City Walking Tours

Discover Manchester

For the new visitor to Manchester this walk will orient you and give you some background history of the city, telling you about the Roman beginnings in Castlefield, taking you through the city centre and the major sites such as the Midland Hotel, Manchester Town Hall, the Royal Exchange and St Ann's Square before arriving at the Medieval centre of the town and Manchester Cathedral, adjoining the elegant shopping area.

Girl Power Manchester Style

Girl Power Walks:

A celebration of radical women in Manchester

This series of walks has been planned to coincide with Manchester Art Gallery’s autumn exhibition Angels of Anarchy: Women Artists and Surrealism (26 September – 10 January). Angels of Anarchy is a celebration of the powerful and revolutionary women who played a crucial, yet largely unknown, role in the surrealist art movement in the 20th century.

Angels of Anarchy

Join us to learn about the radical women of Manchester on a series of Weekend walks in October and November to coincide with Angels of Anarchy.

Starting at 1.00 at the Visitor Information Centre, Lloyd Street.

The walk takes about one and a half hours, ending at the Art Gallery. Dates;

14th Nov. 28th Nov.. 2nd Jan. 9th Jan.

£5.00 concessions £6.00 non- comcession

Manchester has a history of radical women too. Take a walk back with us to discover more about the strong, dedicated women who were determined to bring improvement and change to a whole generation. Before the Pankhnursts and their Suffrage movement, Manchester’s crusading women included female reformer Mary Fylde, Lydia Becker, theatre entrepreneur Annie Horniman and the superwoman of her day Elizabeth Raffald.

The role of women in society was championed by both wealthy and poorer members of ‘the fairer sex’, while some of Manchester’s great buildings would never have come into existence without these amazing women.

In the same way that Angels of Anarchy highlights the pioneering role of women artists in a field traditionally dominated by men, these Manchester walks highlight the achievements of a number of unforgettable women from the city’s history.

Victorian Manchester

A tale of two Manchesters in this story of life in Victorian times. Not all buildings were as beautiful as the Town Hall, hear about the lives of the people who lived and worked in the city centre, their trials and tribulations and some who managed to leave their mark on the city, not to mention the story of the Scuttlers!

The Northern Quarter

Visit the newest old part of Manchester! Along streets where the Rag Trade flourished and you could buy any pet, from a puppy to a snake; where today retro and Bohemian take the place of sweat shop and factory. Along Oldham Street to the Craft Centre, see the newest mews houses in the city and hear the stories of bygone times.

Ancoats and Angel Meadow

Away from the refined buildings of Albert Square and Mosley Street lived the mill and factory workers, the immigrants from the surrounding areas and beyond, all coming to seek their fortune in the first industrial city. Did they manage it? come along and judge for yourselves.

Canals under the City Streets

Follow the Rochdale Canal as it wends its way through the centre of Manchester from Castlefield to Piccadilly, passing through Deansgate Locks and under Oxford Rd.

Regeneration

As the first truly industrial city Manchester long had a reputation of being a' dark satanic town', today all that remains of those times are the canals and the newly remodelled mills and factories. Two areas have been transformed in this way; Spinningfield, by Deansgate and the area of Ancoats and New Islington. To see the modern success that is the original modern city of Manchester take a walk along the canals of Castlefield to Piccadilly or stroll through the new commercial quarter of Spinningfields.