Manchester Tour: A Guide to the City’s Rebirth and Renewal

Journey into Manchester’s recent past and see how the city has rebuilt itself, sometimes literally, from the ashes. This walking tour takes you through the city center, Spinningfields, and Castlefield where you’ll hear key stories about Manchester’s journey from industrial relic to modern metropolis.

Our tour begins in front of Mackie Mayor food hall in the NOMA district, where dangerous slums have been replaced by ground-breakingly modern buildings like the National Football Museum. As you wind your way through the city centre, seeing the wonderful Mancunian mix of old and new, you’ll learn about the factory owner who wanted a worker’s revolution, Manchester’s most terrifying days and nights, the scruffy statue of Abraham Lincoln, and what happened to the Hacienda night club. On the way to the Midland hotel where our tour ends, I’ll show you a perfectly adequate Manchester Cathedral, and a theatre hidden inside the Royal Exchange Building.

Along the way you’ll have the chance to:

• Visit Sadler’s Yard and hear about James Sadler, the first Englishman to take to the skies in a hot air balloon, who once brought a cat with him
• See the desk where Karl Marx worked while writing the communist manifesto in Chetham's Library
• Have a drink in the bustling Shambles Square
• Do some shopping in the Arndale centre or Market Street
• Take in Manchester City Council, our townhall, while enjoying a drink on Albert Square
• Sip on refreshing cocktails in Spinningfields
• Shoot your own atmospheric thriller movie
• Walk along an old railway with the best views of the modern city
• Spot hidden horses along the canal
• Find Old Granada Studios where Dragons’ Den and RuPaul's Drag Race UK are filmed

By the end of this 90-minute tour, you’ll be left with a sense of excitement – not only for what Manchester is now, but what it might become.