The grade 2-listed Manchester Victoria station was the venue for a SPAG tour of the station’s memorials and buildings on 17 November 2023, and for a reminder about the history of how the railway network developed in the north of England.

Starting at the original 1843 Italianate station on Hunts Bank – re-named that year as Manchester Victoria Station – we then went into the 1909 extension of the station to the beautifully decorated Edwardian restaurant, now a working bar, to marvel at the glass dome and the mosaic lettering of various rest rooms outside.

Part of the original 1843 Italianate building of Hunts Bank Station

The dome of the Edwardian restaurant

On the inside of the station, we saw the memorial – flanked by bronze reliefs of the military saints St Michael and St George – to 1850 railwaymen of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway who fell in World War 1.

Above this memorial is the tiled wall map of what were the rail connections of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway before its amalgamation with other rail companies in 1924 to become the London, Midland and Scottish (LMS) railway.

Tiled wall map, with war memorial below

One member of the group remembered seeing the actual miniature rail track, complete with signals, that was used to teach signalling on the third floor of the station between 1913 and 1995. It was then moved to the National Railway Museum in York, and there are still regular displays of how the system works:

https://www.railwaymuseum.org.uk/whats-on/signalling-demonstration

We learned that the current platform 3 of the station became the longest railway platform in Europe (at 682m) when it was linked to Manchester Exchange station in 1929.

We visited two more simple – yet moving – memorials: the “Soldiers’ Gate” plaque, commemorating all those soldiers who went to war through the doorway to board trains in the area that was then the fish dock:

and the memorial to the 22 victims of the Arena bombing on 22 May 2017:

 

 

The tour finished with the group listening to a poem called “And the Bees still Buzz” by Ryan Willams which was composed and displayed at Manchester Victoria very soon after the Arena tragedy:

https://allyourprettywords.tumblr.com/post/161037821553/our-manchester-ryan-williams

and here is a performed version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQ8pckytSH8

Chris Ainsworth

All the above photographs are confirmed to have been taken by the author.