Manchester Memories

By the nature of this blog, many of the places featured here I am unable to visit but others are all too familiar to me. Today's post is the latter.
I was a student a Manchester University in the mid 1990s. If you're  expecting tales of drugged fuelled nights at the Hacienda then I'm sorry to disappoint you, I never went and I never did drugs either. I did get thrown out of the Paradise Factory though for following some friends through a side door as I didn't realise they were trying to sneak in without paying, oh and I once saw Dawn Acton in Jilly's Rockworld but perhaps those stories are better for if I ever cards of those particular nightspots.
I digress, today's subject matters were seen nearly every day by me for three years.  The first card is the Manchester Mathematics tower. I never had lectures here ( I studied languages) but I do remember taking a couple of exams here and finding the room labelling rather confusing. There was an urban legend that the tower had accidentally been built upside down and I can almost believe it. Like most students I tended to use the maths tower as a landmark, especially in the early days when I was new to the city. Its instantly recognisable shape probably aided many a poor student to navigate the city. I know if I saw the tower I knew I was nearly home.
The Mathematics Tower was constructed in 1968 in a modernist-brutalist style by local architecture firm Scherrer and Hicks. It was in use until merger of UMIST and The Victoria University of Manchester in 2004. It was deemed unfit for purpose and demolished the following year.  It was replaced by the Alan Turing Building in 2007. The postcard isn't dated but I've seen a similar picture in the University archive and that is from 1972 which seems accurate for the card.

The next card is of Moberly Tower and the Refectory, now I never stepped foot in Moberly Tower but I did use the refectory quite a bit and enjoyed their fish and chips and hot chocolate.  The Tower was built in 1963 and named after Walter Moberly who was Vice-Chancellor of The University between 1926 and 1934. I don't know if the refectory was built at the same time. It outlasted the Mathematics Tower by 5 years being demolished in 2010 and replaced  by the Alan Gilbert Learning Commons.  The card was sent in 1966.

Regarding the structures, now I'm the kind of person who can see beauty in most buildings but even I struggle to call The Mathematics Tower and especially Moberly Tower attractive , but I do think a refirb would have been preferable to total destruction. The towers were symbolic, and evocative for those of us of a certain age and instantly bring to mind more carefree and idealistic days .  The Maths Tower can even be seen in my graduation photographs. I visited Manchester University a few years ago as part of an alumni event and I shocked to see so few buildings I recognised (my halls of residence have also been destroyed). A lot of my memories are tied up in the look and feel of the place and I found it quite disorientating being among a mixture of the familiar and new. I almost felt as if my memories had never been real or had also been destroyed.
For those who want to see the destruction of the tower, pictures can be viewed here. As you'll see not everyone is as sentimental about the place as I am.
https://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=254283

Loyola Hall, Ranihill

The building depicted in the postcard below still stands, in fact you can even buy it if you have a spare £1.25 million.
http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/controversial-historic-mansion-could-yours-11930684

However, as it is no longer used as a religious retreat, it fits in with the remit of the blog.
There is also another reason why I've decided to blog about this and that's because it was very familiar to me throughout my childhood and teenage years.  I imagine those of you from my home town reading this blog  will have their own memories of Loyola Hall, from a certain history teacher's inability to pronounce it to trying to sneak in at lunchtimes and being chased out by the gardener.
The building and site were closed to visitors and a large wall hid most of it from view, which made it all the more fascinating for me. I remember being very little and being unable to see anything at all over the wall except when I was on the bus and I could just make out the main hall and beautiful looking grounds. The fascination never abated and even at 18 I would try to sneak a peak over the wall to get a better view. When I eventually got to enter the place, in my early 20s and looking for a missing cat (he turned up safe and sound), it was something of an anti climax.
The Grade II listed building was built in 1824 and known as Rainhill House, later becoming Rainhill Hall after extension work in 1869.  It was owned along with most of the land in Rainhill at the time, by the Bretherton-Stapleton family. The devoutly Catholic family, who also founded the nearby St Bartholomew's Church, sold the building and grounds to the Jesuits in 1923. It was used mostly as a spiritual retreat with upwards of 2000 visitors yearly.
It was also used to house the North Korean Football Team shortly before their quarter final match in the 1966 World Cup. One can only wonder what the atheistic North Koreans made of the religious imagery, probably not a lot as they lost their match 5-2.
The building underwent many renovations in its history but the postcard seems to predate those and probably dates from around 1960.
Loyola Hall closed as a retreat in 2014 due to a lack of Jesuit priests to run the place.
Its not sure what the future will hold for the building and grounds. The are many rumours locally about the planned future of the place. I'm not going to comment on them as there are plenty of other places for people to have their say, but I will update the blog when we know for certain.

Update 2018

The hall is going to be a hotel and wedding venue.

http://www.sthelensstar.co.uk/news/16256427.Loyola_Hall_plans_for_hotel_and_wedding_venue_approved/

Rainhill Village

After the warning in my previous post, I've decided to show something today which was not destroyed by disaster, war or terrorism but simple human error.

I doubt many of you will have heard of Rainhill. If you have I can almost guarantee you are either a) a resident or ex resident of the town, b) a train buff, c ) a Ripperologist/Victorian murder aficionada d) a Mel C fan.
I'm in  group a though I do lurk on Casebook from time to time.

I was brought up in Rainhill and lived there until I was 18 and the above image is one of my enduring memories of the town. Those of you in group b will know that Rainhill was the site of the Locomotive Trials in 1829 where Stephenson's Rocket was declared the winner and Britain was changed forever.

In 1979 there was an exhibition celebrating 150 years since the trials took place and the above mural was erected in a prominent place in the village (now occupied by the Co-Op Supermarket). I used to see it everyday when I went I to playschool and reception class and I loved it. It had pride of place in the town until 1981 when it was dismantled. Sadly it was stored away whilst wet and rotted away to nothing. Ironically the Rocket itself can still be seen in the Science Museum.