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The
Grocer's Warehouse
 If you follow
Castle Street off Deansgate, you walk under a
wonderful skewed bridge into Castlefield.
Just beyond the bridge, you will find a terraced
area that looks out over the canal basin.
 An interpretive notice board and a large cogwheel, used as a instructive plaque, draw your attention to the fact that this was once the site of the Grocer's Warehouse.  On closer examination it becomes apparent that this terraced area is in fact a partial reconstruction of that warehouse. This becomes clearer when you walk down the staircase to canal level.  Even prior to the
construction of the original Grocer's Warehouse this
was the site of the wharf where coal, from the Duke
of Bridgewater's mines near Worsley, was unloaded
from barges. The coal was lifted up to street
level by water powered machinery. Over time
warehouses were built around this canal basin and in
1811, on this site, Hugh Henshall, who was the
brother-in-law of James Brindley the builder of the
Bridgewater Canal, constructed a warehouse. He
sold that warehouse to the Manchester Grocer's
Company since when it has been known as the Grocer's
Warehouse. As you can see below, the warehouse
had two channels that allowed the barges to float
into the building to facilitate unloading using the
water powered machinery.
 The warehouse can be seen on the map of 1849, shown below. You will also notice that the Manchester Grocer's also had a yard on nearby Liverpool Street.  The warehouse had survived for 149 years when it was finally demolished in 1960. It can be seen in the aerial photograph below taken in 1953. The red arrow indicates the Grocer's Warehouse.   The
reconstruction that you can see today was
created by the Manchester City Council in 1987
with the support of the Department of the
Environment.
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