St Michael's Flags and Angel Meadow Park
St Michael's Flags and Angel Meadow Park is a public park to the immediate northeast of Manchester city centre, in North West England. Located on a slope between the River Irk and Rochdale Road occupies an area of 7.4 acres (3 ha), but features in the formative history of Manchester. It was once an affluent suburb of Manchester, until the 19th-century Industrial Revolution altered the social standing of the area and introduced poverty and disease. Regeneration of the park in the 2000s has however modified the area and created a gateway into the Irk Valley.[1]
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[edit] History
St Michael's and All Angel's church was built in 1788 by Humphrey Owen, to seat just over a thousand people. Its foundation stone was laid on May 20, 1788 and it was consecrated on July 23, 1789. Almost twenty years later, a letter appeared in the Manchester Guardian declaring "Why one of the ugliest churches in Manchester situated in one of the most crowded and notorious parts of the City, should have so long enjoyed the pleasant sounding name 'St Michael's, Angel Meadow' is beyond understanding".[2]
The land adjacent to the church became the largest cemetery in Manchester, used for the interment of those who had no family place of burial or were too poor to afford a proper funeral. The population density of Angel Meadow in the mid-19th century was in excess of 350 per acre,[3] and as social and living conditions worsened some resorted to digging up the cemetery and selling its soil as fertilizer to nearby farmers. The situation became so bad that an Act of Parliament was passed in 1855 to cover up graveyards with flagstones, hence the name, St Michael's Flags.
In 1844, the Oldham Road terminus of the Manchester–Leeds Railway was abandoned and the line extended through Collyhurst to a new link station at Hunts Bank – the first Victoria Station. A railway viaduct traversed Angel Meadow, whilst the obnoxious smells from the Irk and Irwell and the Gould street gas works darkened the landscape.
The mixture was ladled further by aromas from the tannery, the dyeworks, the iron foundry, the brewery, the tripe works and rotting vegetation from the Smithfield market, all added together with the neighborhood’s fried fish and bad sanitation smells, one would agree that the cauldron of Angel Meadow was indeed a potent brew.[4]—James Stanhope-Brown, Angels from the Meadow
Ragged schools, such as Charter Street and Sharp Street, and other institutes for abandoned, destitute and neglected children, flourished in the area:
Each winter, thousands of poor, helpless children are provided with food, clogs and clothing; and every Sunday morning during the season, hundreds of destitute men and women are served with breakfast; and we try, by God’s help and the bestowal of a word of comfort and cheer, to arouse in them a feeling of hope which may lead them to a higher and noble life.[5]—Ellen Casey, Christmas Appeal 1901 by Thomas Johnson
[edit] Regeneration
Friends of Angel Meadow (FOAM) was formed in 2004 to campaign for the regeneration of the park and to research the history of the area. Over £200,000 was raised through grants and match funding, which was spent re-landscaping the park, installing street furniture including seating and bins, erecting four solar-powered street lights, an arched entrance way and planting wildflowers. The Local Heritage Grant of £24,000 paid for six history boards and the publication of an information booklet.
In the spring of 2006, the park hosted the BBC and Manchester Leisure's Springwatch Festival of Nature. In 2006 and 2007 it was awarded the Green Flag Award, the national award for green spaces in England and Wales.[6]
On 1st May 2010, the park was used as a location by artist Spencer Tunick for his installation 'Everyday People'[7], part of the The Lowry's 10th Anniversary celebration.
[edit] References
- Notes
- ^ "St Michael’s Flags and Angel Meadow". The Irk Valley Project. http://www.irkvalley.info/sites/stmichaels.html. Retrieved 2007-11-05.
- ^ Extract from North and East Manchester article, December 28, 1808
- ^ Makepeace 1984, p. 20
- ^ Angels from the Meadow, by James Stanhope-Brown.
- ^ Extract from article by Ellen Casey – Christmas Appeal 1901 by Thomas Johnson
- ^ "St Michael's and Angel Meadow". Green Flag Award. http://www.greenflagaward.org.uk/winners/winners_detail.asp?sectionId=22&parentId=23&pageId=23&awardId=GF&gsId=GF00652. Retrieved 2007-11-04.[dead link]
- ^ "Everyday People". Lowry. http://www.thelowry.com/events/everyday-people/home/. Retrieved 2010-05-09.
- Bibliography
- Makepeace, Chris E. (1984), Science and Technology in Manchester: Two Hundred Years of the Lit. and Phil., Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society Publications, ISBN 0902428047
[edit] Further reading
- Busteed M. Angel Meadow:The Irish and Cholera in Manchester From Exploring Greater Manchester: A Fieldwork Guide edited by Paul Hindle
[edit] External links
- Friends of Angel Meadow
- The Guardian article April 24, 2005
- Manchester Evening News article March 22, 2003
- Groundwork Manchester, Salford & Trafford Ltd
- Local Heritage Initiative Website with photos of the FOAM and links to an electronic copy of the history booklet
- The fifth biodiversity hotspot award goes to Angel Meadows
