Mancunian Wave is one year old today...

Two of the Albion Street sculptures, first featured here almost a year ago at: http://mancunianwave.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/walking-in-clouds-first-street-and.html

The Mancunian Wave blog is one year old today. Thank you for all the support I have received from everyone, in Manchester and far, far beyond. I am amazed to have received over 42,000 hits and had visitors from more than 120 countries.

The vibrant Manchester blogging scene, the creative and dedicated city bloggers around the world and the City Daily Photo portal have led me to some valued new friendships with like-minded people. You can see some links to many of these in the right hand margin.

I have enjoyed the past year of blogging so much- it has made me look at my adopted city and its suburbs and countryside with fresh eyes, and I am raring to go for Year Two.

Dunham Massey green room

The 18th century mansion at Dunham Massey is open to the public again (the wonderful grounds and winter garden are open throughout the year). There are some impressive rooms and opulence aplenty here. The architect of the building fell to his death through the roof during the final stages of construction and it is said that he still haunts the hall to this very day...

The area has been noted since Anglo Saxon times, with "dun" meaning hill. Dunham was the seat of the Masseys. The importance of Dunham is further emphasised in the de Massey family havng three castles in the area, namely Dunham Castle and Watch Hill Castle on the Dunham Massey border with Bowdon, and Ullerwood Castle in Hale. In 1409 the estate came into the hands of the Booth family and George Booth started work on the present building in 1616.

Easter Sunday church conversion

This is St. George's Church on Arundel Street, in Hulme (or in Castlefield or the Southern Gateway, depending on how you choose to label the area). Originally built in the 1820s, it lay forlorn and derelict by the 1990s but was then renovated into some magnificent apartments. I was so pleased the chutch was not demolished and it had new life breathed into it as it rose again. Happy Easter everyone.

More on the story of St George's at: http://manchesterhistory.net/manchester/outside/stgeorge.html

Every day I ♥ everyday Mcr (mostly)...

Yes, I ♥ much of everyday Mcr, most of the time. Not of all Greater Manchester's 2.5 million residents by any means, and, likewise proportionately not really that many of the 7 million people who live in the north-west.

But I wouldn't argue with John Leland who in his 1538 Itinerary (that's the year not the mid-afternoon) wrote that: 
"Mancestre...is the fairest, best buildied, quikkest and most populus Tounne of al Lancastreshire."

And to some extent I would agree with Chris Lethbridge, who in Change and Contradiction, Diverse City (1994) stated: 
"By no stretch of the imagination is Manchester a picturesque city. It is however, emphatically if unconventionally beautiful. In common with all things beautiful...It is fundamentally flawed. It has a compulsion to preen and show off. It is narcissistic, contrary and wayward, and yet you cannot help but love it. It is both admirable and maddening."

The Manchester Passion Play

The Manchester Passion was a BBC3 tv production for Easter 2006. A modern day setting for the story of the Crucification, filmed live in the streets of Manchester and set to Manchester music. It's an hour long but well worth setting aside time to watch (or to see again) if you are at home over Easter, regardless of your religious beliefs (or lack of).

Music included Love Will Tear Us Apart (Joy Division); Search For A Hero (M People); Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now (The Smiths); Blue Monday (New Order) and Wonderwall (Oasis). Tim Booth of James played Judas Iscariot.

An august Spring afternoon

One of many hot afternoons in the city last week. A beautiful tree-lined Whitworth Street West, a slight heat haze, summer dresses and shirt sleeves, people knocking off work early to soak up sunshine and smoothies, San Miguel, Samuel Smiths and ciders outside canalside bars- it must be Manchester in midsummer spring...

That's "august" as in inspiring reverence or admiration, or of grandeur, and not as in the month... ;->

ABC Wednesdays: L is for Lillian, 99 years since Suffragette protest

Today we visit the City Art gallery, built in MDCCCXXXVIII. It's 99 years and one day since suffragettes Annie Briggs, Evelyn Manesta and Lillian Forrester demonstrated at the Manchester City Art gallery (3 April 1913). It was part of the brave movement to achieve votes for women and another necessary step in the long - and ongoing- struggle to try and achieve gender equality in the UK.   

Lillian Forrester made a statement stating that “we broke the glass of some pictures as a protest but we did not intend to damage the pictures”. They had supporters in the gallery who unfurled a Votes for Women banner. The full history, or herstory, is at the ever excellent Radical Manchester blog.

If you haven't worked it what year MDCCCXXXVIII is in Roman numerals is, then highlight the space between here and the exclamation mark  1838 !

Linked to ABC Wednesdays , the Sesame Street of the blogging world. This week featuring the letter "L"...

This gulf between us...

It's 8 o'clock on the misty morning of what developed into a blazing hot spring Sunday.

If the early bird catches the worm, does the early golfer get the birdie? Either way I must admit to there being a large gulf between myself and golf fanatics, but I was grateful for this photo opportunity as I walked the dog.

Linked to the Pacific North West Weekly Top Shot blog and linked to the Our World Tuesday blog.

Street Art: Big bird on Port Street

It's difficult to take a photo of this street art without some shadows from buildings interfering but I finally found a window - around 1.00 p.m is best at this time of year. Either way it looks so much better on a sunny day like those we have been blessed with of late than on a grey day.

It's on Port St in what is now an impromptu car parking area but was probably once a building. I often wonder what was in the space originally-my guess is a building that had to be demolished due to World War II damage.

Linked to Monday Murals at the Oakland Daily Photo blog

Theme Day: Cobblestones

Jutland Street is on one of the few hills in the city centre and apparently the steepest street. The photo doesn't do its incline justice, despite my taking quite a few to try and capture it. People jog up residential Jutland Street too, it's not an April Fool joke, see photo below. 

Thrice named, it was formerly known as Stony Brow then Junction Street and eventually Jutland Street, after the major naval battle of Jutland in World War I. You can go for a virtual drive down the cobblestones of Jutland Street.

With the City Daily Photo Blog portal currently out of action, Julie of Sydney Eye has created a page where participants in the April 1st theme (Cobblestones) can register their posts on a linky. See CDPB theme day .

Jutland Street joggers