Trees, flowers and Manchester city centre green spaces tour
3pm Saturday 24 May, 11am Sunday 25 May 2025
£20 (children under 12 free)
This is collaboration tour with Manchester Accommodation BID taking place during the Manchester Flower Festival. Some of the gardens we visit feature on this map, the script of which I wrote for CityCo.
Saturday's tour will include Parsonage Gardens, Glade of Light, Cathedral Gardens, Angel Meadow.
Sunday's tour will include Parsonage Gardens, Lincoln Square, St John's Gardens, Aviva Studios and Viaducts, Deansgate Square.
Parks, pocket parks, old parks, new parks and gardens that were graveyards. Canals, wharfsides, rivers and rivers that become canals. There’s a lot to enjoy with the ‘green’ and ‘blue’ assets (to use the jargon) of central Manchester and Salford.
Variety is the spice of life dictated by the way the city grew and the need of its infrastructure. For a city 35 miles from the sea there is a lot of water. Rivers you’d expect, but miles and miles of canal add a distinctive element to the urban scene. Rivers and canals feature in many of our chosen areas.
What must be remembered about the city is the distinctive way it grew; first and foremost as an industrial city with commerce chivvying things along. The development speed astonished all commentators, nationally and internationally, as acre after acre of land filled with factories, warehouses and mainly working-class housing. So, it’s a curious thing that none of the spaces we visit were planned nineteenth century parks. They are either adaptations from redundant graveyards or date from the last 25 years or so.
What just about all of them share is a backstory with great significance. It makes them all the more enjoyable.
Meet and finish: St Ann’s Square Flower Festival stand
Tickets:
£20 adults
Under 12s free
Duration: most tours last between ninety minutes and two hours
Saturday's tour will include Parsonage Gardens, Glade of Light, Cathedral Gardens, Angel Meadow.
Sunday's tour will include Parsonage Gardens, Lincoln Square, St John's Gardens, Aviva Studios and Viaducts, Deansgate Square.
Parks, pocket parks, old parks, new parks and gardens that were graveyards. Canals, wharfsides, rivers and rivers that become canals. There’s a lot to enjoy with the ‘green’ and ‘blue’ assets (to use the jargon) of central Manchester and Salford.
Variety is the spice of life dictated by the way the city grew and the need of its infrastructure. For a city 35 miles from the sea there is a lot of water. Rivers you’d expect, but miles and miles of canal add a distinctive element to the urban scene. Rivers and canals feature in many of our chosen areas.
What must be remembered about the city is the distinctive way it grew; first and foremost as an industrial city with commerce chivvying things along. The development speed astonished all commentators, nationally and internationally, as acre after acre of land filled with factories, warehouses and mainly working-class housing. So, it’s a curious thing that none of the spaces we visit were planned nineteenth century parks. They are either adaptations from redundant graveyards or date from the last 25 years or so.
What just about all of them share is a backstory with great significance. It makes them all the more enjoyable.
Meet and finish: St Ann’s Square Flower Festival stand
Tickets:
£20 adults
Under 12s free
Duration: most tours last between ninety minutes and two hours