLUTO pipeline, penicil-
lin, DDT and dyestuffs to be used for camouflage.
To football fans, Trafford Park means the home of Manchester United Football Club. It is
one of the spiritual homes of the game, the 1910 Theatre of Dreams, Old Trafford Stadium,
the UK's second largest, reaching almost to the bank of the canal. The Old Trafford cricket
ground lies a little to the south-east.
Stretford Junction or Waters Meeting brings in the Stretford & Leigh Branch, the first sec-
tion of the canal to be built, and the route follows that original line briefly, passing playing
fields after being crossed by another freight line and the Manchester Piccadilly to Liverpool
railway. The 1761 terminus lay between Stretford gasworks and the A56.
