The Production of Space through a Shrine and Vendetta in Manchester: Lefebvre's Spatial Triad and the Regeneration of a Place Renamed Castlefield

Abstract

Like many other cities around the world, at the end of the twentieth century, Manchester was reimagined as post-industrial space. This research draws on Lefebvre's spatial triad focusing primarily on the struggles that this generated both within official public sector representations of space and between public sector representations and the representations of key amenity societies. The paper presents the findings of a case study analysis that reveals how the 1970s saw differing interests lay claim to the right to determine the spatial meaning and future of city-centre industrial space. The research deconstructs the (re)production of the Grade I listed Liverpool Road Station, the first train station in the world, and its conversion into the successful Museum of Science and Industry. The conclusions show that the 1970s (re)presentation of the station site facilitated its (re)production as a site of revalorised industrial heritage. The consequences were the “rediscovery” of the Castlefield area of the city, and the later reimagining of post-industrial Manchester in the 1990s, which continues in the twenty-first century.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Michael Keith for his invaluable comments on a previous version of this paper. The three anonymous referees offered invaluable comments as did the Journal Editor. The Department of Urban Environmental and Leisure Studies and the Faculty of Arts and Human Sciences at London South Bank University deserve my thanks for funding the research. The help of the archivists: Katherine Davis, Jan Hargreaves, Tony Lees and Paul Robertshaw is appreciated greatly.

Notes

 1. The Haçienda was located in a converted Victorian warehouse on the edge of Castlefield. The club opened in 1982 and Madonna made her British debut there in 1983 as did many bands of that era.

 2. The “first station” claim for the 1830 Liverpool Road Station, although open to challenge has never been disputed seriously, despite a letter (Wolfe, 1976) stating that North Road, Darlington was the world's oldest passenger station. This claim was rebutted (Hawcroft, 1976). In the case of the Stockton and Darlington Railway's claim, “no fare-paying passengers were steam-hauled thereon until 7 September 1833” (Radley, 1977 TNA).

 3. The CMDC (1988-1996) was the smallest of the central government imposed urban development corporations (UDCs) with an area of 470 acres (187 hectares). The CMDC area included the whole of the Castlefield Conservation Area of about 75 acres (30 hectares). The UDCs were established to carry out and facilitate property-led urban regeneration.

 4. This research grew out of a wider ongoing research project begun in 2004 which is exploring the regeneration of Manchester in which the importance of Castlefield became increasingly evident. So it is fair to say that the case chose me rather than the other way around. It became apparent over the years that the story of Castlefield's regeneration was not just about historic buildings or local authority planners—important though these are—it is replete with the multifarious elements of Lefebvre's spatial triad.

 5. The Castlefield archive for the purposes of the research is constituted by: the British Library Newspaper Archives (BLNA), English Heritage Archives (EHA), the Georgian Group Archives (GGA); the Greater Manchester County Records Office (GMCRO), the National Archives (England) (TNA) and the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry Archives (MMSIA). Each archive was visited several times during 2007 and 2008, except EHA archives where archived documents were requested by email and sent by post.

 6. The principal amenity societies encountered in the archives are: the London based Georgian Group (founded in 1932), the Victorian Society (Manchester Branch) (founded in 1958 by John Betjeman and Nikolaus Pevsner), the Manchester Conservation Areas and Historic Buildings Panel (founded about 1972), the Liverpool Road Station Society (founded in 1978).

 7. Frustrations included: documents with no author, date, or addressee and blurred carbon copies. More of a problem in building an archival account of the production of space is files with missing documents and the inexplicable incomplete records for all the meetings.

 8. A code after a reference indicates an archival data source, see footnote 5.

 9. Amenity Society presence at meetings to discuss the station peaked at 7 at a meeting in May 1978: The Civic Trust (1), Georgian Group (1), Liverpool Road Station Society (4), Buildings and Conservation Areas Advisory Panel (1), i.e. 50% of those present.

10. Mr Ivan Oswald Chance CBE, known as Peter, was auction house Christie's Chairman from 1958 until he retired in the autumn of 1974; he died 28 December 1984 (McLeod, 2008). The Georgian Group's Council in 1974 included: The Marquess of Anglesey, Sir John Betjeman CBE, Sir Hugh Casson RDI PRA FRIBA, The Duke of Grafton KG, The Lord Kennet, The Viscount Norwich, Sir Nikolaus Pevsner CBE PhD and Sir John Summerson CBE PSA ARIBA (Georgian Group Annual Report, 1974, GGA).

11. The Partnership consisting of the Manchester City Council, Greater Manchester Council and Salford City Council was a central government initiative established under the 1978 Inner Urban Areas Act.

12. A proportion of the output of Manchester textiles and other goods were traded for West Africans who were later enslaved. It is also claimed controversially that the Liverpool and Manchester Railway Company was funded partly by profits from the transatlantic trade (Fryer, 1984, p. 16).

13. One of the few physical memorialisations of this phase of the city's history—a statue of Abraham Lincoln—stands in Lincoln Square in the city centre. It is inscribed with his thanks to “The Workingmen of Manchester” for their support during the civil war (the Mill owners tended to support the Confederacy).