Day out (continued):Salford And then there's Salford, which definitely isn't part of Manchester proper. It's part of Greater Manchester, but that's different, Salford being an entirely separate place, attaining city status in 1926. The two are barely separated by the River Irwell, although it's for the old docks on the Manchester Ship Canal that Salford is now best known.
Salford Quays
After the decline of the third biggest port in Britain, which isn't bad for 40 miles inland, Salford City Council spent the 1980s intensively regenerating its quayside. They wiped away the cranes and gantries, dammed off the polluted waters, added roads and bridges, knocked up a whole new set of buildings and created a whole new urban landscape called SalfordQuays. The original buildings look terribly dated these days, all low density lowrise surrounded by car park, and it's ever so easy to imagine Michael Heseltine turning up in a hard hat to oversee construction, then returning in a suit to open everything. A second burst of life has occurred over the last decade, kickstarted by the BBC's decision to move lots of its production out of London, and other media organisations have followed to create a proper entertainment cluster.
The first landmark building to be erected was The Lowry, a theatre/gallery complex on a tip of land at Pier 8. It looks classicallyalien from the front, like a collection of bold geometric shapes, and rather shinier and more steely from across the water. Inside The Lowry are two theatres and plenty of gallery space, including a unique collection of matchstalk paintings by its artist namesake... or so I'm told. I've walked past twice, once in 2003 and once at the weekend, and never quite felt sufficiently welcomed to push open the door and step inside. I walked up to the front this time and tried to work out if it was OK to go in and look at the pictures, there being no obvious signs, because all I could see from the outside was a box office and a dead-looking cafe, but seemingly best not. So I went in the shopping centre instead. The Lowry Outlet Mall is what drives the majority of non-working traffic to Salford Quays, because nothing beats wandering round double decker arcades lined by cavernous shops selling stuff slightly cheaper than you can no longer buy elsewhere. I didn't stay long.
Across the dock, past Nando's, is the rather more recent MediaCityUK. A splayed out crescent of glass towers curves round a paved piazza, not quite as excitingly as you might hope, thanks in part to the twin towers of a Holiday Inn rising behind. Stickers on the windows hint at what's made inside, with CBBC and Mastermind in the building by the bridge, BBC Breakfast and Match of the Day on the other side, and BBC 6Music broadcasting further back. The BBC must have entered its "We'd better not spend too much" phase when this was built, because its constituent blocks are capacious without ever quite being interesting, and the overarching effect left me cold. What's also missing is the opportunity to properly interact and go inside unless you've pre-booked on a tour, and a selfie opportunity with a fibreglass Pudsey doesn't quite cut it.
Thank goodness then for the Blue Peter Garden, northern version. This is located by the tramstop, and is fully open and accessible to the public, which shows a major level of trust given the overnight trashing its southern counterpart once endured. I was delighted to see that the Italian Sunken Garden still exists, if a covered rectangular pond surrounded by pots and paving counts, beautifully maintained with bright blooms and numerous representations of the Blue Peter ship. I was also reassured to see the original 1978 concrete footprints of Percy, Lesley, Simon, Shep and Goldie have been transferred to Salford, now augmented by similar indentations made by the show's current crew (precisely one year before my visit). And yes, Petra's statue watches over the lot, just as she did at Television Centre, except here anyone can pay homage.
Across the Media City footbridge, officially crossing from Salford into Trafford, sits the most peculiarbuilding of the lot. It's the Imperial War Museum (North), a juxtaposition of three elemental 'shards' by Daniel Libeskind, and opened in 2002. The visitor experience is deliberately disorienting, and right-angle-free, entering through a minor doorway then bending back up the stairs to reach the main internal exhibition space. The museum focuses on first hand experiences of war, so isn't bursting over with artefacts to view, but tells the story of a century of war in sufficient grim detail around the irregular perimeter. Every hour the lighting dims and an immersive audio-visual experience is projected across the upper walls - I got memories of the Home Front, you might get a Baghdad air raid. And whereas last time I visited it was also possible to take the lift up the Air Shard for a grandstand panorama, alas the entrance to this windswept viewpoint appeared to be very boarded up, as if they don't like to talk about it any more.
If you've ever wondered where ITV's flagship soap opera is filmed, the answer is on a backlot at Salford Quays. Specifically it's by the Ship Canal adjacent to the IWM, and immediately opposite the BBC's main building, and would be really quite public had the studios not been surrounded by a giant wall. The cobbles are well back from the water, behind a second screening wall, and the outer bailey has two giant metal street signs on it in an attempt to make potential visitors think they've actually seen something. Don't come expecting to see anything.
ITV's studios haven't been here at Trafford Wharf for long, with first filming in 2013 and a first appearance on screen in 2014. Previously they were in town, that's Manchester, coincidentally on Quay Street. Granada opened studios on former railway sidings at the start of its franchise in 1956, but it wasn't until 1968 that Coronation Street filming emerged from indoor studios to a specially constructed set on the backlot. Tours of a further-upgraded street were available for several years, except on Mondays when the cobbles between the Rovers and the Kabin were used for filming, and restarted in 2014 after the production team moved to Trafford. Unfortunately the Granada Studio Tour finished for good at the end of last year, so that the old set can be demolished and the land reused for much more profitable redevelopment. Some of the old studios are being retained for media, events and retail, but there'll be no tiny terraced houses on the refreshed site owned by harridans in hairnets, and nothing more than a small plaque in memoriam.
The original 1960 set was inspired by Archie Street in Ordsall, as seen in the opening credits for years, and which was bulldozed in 1971 so don't go looking. But there is a genuine Coronation Street a short distance away, on the northern edge of Ordsall, by chance approximately halfway between the soap's old and new filming locations. A few of the original streets around Regent Square survive, of which Coronation Street is one, with its one long terrace and some green metal railings in lieu of a front garden. The handful of streets opposite meet at fenced-off back alleys, or blossoming greenspace, while pigeons peck at the tarmac and the occasional postie goes by. It looks almost gentrified, were this Hackney, but this is no rich neighbourhood, as the extremely famous building at the end of the street affirms. For this Coronation Street is also the location of the Salford Lads Club immortalised by The Smiths on the inner sleeve of The Queen Is Dead, in all its redbrick glory, and still doing sterling recreational work keeping local youth off the street. A man several decades past being a lad was out front smoking when I passed, making it difficult for me to pose moodily outside, but if I'd realised the building is open to visitors on Saturdays (from 11am to 1.30pm) I could have eagerly explored inside.
Queen Elizabeth II was born 90 years ago today in a Chinese restaurant in Mayfair. Obviously it wasn't a Chinese restaurant at the time. After a few months the family moved to a new home in a luxury international hotel on Piccadilly. Obviously it wasn't a luxury international hotel at the time. And when it suddenly became clear that her father was about to be king, the whole family moved into a tourist attraction at the foot of The Mall. At least that much hasn't changed.
The Queen was born at 17 Bruton Street London W1, a Georgian townhouse with pillared stucco frontage. The house in Mayfair belonged to the Earl and Countess of Strathmore, better known as the Queen Mother's parents, whose quietly ennobled existence had been thrust into the spotlight when their daughter accepted the hand in marriage of the future George VI. Prince Albert and Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon had wed two years earlier, and financially were perfectly capable of buying their own home, but it was being redecorated as the pregnancy drew to a close hence the temporary Bruton Street stay. Our current Queen was delivered (by Caesarean section) at 2.40am on Wednesday 21st April 1926, and the Home Secretary was present (by tradition) in the house to ensure that no ungenealogical baby-swapping took place.
The house in Bruton Street no longer stands, having been destroyed by a bomb during World War II. Indeed most of the southern side of Bruton Street has been replaced by an office block of millennial ugliness, six storeys of brick-fronted offices overlying a layer of commercialised concrete. For a hint of previous grandeur cast your eyes across to the opposite side of the street where the collective façade is pretty much intact, or has at least been sympathetically rebuilt, and a succession of contrasting Georgian properties coalesce. We're in Mayfair's fashion quarter here - Bruton Street links New Bond Street to Berkeley Square - and a lot of the ground floor premises are couturiers or boutiques. Stella McCartney has her main outlet at number 30, and dressmaker Norman Hartnell's base was a couple of doors along at number 28.
But any tourist visiting number 17 for its regal connections faces a disappointment. Whichever room it was wherein the Queen breathed her first has long been replaced by a box in the sky, and all that indicates the site's historical significance is a pair of plaques, one from Silver Jubilee year and another from the Diamond. The original plaque is more ornate, chiselled into what looks like gilded slate, while the latter is a more mundane green roundel forelock-tuggingly placed by the local council. Less delightfully, immediately below thetwo plaques is a fenced off area of pavement with a tall heater alongside, this the designated outdoor smoking area for the Chinese restaurant that now claims number seventeen.
It's quite a restaurant, specifically Hakkasan, a Michelin-starred Cantonese restaurant under the direction of Head Chef Tong Chee Hwee. This is the international chain's second London outlet, opened in 2010, and the interior designer clearly had the word 'black' on his mind during its creation. And blimey it's expensive, with lobster, duck and caviar heavily featured, the fish courses priced at £39 apiece, and the addition of a bowl of pak choi to your meal adding £12.80 to the bill. But then this is Mayfair, as you can tell by the Bentley car showroom on the corner, and the adoring faces of Hakkasan diners should a sleek for-sale vehicle be parked up outside. I doubt that Hakkasan will be serving up a special commemorative Elizabeth stir-fry this evening, but if your pocket's deep enough you can book a table and raise a glass to the famous baby born upstairs.
After a few months at Bruton Street the Queen's parents moved into 145 Piccadilly. Their spacious townhouse was located at the foot of the street, near the junction with Park Lane, amid a terrace of similar white-fronted properties. Today it'd be thought luxurious - the number of bedrooms was well into double figures - but at the time it was fairly typical in urban aristocratic circles with a staff of sixteen servants to accommodate. Baby Elizabeth lived in a suite of rooms on the top floor, comprising two nurseries and a bathroom, overseen by a formidable and all-controlling nanny nicknamed Alla. At least the back garden was communal, so the princess occasionally got to mix with the neighbours on the extensive lawns. At the age of four she was joined by a sister, Margaret, and of course a lot of their time was spent elsewhere as the family darted from Scottish castle to rural royal retreat to meet a lifestyle of social obligation. But for ten years, 'home' for the young princess was a civilian property overlooking Hyde Park Corner, until the abdication crisis forced the family to move on.
In a perhaps predictable denouement, number 145 was bombed during WW2 and no trace of it or its neighbours remains. In its place, the bottom block of Piccadilly is now to home the InterContinental London Hotel, a five star hospitality behemoth for the privileged traveller. It was designed in the late 1960s by Sir Frederick Gibberd, whose other work includes Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral and the town of Harlow, hence has a little more character than your average modern hotel. Alternate windows jut out in boxy ribs, above an extended ground floor of thin pillars and glass, while off-white concrete gives the building an airy touch on the skyline. Only an exclusive few are allowed inside the seventh floor Club lounge, necking canapés whilst gazing out above the canopy of Green Park. Mere everyday guests get to dine in the ground floor restaurant, while passers-by peer in through the floor-to-ceiling windows and watch them picking at their plates.
The hotel's main entrance is up Hamilton Place, with a pull-in layby where a bowler-hatted man will oversee the parking of your limo, while an enormous fleet of taxis waits patiently for the custom of those who've not been able to bring their limo with them. But the hotel chooses to give its address as 1 Park Lane, because that's about as perfect as any hospitality address gets, even though the only door opening out this way is for the benefit of staff arriving for their shift or popping out for a crafty cigarette. Celebrities and the global rich are regular visitors to the InterContinental, which is perhaps an appropriate destiny for the former home of one of the wealthiest women in the world, although it's by no means clear which numbered room now occupies the space once taken by the royal nursery.
And in December 1936, when Elizabeth's father found himself suddenly elevated to the monarchy, the family swiftly moved into Buckingham Palace. It's been our Queen's London home ever since, that's almost eighty years, which is pretty impressive going for the occupation of a single property. She won't be there today, as the tourists crowd to watch men in bearskins marching up and down, and the selfie-takers mass in front of the gates. But her three West End homes make Her Majesty very much a Londoner, by birth, in childhood, and through a life of service.
Day out (continued): Salford
