Quay Street is a street in the

city centre A city centre is the commercial, cultural and often the historical, political, and geographic heart of a city. The term "city centre" is primarily used in British English, and closely equivalent terms exist in other languages, such as "" in Fren ...

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The ...

, England. The street, designated the A34, continues Peter Street westwards towards the

River Irwell The River Irwell ( ) is a tributary of the River Mersey in north west England. It rises at Irwell Springs on Deerplay Moor, approximately north of Bacup and flows southwards for to meet the Mersey near Irlam. The Irwell marks the boundary b ...

and

Salford Salford () is a city and the largest settlement in the City of Salford metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. In 2011, Salford had a population of 103,886. It is also the second and only other city in the metropolitan county afte ...

. It is the northern boundary of

Spinningfields Spinningfields is an area of Manchester city centre, in North West England, developed in the 2000s between Deansgate and the River Irwell by Allied London Properties. The £1.5 billion project consists of twenty new buildings, totalling approxima ...

, the city's business district and

Castlefield Castlefield is an inner-city conservation area in Manchester, North West England. The conservation area which bears its name is bounded by the River Irwell, Quay Street, Deansgate and Chester Road. It was the site of the Roman era fort of Mam ...

, the historical area of the city lies to the south. Quay Street was created in the 18th century for access to a quay on the river and is lined by several

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern I ...

s. Edward Byrom built a quay on the River Irwell in the 1730s and the street was built to link it to

Deansgate Deansgate is a main road (part of the A56) through Manchester City Centre, England. It runs roughly north–south in a near straight route through the western part of the city centre and is the longest road in the city centre at over one mile ...

which was then known as Aldport Lane. In 1794 it was extended eastwards to

Mosley Street Mosley Street is a street in Manchester, England. It runs between its junction with Piccadilly Gardens and Market Street to St Peter's Square. Beyond St Peter's Square it becomes Lower Mosley Street. It is the location of several Grade II and ...

Richard Cobden Richard Cobden (3 June 1804 – 2 April 1865) was an English Radical and Liberal politician, manufacturer, and a campaigner for free trade and peace. He was associated with the Anti-Corn Law League and the Cobden–Chevalier Treaty. As a you ...

's red brick townhouse, built in the Georgian style was the first home of

Owens College Owens may refer to: Places in the United States * Owens Station, Delaware * Owens Township, St. Louis County, Minnesota * Owens, Missouri * Owens, Ohio * Owens, Virginia People * Owens (surname), including a list of people with the name * Ow ...

and afterwards Manchester County Court. It is a Grade II* listed building. In the 1840s

Harry Stokes Harry Stokes (c1799 – 15 October 1859) was a master bricklayer, beerhouse manager and special constable in Manchester. He was assigned a female gender at birth but lived as a man. Harry had two long-term relationships with women, both of whi ...

, Manchester's 'female husband', ran a beerhouse at numbers 3 - 5 Quay Street. The Hospital for Skin Diseases was in Quay Street. The

Opera House An opera house is a theatre building used for performances of opera. It usually includes a stage, an orchestra pit, audience seating, and backstage facilities for costumes and building sets. While some venues are constructed specifically fo ...

, formerly the New Theatre, was built in 1912 by Richardson and Gill with Farquarson in the Classical style. Architect

Joseph Sunlight Joseph Sunlight ( – 15 April 1978), was a Belarusian/ English architect whose energy amassed him a great fortune in Manchester and left at least one fine building in Sunlight House. He was also a Liberal politician in his adopted country. B ...

, built the Grade II* listed

Sunlight House Sunlight House is a Grade II listed building in the art deco style on Quay Street in Manchester, England. Completed in 1932 for Joseph Sunlight, at 14 storeys it was the tallest building in Manchester, and the top floors of turrets and multiple ...

. He had planned to build the Quay Street Tower, a highrise

art deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unit ...

building behind Sunlight House but was refused planning permission. Had it been built, it would have been not only Manchester's tallest building, but the tallest in Europe. The street is known for

Granada Studios Old Granada Studios (known simply as Granada Studios and previously known as The Manchester Studios) is a television studio complex and events venue on Quay Street in Manchester with the facility to broadcast live and recorded television programm ...

, the UK's first purpose-built television studios and home to

Granada Television ITV Granada, formerly known as Granada Television, is the ITV franchisee for the North West of England and Isle of Man. From 1956 to 1968 it broadcast to both the north west and Yorkshire but only on weekdays as ABC Weekend Television was its ...

. The building was designed by architect,

Ralph Tubbs Ralph Tubbs OBE FRIBA (9 January 1912 – 23 November 1996) was a British architect. Well known amongst the buildings he designed was the Dome of Discovery at the successful Festival of Britain on the South Bank in London in 1951. Ralph was educa ...

and was an early example of a building constructed using the curtain wall method. In September 2010, the red 'Granada TV' sign was removed from the building as it was extensively corroded.

References

External links

Manchester Directory
{{Manchester A&S Streets in Manchester Shopping streets in Manchester Tourist attractions in Manchester

See also

References

External links