Jonathan Schofield Manchester Tours
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  • EXCLUSIVE TOUR: New Century Tour, perfection in design from 1963
  • FREE Castlefield - the 2,000 year guestlist
  • Manchester Necropolis: rattle my bones
  • FREE Scientists, sinners and graveyards: A Tale of Two Citie
  • Literary Manchester: A city in words
  • Heaton Hall and Park Tour
  • Halloween tours
  • EXCLUSIVE: 'Boldest Building' Tour, Edgar Wood Centre
  • EXCLUSIVE: Refuge/ Kimpton Clock Tower Hotel
  • EXCLUSIVE Hallé St Peter’s & Ancoats Tour NEW
  • Saturday Walkabout Series: Music, Pubs, Ghosts
  • EXCLUSIVE: Mayfield Station tours
  • The Tour of Uninteresting Objects
  • Secrets of Angel Meadow and the Irk ValleyAir, Scuttlers, Lost Churches and Hidden Stories
  • EXCLUSIVE Salford Lads Club and Middlewood Locks
  • Secrets of Chapel Street & Greengatel Park
  • EXCLUSIVE: Ordsall Hall and Manchester Ship Canal tour
  • Sleazy & Sinister Mcr
  • Secrets of Ancoats & New Islington
  • Stockport Secrets
  • Secrets of Littleborough
  • The Secrets of Gorton Monastery
  • April Fool's Day Tour - The Incredibly Serious Tour
  • Knutsford Secrets
  • Friedrich Engels And Karl Marx Tours
  • Secrets of Fairfield Moravian Settlement
  • The Death & Beer Tour 2022
  • Secrets of Rochdale town centre
  • Secret Tunnels Tour
  • Didsbury, Kersal, Quays tours
  • Death, Beauty & Beer Tour of Brooklands and Sale
  • Magical Manchester Mystery Tour - by bike
  • Whalley Range & Alexandra Park
  • Peterloo Massacre: The Reality & The Drama
  • Castlefield, St Johns, First Street
  • ​Chorlton tour
  • The Secrets of Middleton
  • The Day The World Got Smaller Tour
  • Truly Madly Brutal
  • The Pan-African Congress, Slavery, and Thomas Clarkson Tour: A Manchester Anniversary Tour
  • Suffragettes, Women & Manchester
  • Talk: Lost Buildings of Manchester & Salford
  • Platt Fields, Birch Fields and Rusholme Tour
  • The Prestwich Tour: The surprising Manchester series
  • Tour Diary: Confessions of a guide
  • Some tours
  • The Zoom Tours series
  • Loyalty card/scheme
  • EXCLUSIVE: Chetham's Library and College House
  • First Wednesday Spinningfields Series 2020
  • Exclusive: 35 King St & Georgian Manchester
  • Secrets of the University of Manchester with interior visits
  • Totally Manchester - a general tour of the city
  • Architecture & Planning: why does Manchester look like it does?
  • Bombed & Besieged: Manchester at War
  • Some Published Articles On Manchester's Present, its Heritage and Tourism
  • Secrets of the Northern Quarter
  • The Rollicking Pub Tour
  • The Surprising Manchester Series: Old Trafford
  • The Surprising Manchester Series: Bradford & Clayton
  • EXCLUSIVE: Kampus tours, the abandoned warehouses
  • Incredible Interiors
  • Shock, Surprise, Prose & Verse: Manchester and Literature
  • Ford Madox Brown and Pre-Raphaelite Manchester
  • Podcasts
  • Lost Graveyards and the Dead
  • Return to 1421: The Old Towne and Medieval Manchester
  • Suggested Private Tours
  • Anthony Burgess and Literary Manchester Tour
  • Great Northern Tunnel Tour
  • 1840s Manchester: The Key Decade, talk and tour
  • Burns Night Tour Monday 25 January
  • Fire Station Tours: Calling Photographers & Sketchers
  • Manchester City of Art Tour
  • Valentine's Day tour 14 February
  • The Gallery
  • The Ghosts of Afflecks & the Northern Quarter
  • New Manchester Squares Tour
  • The Manchester Guardian is 200 tour
  • The Understanding Architecture Series
  • FREE The Hidden Rivers Tour

Old Trafford: The Surprising City Series

The Greatest Art Exhibition ever, Botanical Gardens and Mighty Sport 

Old Trafford may be known the world over for football and cricket but there is much more to this incredibly significant suburb.

At one time it was Manchester’s 'West End', a Bowdon before Bowdon, and it hosted two of the greatest exhibitions ever held on these islands including the 1857 Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition, which remains the largest temporary art exhibition ever held on the planet - as recently featured on Mary Beard’s BBC2 episode of Civilisations.

On the tour there are also tales of war time bombing, botanical gardens, regattas, eccentric scientists and a woman who would write 101 Dalmations. There are grand ideas and great locations.

Of course, football and cricket are mentioned, but guests will discover that Old Trafford has a world of history, present and future,beyond the mighty institutions of Manchester United and Lancashire County Cricket Club.


Meet: The Tollgate Pub, Seymour Grove, Old Trafford. M16 0LN. 

BOOKING AHEAD IS ADVISABLE.

The booking confirmation from Paypal acts as your ticket, so please print and bring along or have it ready on your smart phone or other device.

Jonathan Schofield may not be guiding all the tours. In this case other fully qualified guides will be leading the events. 

PLEASE CHECK THIS WEBSITE 24 HOURS BEFORE THE TOUR IN CASE A SITUATION ARISES WHICH MAY AFFECT THE TOUR. IF YOU WISH TO SEND YOUR PHONE NUMBER I CAN TEXT IF THERE IS AN ISSUE AS WELL.
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