//
Photo: R lee, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
The site of the former St. John's Church has become central Manchester's most beautiful park. Come here in the summer to see the flowers and bring some bread for the hundreds of birds that make St. John's their home.
St John's Gardens in central Manchester, England, lies between Lower Byrom Street, Byrom Street and Quay Street. Previously occupied by St John's Church and its graveyard between 1769 and 1931, the site was redeveloped into a formal garden in 1932. It contains a central memorial to the church and those buried in its graveyard, whose tombstones have been covered over by 18 inches (460 mm) of soil except for that of John Owens, founder of Owen's College.
© OpenStreetMap contributors
This is a great museum for those interested in technology and industrial heritage: sited at one end of the world's first passenger railway line. The working cotton weaving machines are particularly worth experiencing. Catch one of their regular demonstrations of their operation. There is also the opportunity to explore the city's former sewers (now fully cleaned!) to get an idea of the living (and dying) conditions of Manchester's cotton workers. Most impressive of all is the huge collection of working engines in the Power Hall (closed until 2024), powered by steam, gas, water, you name it. The museum also hosts the first steam train (and with it, the first ever vehicle to run faster than a horse), as well as the first programmable computer with a cathode ray tube memory.
16-screen cinema multiplex. Shows the usual Hollywood movies.
Victorian railway viaduct transformed into a 'sky park' Advance booking essential. Check website. Open on an experimental basis until summer 2023.
New landmark building containing performance spaces and new home to the Manchester International Festival. Opening in June 2023.
Manchester Central (formerly "G-MEX") was once Manchester Central railway station and it carries the air of many of the grand stations in London with its enormous arched steel frame and giant railway clock. These days it is home to Manchester's largest exhibitions and fairs. Attached is the much newer and thoroughly unimpressive International Conference Centre.