The glories, grandeur and greatness of the city. Here are the Seven Wonders of Manchester; wondrous places, majestic settings, extraordinary stories: the world’s biggest trading room, a Cathedral of Culture, masterpieces of religious art, an unforgettable Gothic shrine, tens of thousands of faces forming one famous face and a celebration of Manchester’s greatest gift to the world – work.
These are the wonders of Manchester, the world’s first industrial city, capital of the North.
• Chetham’s, the oldest library in Europe built into the 15th century Tudor buildings in the heart of mediaeval Manchester.
• The Trinity painting inside Manchester Cathedral. Police hate it, but it honours the church's three saints.
• The Royal Exchange: once the world’s biggest trading floor, now home to a futurist-looking and world-renowned theatre.
• The stained glass inside St Ann's Church with its Masonic and Kabbalist connections.
• The extraordinary Stations of the Cross paintings in St Mary the Hidden Gem, the oldest post-Reformation Catholic church in the country.
• Ford Madox Brown’s monumental painting Work inside Manchester Art Gallery. This is Manchester’s greatest work of art, explained, outlined, resolved in wondrous detail.
• The vintage Rolls Royce outside the Midland Hotel. What on earth is it doing there?
And we will finish in an eighth wonder for much-needed refreshments.
