Dominated by modern commercial office buildings, Spinningfields has been described as the 'Canary Wharf of the North'.
Outside London, few cities can boast a commercial property hotspot which demands such high premiums as Spinningfields. Walk past the polished buildings and you will see banks, law firms and restaurants that epitomise modern Manchester.
Some of the city's most exclusive office developments and priciest apartments are located in this district of the city, as well as one of the UK’s busiest and largest civil courts. But it was a very different story 150 years ago.
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Like much of Manchester city centre, it is an area that first took shape around the explosion of the cotton industry. On the banks of the Irwell, vast slums grew up around the tanneries and factories that churned out dyes used in the textile industry.
The slum buildings which stood on the site were demolished in the 19th century. Since then, the district has undergone many iterations, most recently in the 2000s when Allied London invested £1.5bn into creating the commercial and retail space.
The area of Spinningfields takes its name from a narrow street which once ran westwards from Deansgate. The idea of creating this new quarter took hold after the IRA bombing in the city centre in 1996 when Allied bought a number of buildings around the John Rylands Library.
While Spinningfields wasn't the most favoured area of the city in terms of architectural merit, before its most recent development, there were still some impressive buildings and landmarks that have now been lost.
Northcliffe House
Northcliffe House used to be home to the Daily Mail newspaper on Deansgate.
Built in 1931, the rocket-shaped art deco tower was undoubtedly a classy addition to the city centre skyline. With its American-noir aesthetic harking back to the golden age of 1930s New York skyscrapers, the building became a Manchester landmark.
Following The Daily Mail vacating Northcliffe House in 1990, the building was demolished as part of plans to redevelop the Spinningfields area in 2002. The site is now home to the Royal Bank of Scotland headquarters.
Manchester Evening News building
Another landmark was the former Manchester Evening News' building in Deansgate. From 1970 onwards, it was the nerve centre of the paper's news gathering operation, until 2006 when the M.E.N. moved into new premises around the corner in Scott Place, off Hardman Street. The M.E.N. moved once more to its current offices in Chadderton in 2010.
Following the Deansgate office's demolition, the 3 Hardman Street commercial high-rise building was constructed on the old site. The 16-storey building was completed in 2009 and is the third-tallest building in Spinningfields as of 2023.
Vigilance
Following the Manchester Evening News' move to Deansgate in the '70s, a sculpture was commissioned to mark the paper's centenary and was erected on the pedestrian area between the building and Rylands Library. The abstract piece, created by sculptor Keith Godwin, was named "Vigilance" by Laurence Scott, grandson of former M.E.N. editor C.P. Scott, who thought it was an apt name for a sculpture associated with the press.
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The sculpture remained a landmark outside the newspaper's offices until 2003 when it was removed during development of the Spinningfields site.
Quay House
The site once occupied by Quay House is now home to 19-storey office tower Number 1 Spinningfields. Built on Quay Street in the 1960s, the outdated and, in the eyes of many, unsightly seven storey concrete building was demolished in 2015, so that construction on the tower block could begin.
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Number 1 Spinningfields is now the third-tallest office building in Central Manchester after City Tower and the CIS Tower, and is the tallest building in Spinningfields.
Old Magistrates' Courthouse
Demolition of the Crown Square courthouse building, which had a lifespan of only a little over three decades, began in 2005. Following the demolition of the old Manchester Magistrates' Court in 2006, the site was redeveloped into Hardman Square, a new public space created in the centre of Spinningfields.
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