VICTORIA AND BLACKFRIARS BRIDGES (p. [252]).
With the exceptions named, the principal buildings of Manchester are modern. The Victoria Buildings and Hotel, a palatial pile, now cover what was one of the oldest parts of the city. The Town Hall, completed in 1883, is a fine Gothic structure, occupying a triangular site. It is really a municipal palace—imposing externally, and admirably adapted internally for the conduct of the public affairs of a great city. The rise and progress of the city has been pictorially treated in the great chamber of the Town Hall by Ford Madox Brown. A wide open space known as Albert Square fronts the Town Hall, with an Albert Memorial in the centre, flanked by statues of John Bright and Bishop Fraser. Near by, in St. Anne’s Square, is a bronze statue of Richard Cobden. The Assize Courts in Strangeways are as noble architecturally as the Town Hall, and are from designs by the same architect, Mr. Alfred Waterhouse; while the Royal Exchange, in Market Street, is a notable building in the Italian style, possessing the largest meeting room of its kind in the United Kingdom, but a room not too large for the demands made upon its space, as visitors who attempt to inspect it on Tuesdays and Fridays, the chief business days, will readily testify. Then there is the Royal Institution, from designs by Sir Charles Barry, in the Doric style, containing a gallery of paintings and a School of Design, with a statue of Dr. Dalton, the propounder of the Atomic Theory, and a Manchester worthy.
The Infirmary, built in the same style as the Exchange, dates from the year 1755. The esplanade in front of it, where are statues of the Duke of Wellington, Sir Robert Peel, and Dr. Dalton, covers the site of what was the “ducking pond” in Manchester in the days when the town troubled itself less about the spread of enlightenment than it does now. Like the Exchange, the Infirmary exists for the benefit of other places than its own immediate neighbourhood. Some 30,000 patients are treated annually within its walls. Its wards bear the names of various benefactors of the institution, and one of the wings was built through the beneficence of Jenny Lind, who gave two concerts for the purpose. The reference to Jenny Lind suggests the fact that Manchester during the present century has been distinguished as a musical centre. Nor has she been backward as a patron of artists; her Art Treasures Exhibition of 1857 brought together the finest collection of ancient and modern paintings the provinces have known. The needs of the inhabitants, in the physical sense, have also during recent years been well attended to, as is shown by the open spaces made even in busy neighbourhoods, and the parks and recreation grounds in the outskirts of both Manchester and Salford. When the citizens feel disposed to travel far afield, they cannot in these days complain of lack of facilities. Having brought the sea to their own doors, they can go direct by boat to almost every part. By rail they have choice of routes to all the leading towns of the kingdom.
STEAMER PASSING THROUGH TRAFFORD ROAD SWING BRIDGE (p. [254]).
One may not be particularly pleased with what one sees of the Irwell as it passes through the city, but it cannot be regarded as a hindrance to free locomotion. It is bridged over in many places, so much so that it is possible to get to and from Salford along most of the chief thoroughfares of the larger town. The Victoria Bridge is modern, as its name implies. Built two years after the accession of the Queen, it replaced one erected in 1365, and which, from that period up to 1760, was the only bridge connecting Manchester proper with Salford. A wooden structure—built, it is said, by a theatrical company, to enable them to pass between the two towns—preceded the present Blackfriars Bridge, on the line of the street of that name. There are also the Albert, the Regent, the Broughton, and other bridges. At Hulme Hall Road, where the Medlock passes into the main stream, the Irwell loses itself in the ship-canal. Here, too, is the entrance to the Manchester series of docks, which cover the site of the old Pomona Gardens. They are in four arms. The water space occupies 33½ acres, and there is a quay area of 23 acres, with two miles of quay length. On the opposite side lies Ordsall, with a rectangular dock 980 feet by 750 feet, and with another feature of interest in the great calico printing, dyeing, and bleaching works of the Messrs. Worral. From here the canal curves round and flows under a great swing bridge, said to be the largest in the country (it is 265 feet long by 150 feet wide), forming part, when closed, of the Trafford Road. To the right are the Salford Docks, and here the water space covers 71 acres, with a quay area of 129 acres, and 4 miles length of quayage. Just at the entrance to the Salford Docks the canal is at its widest—1,388 feet.
A little further down is Mode Wheel, where are the locks that begin the process of descent, the fall at this point being 13 feet. Here the canal runs nearly west, and continues in this direction till it reaches the outskirts of Eccles, where it begins to run due west through a rock cutting that revealed in the exposed gravel, as the work was in progress, the trend of flowing water in historic times. Beyond are the Barton swing aqueduct and locks. The aqueduct which Brindley carried over the roadway here for the Bridgewater Canal was at the close of last century one of the wonders of the Manchester district. It had to be demolished to give place to a still greater wonder of the kind. Not only had a new aqueduct to be constructed to allow the ship-canal to pass underneath, but it had to be made in such a form that it could swing. This was done by forming the bridge portion of the aqueduct into a caisson, or trough, some 90 feet long by 19 feet wide, and 6 feet deep, and weighing some 1,400 tons. Ordinarily, of course, the water in the old canal is continuous, but when a ship is approaching on the larger canal, double sets of gates are closed at each end of the caisson, thus confining the water in the canal above and in the caisson itself. The caisson is then swung round on a central pier, on each side of which vessels may pass on the ship-canal. Below this engineering triumph are the Barton locks on the ship-canal, giving a fall of 15 feet. Here the new waterway takes a south-westerly turn, and continues thus till it gets to Warburton. About midway between Barton and the latter place, Irlam is reached, and here there are several interesting features of the canal to be seen. To begin with, there is another series of locks, giving a descent this time of 16 feet, with a set of sluice gates in addition, which have been constructed to carry off excess of water in times of flood—an expedient rendered necessary by the fact that just below Irlam the Mersey runs into the canal. Here also the Cheshire Railway lines cross the canal, and these had to be dealt with so as to give a clear waterway of 75 feet above water-level.