Marks &
Spencer plc (Company) and Market Place |
As a teenager I commuted daily between Old
Trafford and Ardwick Technical High School in a time when buses still
ran up Market Street. During the early 1960s I watched a new Marks
& Spencer Ltd (Historic Company) store being built on the corner of
Market &
Corporation Street. It had a unique wave-formed canopy running around
the building and later a footbridge that connected it to the Arndale
Shopping Centre across Corporation Street.
The image above is shown here with the generous permission of The Marks and Spencer Company Archive. It was designed by the Building
Design Partnership and it features a
huge central light well.
This building is much bigger and Market Place disappeared beneath its western end. In 2002 the building was converted to accommodate a Selfridges store on the Exchange Square side of the building. You can see the new store below in 2009. The curved glass segment of the building marks the former location of Market Place. *********************** The History of the Site There is a tendancy
when you look at a new building to wonder what it replaced, which old
building was demolished to make way for it. What you often don't
realize is how many old buildings have stood on that site, each one
replacing its predecessor. Sometimes the site itself changed
because streets were widened or realigned. In the 1800s there was
a triving produce market
located in the area beside the present Marks &
Spencer plc (Company) store, in an area that
was known as Market Place. The photograph below, shown
with the generous permission of Chetham's
Library, shows the market stalls arranged along both sides of
Market Place and the roof of the Old Wellington peeking out from behind
the
building on the corner. The buildings on the right roughly occupy
the position of the present Marks &
Spencer plc (Company) store.
The Old Wellington was the
first building
in this row of
medieval buildings. Ironically they survived the Manchester
Blitz in WWII and the IRA bombing. The Old Wellington has been
moved twice and now stands not far away in Exchange Square.
The OS map below,
dated 1844, shows Market Place running away from Market Street and
creating a
rather wide area which the map indicates is the location of a "flower,
fruit, vegetable and poultry market". I have also seen the street
referred to as Victoria Market. Beyond the Old Wellington Inn, in
an area referred to then as The Shambles, stood a fish market.
The photograph below shows
Victoria Street. The building numbered 2 is Sinclair's Oyster Bar
at the far end of the Shambles row. The building numbered 1 must
be the one that housed the fish market.
A review of the "Goad Maps Insurance Plan of the City of Manchester" shows Market Place in 1888 in much greater detail. Below is a sketch map I made based on that Goad Map. Above the Old Wellington Inn there is a Fishing Tackle shop which features in old postcards of the building. Where Market Place narrows and becomes Old Mill Gate, you can see a Seed Merchant shop which is shown in the photograph below. You can also see that the fish market has been replaced by a "Cotton Waste Exchange" and a series of shops. There is no shortage of public houses or restaurants in the area. The image below shows the southern corner of Market Place looking along Market Street. The Royal Exchange is on the right of the photograph. Today's Marks and Spencer store occupies the site of the block housing, among others, Beaty Bros Tailors. In 1935 Market Place is still
there across from the
Royal Exchange. (The map below is shown with the generous permission of
Eric Rowland the creator of the
genealogy web site - Artus
Genealogy Resources.)
During the bombing in WWII large areas of the city centre were destroyed or so badly damaged that demolition followed soon after. So, fast forward now to 1953 and you can see the site in this RAF aerial photograph (shown with the permission of English Heritage). The building that stood on the corner of Market Street and Market Place is still there, as is the Shambles directly behind it. However, Beaty Bros Tailors has gone, as have most of the buildings that once stood on that block. For a few years after the war Manchester had a large number of outdoor car parks until the post-war redevelopment began. |