View down Cheetham Hill Road with Beetham Tower
and No1 Deansgate
I remember the northern approach road into a Middle Eastern city I lived in. It was a grand highway lined with palm trees, flag poles, ornamental lamp posts and 30 foot high posters of His Excellency The Sheikh, ruler and supreme leader who would occasionally glide in his presidential motorcade along the wide ceremonial boulevard named after him.
But this is Manchester and we have the A574, Middleton Road.
That’s the road the leads from the Middleton roundabout at Junction 19 of the M60 into the city, the shortest route between the motorway and the city centre. Unlike the grand Middle Eastern boulevard, this is a common or garden British A road, and though it’s the main route into Manchester, the A574 actually leads into Salford.
You have to take a left at the Half Way pub onto Bury Old Road, the A665 if you don’t want to wander into Salford and lose your way somewhere west of Strangeways.
And instead of a sign saying ‘Welcome to Manchester’ this junction has a large placard proclaiming ‘It’s up to you to bring Moshiach!’ – which refers, as I understand it, to the coming of a Jewish king. The sign belongs to an organisation based on that corner of this strongly Jewish area. Actually there is a sign saying ‘Welcome to Manchester’ but it’s behind you, on the other side of Middleton Road, on the way out of Manchester.
As we proceed down the A665 towards the city centre, Bury Old Road turns into Cheetham Hill Road, with its strongly Asian-Islamic feel, Arabic language shops signs and mosques, converted from old British houses.
Over to the left is Crumpsall, home to Manchester’s equivalent of The Sheikh – well, the elected leader of Manchester City Council, Cllr Richard Leese. And unlike his Middle Eastern counterpart, he sometimes rides a pushbike along Cheetham Hil Road into the Town Hall, recognised by almost no-one. There are no 30 foot posters of our leaders here.
Signs on the A665 and A534 junction
After Queens Rd and the Manchester Fort shopping park, Cheetham Hill Road is straight as a die, and No 1 Deansgate and the Beetham Tower rise up straight ahead. Maybe this is another ancient Roman road. The Beetham Tower is built next to the Roman Fort.
At the bottom of Cheetham Hill road is another fork in the road trying to lure you into Salford. We need to keep left for Manchester, then take a right by the CIS tower, and we are in the centre, on Corporation St, by Urbis. The final section has to be done on foot as Corporation St and Cross St are closed to general traffic.
And that’s it, the A574 and A665, Manchester’s main northern approach road, which many new visitors from Yorkshire and the North East manage to find their way along more by accident than design.
That’s because this vast conurbation originated as a collection of villages linked by often meandering paths and byways, which developed into the tangled web of tarmac we have today. There’s no chance Manchester’s road system will be straightened out and rationalised, as Robert Moses, controversially did in New York. The roadbuilding era is now past, and many visitors will need an in-car satellite navigation system – and a lot of patience – to find their way around Manchester.
Actually, Manchester does have a wide tree-lined boulevard, two of them in fact, named after regal figures: Kingsway and Princess Road. I’ll be looking at them in a subsequent update but the next of Manchester’s northern roads is the one to Rochdale, the A664, with a word about a ‘secret’ road north out of the city. Online shortly.