JONATHAN SCHOFIELD TOURS
DON'T MISS THE NEW AND EXCLUSIVE TOUR: ST LUKE'S, CHEETHAM HILL, A MAGNIFICENT AND SPOOKY RUIN WITH A FABULOUS STORY
Upcoming public tours
All the tours are available as private or corporate tours. Tours can be customised to fit exactly the client's needs.
Every Saturday
The Saturday Walkabout Series
The Manchester Music Walkabout 1pm every Saturday
1.30pm & 3pm Exclusive: Ruined St Luke’s Church, Cheetham Hill, a very special tour for 2026
Imagine this as a tour. A ruined church, an overgrown graveyard, a gloomy crypt. There will be music and projections. This will be special, this will be spectacular.
In association with the North West Heritage Trust
October
Saturday 10 October
10am Secrets of the Northern Quarter and Piccadilly
There's art, sculpture, grand buildings and humble buildings and a lively street scene. This tour reveals the Northern Quarter and Piccadilly with all the good, the bad and the ugly.
3pm The Manchester Pub Walkabout
Total entertainment, brilliant stories, great fun
Sunday 18 October
10.30am Suffragettes, Women & the City: A Manchester Anniversary Tour
On 13 October 1905 the Suffragettes raised their first ‘Votes for Women’ banner. This was an epic moment in the fight for equal rights, this tour marks that and so many other heroic moments.
Sunday 18 October
12noon Secrets of Knutsford
An amazing town with amazing architecture and great stories. This is a really fun tour with some darker moments to add definition, so crazy sports, a mad Irishman, Elizabeth Gaskell, Richard Harding Watt and the tragedy of Alan Turing.
Saturday 31 October
10am The Pan-African Congress, Slavery, and Thomas Clarkson Tour: A Manchester Anniversary Tour
The city was at the heart of the anti-slavery movements in the UK and Empire yet its mainstay product, cotton, was largely slave-picked. Epic history and a contradiction explored.
4pm 6pm 8pm Halloween: The Ghosts of Manchester
A rip-roaring and fascinating tour of the haunted areas of Manchester, finishing in a dark place for a surprise.
DON'T MISS THE NEW AND EXCLUSIVE TOUR: ST LUKE'S, CHEETHAM HILL, A MAGNIFICENT AND SPOOKY RUIN WITH A FABULOUS STORY
Upcoming public tours
All the tours are available as private or corporate tours. Tours can be customised to fit exactly the client's needs.
Every Saturday
The Saturday Walkabout Series
The Manchester Music Walkabout 1pm every Saturday
1.30pm & 3pm Exclusive: Ruined St Luke’s Church, Cheetham Hill, a very special tour for 2026
Imagine this as a tour. A ruined church, an overgrown graveyard, a gloomy crypt. There will be music and projections. This will be special, this will be spectacular.
In association with the North West Heritage Trust
October
Saturday 10 October
10am Secrets of the Northern Quarter and Piccadilly
There's art, sculpture, grand buildings and humble buildings and a lively street scene. This tour reveals the Northern Quarter and Piccadilly with all the good, the bad and the ugly.
3pm The Manchester Pub Walkabout
Total entertainment, brilliant stories, great fun
Sunday 18 October
10.30am Suffragettes, Women & the City: A Manchester Anniversary Tour
On 13 October 1905 the Suffragettes raised their first ‘Votes for Women’ banner. This was an epic moment in the fight for equal rights, this tour marks that and so many other heroic moments.
Sunday 18 October
12noon Secrets of Knutsford
An amazing town with amazing architecture and great stories. This is a really fun tour with some darker moments to add definition, so crazy sports, a mad Irishman, Elizabeth Gaskell, Richard Harding Watt and the tragedy of Alan Turing.
Saturday 31 October
10am The Pan-African Congress, Slavery, and Thomas Clarkson Tour: A Manchester Anniversary Tour
The city was at the heart of the anti-slavery movements in the UK and Empire yet its mainstay product, cotton, was largely slave-picked. Epic history and a contradiction explored.
4pm 6pm 8pm Halloween: The Ghosts of Manchester
A rip-roaring and fascinating tour of the haunted areas of Manchester, finishing in a dark place for a surprise.
Click here for the full calendar which has more than ninety Greater Manchester tours covering more than forty themes for 2026. More than any other operator.
Public tours coming up.
All the tours are available as private or corporate tours.
This is what people are saying about the tours.
This is a 2024 podcast called We Built This City with Lisa Morton of Roland Dransfield
Buy three beautiful Mcr books by Jonathan Schofleld here.
Join The Manchester Talks Series to learn about Manchester's history and architectural styles across the region
Discussing the Manchester Bee on Radio 5 Live here.
You can read a profile of Jonathan Schofield here in The Guardian.
Most tours are dog-friendly
Do you want your building or area researched? Not just the architecture but the human stories associated with it? Mulligans pub did on Southgate Street.
The results proved fruitful.
Tom Dellow of Scoop who hired me certainly thought so.
Public tours coming up.
All the tours are available as private or corporate tours.
This is what people are saying about the tours.
This is a 2024 podcast called We Built This City with Lisa Morton of Roland Dransfield
Buy three beautiful Mcr books by Jonathan Schofleld here.
Join The Manchester Talks Series to learn about Manchester's history and architectural styles across the region
Discussing the Manchester Bee on Radio 5 Live here.
You can read a profile of Jonathan Schofield here in The Guardian.
Most tours are dog-friendly
Do you want your building or area researched? Not just the architecture but the human stories associated with it? Mulligans pub did on Southgate Street.
The results proved fruitful.
Tom Dellow of Scoop who hired me certainly thought so.
We approached Jonathan to do a deep dive into the history of Mulligans and the pub that came before it, The Waggon and Horses, and the results were fascinating. He uncovered loads of stories about the pub and the colourful characters connected to it, some more outrageous than others, plus maps and images that really bring it to life. His research has given us a brilliant insight into this Mancunian institution, from its opening in the 1820s to its transformation into Mulligans in 1990. I’d wholeheartedly recommend Jonathan for any research into buildings or places across Manchester.
Here's my favourite quote about Manchester in its nascent industrial days from Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society in 1785. Its meaning is self-evident and although it refers to science the sentiment applies to every other field of endeavour.
‘Men, however great their learning often become indolent and unambitious to improve in knowledge for want of associating with others of similar talents and improvements. But science, like fire, is put in motion by collision. Where a number of such men have frequent opportunities of meeting and conversing together, thought begets thought, and every hint is turned to advantage. A spirit of enquiry glows in every breast.’
‘Men, however great their learning often become indolent and unambitious to improve in knowledge for want of associating with others of similar talents and improvements. But science, like fire, is put in motion by collision. Where a number of such men have frequent opportunities of meeting and conversing together, thought begets thought, and every hint is turned to advantage. A spirit of enquiry glows in every breast.’