THEN & NOW HULME

Welcome to Then and Now, where each week we compare images of Manchester streets, landmarks and buildings from bygone days with how they look today

OUR photos this week are only four years apart, but the contrast between them couldn’t be greater. They show the results of slum clearances in Hulme from 1961 to 1965.

In the main photo, from September 1965, a newly built residential block and the Victorian church of St George’s, Chester Road, stand alone among a sea of demolition rubble.

St George’s, still blackened by soot, was designed in the Gothic Revival style by architect Francis Goodwin and completed by 1828.

Goodwin was responsible for a number of ‘Commissioners’ Churches’ built across the North West to celebrate victory at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. He also designed the original Manchester Town Hall.

St George’s cost £15,000 to build and may have been inspired by Nicholas Hawksmoor’s Church of St Michael in Cornhill, London, with a tall tower at the west end and two high pinnacles to the east. The isolation of St George’s, combined with a declining inner city population, led to the church being closed in 1984. From 2000 onward, it was converted into apartments.

Our second image from January 1961 shows back-to-back terraced houses in Hulme, built to accommodate workers for the burgeoning industries of the Victorian era.

In spite of slum clearances, it was estimated that five million people were still living in 1.8 million homes unfit for human habitation in England and Wales by the end of 1967.

Slum areas, however, were diverse. They ranged from dwellings without foundations to solid-built rows of terraces that simply lacked amenities. ● iNostalgia’s latest book - Manchester Then and Now - is on sale now. It’s an unmissable compilation of the past and present images that feature in the M.E.N. every Sunday. The book is available for £12.99 on inostalgia.co.uk or on the order hotline 01928 503777.