Secret tunnels under Manchester

[Parrot of Doom]

I'm doing a Wiki page on it. Here it is. Very very basic so far, but I will expand it as I gather more information.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_Cathedral_...

Feel free to add anything you find, but no copyrighted images please.

[Parrot of Doom]

Thanks to the member that reported the vandal, he has been blocked for a bit:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:82.163.130....

and this one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:212.58.233....

I will no doubt have vandalism on my own wiki pages shortly :/

You have to ask yourself - are they interested in local history, or are they just in it for kicks?

Does anyone have a smiley of a spoilt child with an armful of toys and a sour expression?

[Parrot of Doom]

Nothing much. I asked if this was related to the Manchester and Salford Junction Canal, that got deleted. I asked why, and was told it was 'off topic shit'. Then that lot was deleted, and someone found my posts here. Then they thought I was some evil media person out to spoil their fun and tell lies about them, and they banned me.

Thats pretty much it really. Other people also asked about the location of the area, and those posts were also deleted.

Oh and I created a Wikipedia page on the Cathedral Steps (for thats where they've been), and some of their members vandalised it - and got banned from Wikipedia.

Pathetic behaviour.

[Parrot of Doom]

Nope, its just fine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_Cathedral_...

Look at the history and all the vandalism thats occured - that demonstrates the mentality of some of the people on 28dayslater, and possibly darkplaces too since I've also been banned from there.

I'm waiting for a nice day on which to visit Manchester and take plenty of pictures detailing the precise location of this area. I'm also going to ask the library for permission to include some of those pictures on the Wiki page.

[Parrot of Doom]

I think that hole is this:

Edited by Parrot of Doom on Saturday 14th July 17:20

[Parrot of Doom]

Its actually the River Irwell but I'll forgive you because Manchester is a maze of canals and rivers

Cosmetically they'll be in pretty bad condition, but fortunately the council will have been looking after them and keeping the brickwork in good condition so I think structurally they'll be quite alright - they've been there over 100 years and they look nice and dry from the photographs.

The Cathedral predates the stages, so they won't go underneath it. They obviously connect to a public toilet, and I believe that public toilet is one that used to occupy a space outside the Cathedral, where exactly I'm not certain but its probably on the east side of Victoria Street.

I've seen the river get pretty high, but never so high as to start flooding.

Edited by Parrot of Doom on Saturday 14th July 21:19

[Parrot of Doom]

The thing about the external shots is that they're not new - the council have recently boarded up that door (as shown in the 28dl photos), and the vents.

All will become clear when the sun comes out, and I venture into Cottonopolis to take some up to date pictures!

Anyhow I've been a bit busy today:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:...

Edited by Parrot of Doom on Saturday 14th July 23:03

[Parrot of Doom]

Ricardo, they're in front of Manchester Cathedral. If you stand on either of the 2 bridges in front of the Cathedral and look back, you'll see the arches. It would be great if you could row down there I know the draught is deep enough, they've had narrowboats that far up, although it gets too shallow once you're past Trinity Way bridge.

[Parrot of Doom]

Yep. A few years back I looked at the Kelly's directories for my area. I did a bit of research and found that the mentally unstable were lablelled 'idiot' in the surveys!

[Parrot of Doom]

The Lowry Hotel is on the west side of the river - if you keep going about another 1/4 mile, you'll see the Cathedral

To get on the narrow canal network from the Irwell there are 2 small junctions on your right, about 1/2 a mile past Man Utd's ground.

[Parrot of Doom]

Well you can always look on Google Earth, but basically they head off towards Canal Street, one goes to the Rochdale Canal, the other goes to the Ashton Canal.

There will be another one joining the Irwell again in a few years, the Manchester, Bolton and Bury canal, currently being restored. Head over to Sainsburys on Regent Road, heading to Manchester, turn left after the retail park, and go under the bridge, over the roundabout, and you can see the locks being dug out.

[Parrot of Doom]

A S P said:

I'm posting without having read the whole thread, I will go back and read it but its going to take ages....so, I just want to say that I've been down twice underneath the Deansgate area. First time was the best, I was working at Bauer Millett (as a wknd salesman for my sins whilst at uni) and at the time they occupied the Peter st. showroom and what was Motorcade on the Deansgate/Liverpool st. junction (now Hilton). The landlord for Peter st. was Bruntwood or something, and they were responsible in part for the regeneration of The Great Northern Warehouse by the side of GMEX. The woman responsible locally would pop in a lot, and whilst I was down at the Motorcade showroom she came in and offered if I wanted to go down "under Deansgate" for a bit of a mooch round, she was going round with some inspectors or something and thought myself & a colleague would be interested. We obviously said yes and followed her. The access hatch was in the entrance to the car park behind the new Northern Warehouse carpark, in the row or arches where there's a radiator specialist or something. We went down and it has to be by far the most amazing thing I've seen in Manchester. It was all brick-lined, barrel-vaulted roofs, that we were expecting but we came across small room swith beds in which I presume where emergency shelters remaining from the war. What really startled me was running what seemed to be the length of Deansgate was a canal complete with walkway to the side, it reminded me of Ghostbusters when they find a river of ooze under the city, only with no ooze! It had been occupied/accessed since the war obviously since then due to the obligatory graffiti, swastika's et all.

The other time I went underground wa in my next wknd job which was at Habitat on St. Annes st. In the basement where furniture was stored was access to another level underneath, this was quite spooky as the lighting was very poor, but it seemed very similar to what I had seen previously very near by on Deansgate. It seemed that there were blocked up doors linking up to other areas beyond, in fact you could get to all the other shops/units within the block by means of the underground passages, these got locked up by Shabitat for security.

Anyway, I'm going to go back and read the thread properly, sorry if I've repeated anything.

Totally believe you mate - what you're describing sounds exactly like the Manchester and Salford Junction Canal:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_and_Salfor...

Make sure you click the links for images.

[Parrot of Doom]

heh. I'd save it if I were you, because shortly it will likely be deleted and you'll be banned.

[Parrot of Doom]

dunkie said:

Tried to get the photos my engineer friend took after the bomb but he is currently away.

When you do, I'd love to see them

It would be doubly fantastic if you could give me permission, and I'd stick them on the Wiki page for everyone to see

[Parrot of Doom]

You can see the steps to the far left in this 1903 image here:



Look at the bottom of this picture dated 1910:



It seems to suggest that the landing stages were used as a furniture outlet/shipping area? Or it could just be advertising space for another business near the river.


By this point in 1950, the steps are long gone (although reports suggest some steps were still there, albiet closed to the public:



I'm sure there are odd gaps in the victorian fencing - when I go, I'll check that out.


Here is the location of the public toilets dated 1950, which I believe may be the same ones shown on the 28dl page. Middle bottom of the image:



and again



and again in 1944:



and again, to the left:



I can't see the 28dl pics so if someone could link the two, we could get a better idea.


This image taken in 1969 appears to show some work going on outside the Cathedral. The toilets would be to the right out of the image but it may give an idea as to when they were closed. Cromwell's statue was removed in 1968.



This image in 1972 shows a great deal of work south of the Cathedral, along the river.




1878 - before the Cathedral Steps were in operation perhaps?



1892 - still no steps evident - although they may be beyond the left edge:



1897 - the steps are now there.



1922 - looks like some steps are still there, north of the bridge, and a building between the two bridges - look at the building in the image near the bottom of this thread. The toilets are visible.



1926:





1930:



1903 - Can't see the steps (they should be on the railings underneath bovril:



The steps in 1900:



1938:





1963 - wooden steps are still clearly visible, as are the toilets:





Hope that wasn't too boring!

[Parrot of Doom]

Rooftopper said:

So you did what, stood outside the fence and speculated rather than checking to see whether there was access to said tunnel network?

Why dont you get your arse in there and check for yourself?

Nobody here is saying that what the people who explored the Cathedral stages did was easy, or to be undertaken lightly. Nobody is saying they shouldn't have done it because we're all fascinated by the images. Personally I'm glad they did it, because I love reading about things.

What annoyed me was the way I was rounded on and treated like shit, just for asking a few simple questions. A polite "We'd rather not discuss it but thanks for the input and we hope you enjoy the site" would have been much better than "off topic shit, deleted, ulterior motives, BANNED".

If you come to this site and ask a basic question thats been answered a million times before (my tyre is split, what do I do), nobody here will say "USE THE SEARCH YOU IDIOT" - its not that kind of site. You could learn a thing or two from the example set here.

[Parrot of Doom]

Rooftopper said:

If you have a genuine interest join and contribute rather than joining to pick holes in other peoples theories, stay, explore have fun.

Dont join, try and hang onto the coattails of the people who are actually getting off their arses to do something rather than sitting behind a keyboard pointing out the inadequacies of others

I do have a genuine interest, I joined, and I contributed (a bloody big thread on Carrington Power Station that took me a while to write).

Then I was banned for having a genuine interest, banned for contributing.

[Parrot of Doom]

minimoog said:

I thought these stairs might be from the toilets you show there PoD, but I can't place that narrow building at the top of the steps, which doesn't look very far away, in those photos. There's a similarly narrow gable to the north of the cathdral, but it has distictive windows and is quite a way from the toilets, so I don't think it's that.

That image has turned up because on the council website, it is one of three that appear when you search for the air raid shelters. Another one of those three images is exactly the same location as one of the 28dl images (the corridor with the big pipe along the ceiling).

There is a possibility that images on the council's website are described and catalogued incorrectly I suppose, but until someone visits the library and finds the plans of the area, including the landing stages and tunnels, its going to be difficult to work out.

[Parrot of Doom]

Rooftopper perhaps you could ask people on your forum to stop vandalising the Wiki page on the Cathedral Steps.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_Cathedral_...
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Manchest...

Such behaviour is childish.

[Parrot of Doom]

Rooftopper said:

Parrot of Doom said:

Rooftopper perhaps you could ask people on your forum to stop vandalising the Wiki page on the Cathedral Steps.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_Cathedral_...
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Manchest...

Such behaviour is childish.

We'd rather not have the unwanted attention it brings to be honest, can you blame us for being over protective?

Yes I can. You're being protective of something which is not your property. Anybody can contribute to the page, but so far none of them have - that demonstrates to me that they have no interest in history whatsoever.

If posters on your forum continue to abuse the Wiki, I shall create links to that page on every single forum and outlet which I am capable of.