Brooks' key to the hidden city
Manchester and Salford canal tunnel Banks of the River Irwell next to Victoria Station Manchester under Arndale centre High Street Culvert on River Medlock outside Philips Park
A STONE angel perched amid gothic masonry gazes across a sparkling cityscape, a huge glass skyscraper piercing an indigo sky.
It is a scene with an eerie similarity to the Gotham City of the Batman movies. But this is Manchester 2008.
Photographer Andrew Paul Brooks went to the clocktower at the top of Manchester Town Hall to take 30 or 40 digital images, combining them into this striking masterpiece.
“It represents what was there, but it’s a slightly hyper-real version of the actual view,” he says.
“It’s nothing like straight photography. It’s almost like painting with photographs.”
The view from the clocktower is one of a collection of huge images in the new exhibition, Reality Hack: Hidden Manchester, at Urbis.
Curator Andy Brydon was enthused by local historian Keith Warrender’s book Underground Manchester, and by the exploits of Urban Explorers, who “hack” into abandoned spaces in the city to photograph them.
Rarely-seen views
He worked with Brooks to seek out rarely-seen views, from old canal tunnels and the undercroft of the Arndale Centre to the tip of the Palace Hotel.
The pair also went to the disused arches beneath Manchester Cathedral, which played a fascinating role in the history of tourism, and were later used as air raid shelters.
“There are 16 arches along the banks of the Irwell that were used in the mid to late 1800s by Thomas Cook,” Brydon explains.
“There was a jetty on the river, and you could buy a ticket from just outside the cathedral in the Thomas Cook office, head down the steps, through the arches and onto a boat that would take you to Salford Quays where you could board a liner down the ship canal to New York, Africa, whatever.
“If you go to the car park opposite the cathedral where there is a bridge that goes up over the Irwell, and look back towards the cathedral, you can see the bricked-up arches.”
Long abandoned
Inside the arches, Brydon and Brooks found long abandoned toilets and war-time notices for the people sheltering there from air raids.
The pair were shown behind the scenes at places like Manchester Town Hall and the Palace Hotel by various building managers and security officers.
But in the case of the cathedral arches – owned by the city council but earmarked for eventual re-development – no-one in officialdom seemed to know how to arrange access, says Brydon.
Instead, they found unofficial guides.
“We were led there by the Urban Explorers,” he adds. “The guys we went down with really care about the places they visit. They are photographers and local history buffs who try to get into abandoned places just to document them.
"Some like to go down the old Victorian sewers and drains, and some of them like getting as high as they can on the roofs of buildings.”
Reality Hack: Hidden Manchester at Urbis until May. Entry is free, open Tuesday to Sunday 10am-6pm, closed Mondays. To see some of the Hidden Manchester images, go to: andrewbrooksphotography.com
Published: Thu, 04 December, 2008
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