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St Thomas’s Church, Ardwick Green North
The church was built in 1741, enlarged in 1771 and again in 1831, with a tower being added in 1836. Modest in appearance, it served an immensely wealthy population of cotton manufacturers and merchants and was once visited by George Frideric Handel, the famous composer, who played the organ there. This print dates from about 1850.
St Aloysius’ Roman Catholic Church, Park Place, off Higher Ardwick
This view from Park Street (later Harkness Street) shows the splendour of the church in its early days; Bishop Vaughan opened it in 1885. The church was familiar to generations of Gregorians who worshipped there on special occasions in the school’s year, such as Holydays of Obligation, Easter, Christmas, end-of-term Masses and the Feast of St Gregory on 12th March.
The Ardwick Empire
This fine and grand music hall stood on the corner of Hyde Road and Higher Ardwick, occupying the area that was once the garden of Ardwick Hall. It opened on 18th July 1904 and had taken a mere eight months to be built. It seated around 3,000 people.
The theatre was designed by the renowned theatre architect Frank Matcham, who was also responsible for a large number of theatres that are still operating today including the Buxton Opera House and the Everyman Theatre in Cheltenham.
Offering a traditional range of music hall acts and pantomime, the Ardwick Green Empire presented comedians, singers, animals, acrobats, and even water spectacles. The theatre aimed at high quality but popular entertainment. The enjoyment of the entertainment was aided by the architecture that provided good acoustics, ventilation, space and safety with an attractive décor.
In the 1920s, films were shown occasionally and by 1930 the theatre was purely a cinema.
In 1935, the Hippodrome Theatre on Oxford Road in Manchester was demolished to make way for the Art Deco Gaumont Cinema. At the same time the Ardwick Empire was refurbished and renamed the New Manchester Hippodrome. It was extensively modified to preserve the atmosphere of the original Hippodrome rather than the Empire itself, and was described at the time as: “The Hippodrome, renewed, at Ardwick Green in the structure of the Empire.” Early programmes at the New Hippodrome featured Larry Adler, Max Wall, and Joe Loss and his band. Popular musicals such as The White Horse Inn, Desert Song and The Student Prince also attracted large audiences. It would remain an iconic local landmark for over another 25 years.
In 1959, the theatre suffered a five-week closure due to a “shortage of suitable shows and variety acts”. This was the “writing on the wall”, as it were, for the theatre: a prophetic warning. On 22nd April 1961, after Tokyo had completed its two-week run, the theatre was closed. Responding to the ever-changing world of commercialised leisure, plans for a bowling alley were made, but a fire in February 1964 made the idea untenable. The building, such an iconic local landmark for generations of Gregorians, was demolished in the autumn of that year.
At one time artistes performing at the theatre took lodgings on Park (now Harkness) Street across the road from the school.
Cinemas at Ardwick
In the golden years of the cinema – the 1920s to the 1960s – Ardwick had three cinemas and a theatre (the Ardwick Empire), which, briefly, became a cinema. Reference to them is included here as they were part of the “Ardwick scene” for Gregorians.
The Coliseum, Ardwick
(Courtesy of Cinema Theatre Association, Tony Moss Collection)
The Coliseum was the oldest cinema and had seating for nearly 2,000 people. It was situated on the corner of Dolphin Street and Higher Ardwick, next to the Ardwick Empire.
The Ardwick Picture Theatre
(Courtesy of Cinema Theatre Association, Tony Moss Collection)
Opened on 24th December 1910 as the Victoria Picture Theatre, it had a seating capacity of 1,075 – all on a single floor. It was located on the corner of Hyde Road and Stockport Road at Ardwick Green, opposite the Ardwick Empire.
It was altered in 1920 with a circle seating 425 added, increasing the seating capacity to over 1,500. It re-opened as the Ardwick Picture Theatre with the D.W. Griffith production The Greatest Question and was advertised in the press as ‘Manchester’s largest and finest cinema’. Note the title ‘Talkies’; cinema-going became even more popular following the introduction of ‘talkies’ by the late 1920s. On the night of 11th March 1941, German Luftwaffe bombers targeted the Ardwick area. Seven bombs fell across Ardwick Green; one scored a direct hit on the Ardwick Picture Theatre and the building was set on fire. The film playing that week was The Westerner starring Gary Cooper. The bombing also did some damage to the dance hall of the adjacent Apollo Theatre. Damage to the Ardwick Picture Theatre was so bad that the building had to be demolished and the site was afterwards used for emergency water storage.
Ardwick Green, 1920
This picture postcard shows the scene at the east end of Ardwick Green. Among the park’s attractions were the bandstand, summer house and paddling pools. The park was maintained to a high ornamental standard and was neat and tidy.
The large jewel-shaped boulder, a feature which would become familiar to all Gregorians, was a glacial erratic, a geological remnant of the Great Ice Age. It appears to be green slate and was carried along from the Lake District and probably deposited nearby in glacial drift. Where it was originally found is not clear. There was, of course, a time when there was a long narrow ornamental lake and it is possible the erratic came from the excavations for this lake.
Little information exists on when the boulder was placed in the gardens, but pictures of the park in the early 1900s clearly show it as present.
A similar but much larger boulder can be seen in the quadrangle of the old Victoria University of Manchester off Oxford Road. Weighing over 20 tons, it was found in glacial drift 28 feet below the surface at the corner of Oxford Road and Ducie Street. It consists of ancient lava (andesite) and was carried by ice from its origin, Borrowdale, in the Lake District, during the Great Ice Age.
The underlying rock in this part of Manchester (including Ardwick) is a red sandstone, as can be seen in canal cuttings and along the banks of the River Medlock.
Milestone on the A6, Ardwick Green South
This old milestone, now listed by English Heritage, still stands set against the railings of Ardwick Green Park on its south side facing Coral Street. (See 1932 map.) The inscription, which is incomplete, reads:
11
Miles to
Wilmslow
184
Miles to
London
1 Mile to
The bottom line has disappeared beneath the pavement and should read Manchester. Note, on the photograph, the elongated antique ‘s’ in ‘Wilmflow’.
It has gone unnoticed by many people that in its present location the stone is not on the London road via Wilmslow. In fact, the stone as a milestone is in entirely the wrong place. In the early 1800s it stood in Oxford Road near to the corner of Clarendon Street. Later it was built into the wall of a shop two doors from Devonshire Street. This property was pulled down about 1860, and the milestone was removed to a yard in Trafford Street, Gaythorn, where it served the purpose of keeping cartwheels off the wall against which it was placed. As a result of the matter being discussed in the columns of the Manchester Guardian in 1874, the old landmark was once again removed and placed in its present position for preservation.
When asked how far was it to London, teachers at St Gregory’s merely had to remind pupils of this milestone, even though it was not quite in its original location.
Ardwick Territorial Army drill hall and offices
At the western end of Ardwick Green, near the corner of Downing Street and Ardwick Green North, stands the Territorial Army drill hall and offices. Erected in 1886, this eye-catching building has been a local landmark ever since and one familiar to all Gregorians.
This unique building is three storeys high, with rooftop crenellations in the style of the battlements of a medieval castle. It has a central entrance bay and a corner tower with a tall octagonal turret.
At one time this building was home to soldiers who fought in the Boer War. It was also the late home to the famous 8th Ardwicks, the Eighth Territorial Battalion of the Manchester Regiment. On 4th August 1914, the Battalion was mobilised from their headquarters here in Ardwick. They first set up camp near Hollingworth Lake near Littleborough and then, on 10th September 1914, they set sail from Southampton for Egypt. On 6th May 1915, they arrived at Gallipoli, where they fought in the Dardanelles campaign. In the park across the road from the drill hall is a monument to those who died in the Great War and other wars.
War memorial in Ardwick Green Park
The war memorial sited at the western end of Ardwick Green Park of the 8th Ardwick Battalion, commemorates the regiment’s battle honours in various wars. It is of a simple and dignified ‘Renaissance’ style, rising to a height of 24 feet and made of Portland stone, about 70 tons in weight. The base of three steps covers 14 feet each way and immediately above the steps is a massive square block, 4 feet in height. On the front face is carved the coat of arms of the City of Manchester and on the reverse the Sphinx, superscribed ‘Egypt’. Above are four ionic columns; one at each corner and the whole monument is crowned with a simple dome. In the space between the columns and reaching the full height are solid square centres on which the Battle of Honours of the Battalion are inscribed. The sides are headed by the names ‘GALLIPOLI’, ‘EGYPT’, ‘FLANDERS’ and ‘FRANCE’. On this side is the badge of the 8th Ardwick Battalion Regiment, together with a memorial to their contribution during the Second World War.
The memorial was unveiled in July 1921 by General Sir Ian Hamilton and it was reported that about 10,000 people had assembled around the Green to witness the ceremony.
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