For some, a stately home does it. For others, a converted barn. For me, anything rail-related hits the spot. It’s partly respect for transport and proper jobs. It’s also because I was born and raised 1.2 miles (or a mile and 16 chains in the parlance) south of the world’s first inter-city railway line – the Liverpool and Manchester, which opened on 15 September 1830. Though never a full-blown spotter, I got the transport bug watching 47s and Deltics rumbling along the tracks between St Helens Junction and Newton-le-Willows. Despite the delays and dysfunction that make rail travel so irksome today, I still love trains.
It is then a childish buzz as well as a grown-up, heritage-inspired delight to be spending a couple of nights in the Station Agent’s House, the Landmark Trust’s new property in Castlefield, Manchester. The area, at the southern end of main drag Deansgate, is one of the city’s oldest, though its iron bridges and merchants’ warehouses are now overshadowed by high-rise apartment blocks.
The conservation charity’s first venture in Manchester is a handsome three-storey Georgian house with a showpiece first-floor living and dining area, two double and two twin bedrooms, with gorgeous mid-century fixtures and fittings throughout – ideal for big families and gatherings of up to eight people. Vintage posters in the hallways, model trains in the study and a library packed with local history books (and Bradshaw’s guides) drive home the railway connections. There’s also a luxuriously deep bathtub on the second floor with a blushingly intimate view of trains passing along the Ordsall Chord – the railway line that reopened in 2017 to connect Manchester’s two main stations, Victoria and Piccadilly. Rail fans can record numbers while soaking and sipping champagne.
“Station agent” might not sound like a lofty title, but the first resident of the house, Joseph Green, was also the man who managed the building next door, Liverpool Road Station, the “oldest surviving railway station in the world”. This was where the Northumbrian – the upgraded Rocket-style locomotive used for the inauguration – arrived following its epoch-making journey from Crown Street railway station in Liverpool. The Liverpool Road station only operated until 1844 – newly opened Manchester Victoria was more modern and capacious – but a goods yard remained until 1975 and the original buildings are still there.
The concept of a railway station was as novel as the railway itself. Some stops along the line were mere “halts”. All the paraphernalia that would come to define rail travel in the future were first seen here: waiting rooms, signals, tickets, ticket offices. Mr Green and his staff would have had to educate and reassure passengers, who had no idea about the multi-horsepower speeds generated by locos; some got off to stretch their legs and were surprised to note the train had travelled on beyond a catching-up distance.
The original departure platform runs along the house’s rear wall. Work is taking place to seal it and guests will eventually be able to go out and stand there to whistle for ghost trains. I go out on to the street to get my bearings. On the right or west side is Water Street. Mancunian engineers William Fairbairn and Eaton Hodgkinson built a skewed cast-iron bridge across it – replaced in 1904 by the present one. A sandstone viaduct built by George Stephenson, still standing, crosses the Irwell to Salford. Arrivals took place on a platform between the river and Water Street. A ramp was installed for passengers and livestock to ascend to track-level.
A few steps from “my” front door is an elegant doorway with an overlight, the station entrance for first-class passengers. The second-class booking office and upper-floor waiting room are a little further along. There used to be shops along here, but restoration work has returned the frontage to its original appearance. Across the road is the Commercial; another world first, this former purpose-built railway hotel, later a pub, is being rebuilt as a 39-room hotel.
I go into the Science and Industry Museum to see the heart of the site. The permanent exhibits, on textiles, scientific discoveries and Rolls-Royce, are in the former New (or Great Western) Warehouse, built in 1882. From a yard at the rear I can see the other side of the station agent’s house as well as various other warehouses and goods sheds which are gradually being conserved and opened to the public.
All of this could be overwhelming, and a bit monothematic, if trains aren’t your bag, if all Castlefield did was railways. But it’s one of Manchester’s most historically layered areas and wherever you look there are evocations of bygone eras – and, inevitably, redevelopments. The old Granada House television offices on Quay Street are being refurbed as a Soho House hotel and members’ club. The exterior set for Coronation Street was on nearby Grape Street; a copy of the Rover’s Return, with a replica facade, was built for tours. Granada vacated the site in 2007.
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Opposite the Science Museum’s entrance are the ornate, cast-iron-framed Upper and Lower Campfield Market Halls. The latter is destined to become a tech and media hub. Beside this is the park that contains the Roman ruins that give Castlefield its name: the Roman fort of Mamucium, dating from the first century. When I visited, groups were preparing for the aptly bacchanalian festivities of this year’s Pride festival. Above, on Castlefield viaduct, is the “park in the sky” managed by the National Trust; opened on a temporary basis in 2022, it will remain open until at least the end of December. Crisscrossing all of this are canals – the waterways that made the district a logistics nexus in the first place and led to the establishment of all the railway works.
Contemporary construction rubs against, and looms above, the Victoriana. Not 50 yards from the corner of the station agent’s house is Factory International, sometimes known as the Aviva Studios, also the headquarters of the Manchester international festival. The redevelopment areas north of here, called St John’s and Spinningfields, are predominantly taken up by flashy food and drink chains, co-living towers and sleek office blocks.
The skyscraper-obsessed redevelopment of Manchester has its detractors, allied as it is with the privatisation of pseudo-public spaces. When you see the finest of the remaining redbrick and cast-iron structures, you can’t help wondering what it would be like if Manchester had attempted to create its own version of Hamburg’s Speicherstadt and Kontorhaus district – a massive Unesco-listed “city of warehouses” that impresses for its architectural unity and volume? But Manchester’s warehouses horrified as well as awed visitors 200 years ago, and for every super mill there were thousands of airless, damp back-to-backs.
Since the 1980s, 45% of Greater Manchester’s historic mills have been lost. Save Britain’s Heritage’s September 2023 report identified 20 buildings – including pubs and bars, religious buildings and shops – at risk in the city centre alone. Heritage in aspic is a desultory experience, but I hope the aspirations of Atom Valley and Manc-hattan allow room for the past.
The railway, though, was once the future – and could be again if HS2 were to be rebooted. Whatever happens, the Station Agent’s House is saved for posterity. Everyone can see it, even if they don’t stay there. Look out for a naked man, or woman, with a Dictaphone and a glass of something if you happen to be riding by.
Prices for the Station Agent’s House start from £1,116 for a four-night midweek break; a three-night weekend break starts from £1,332. landmarktrust.org.uk