Manchester, England

For those of you who don’t know, Manchester is in the northern part of England.  I am east of Liverpool about 50 miles (I will make it over to the Beatles museum before I go) and Newcastle is to the east about 60 miles.  Manchester is the second largest city in England and is much like other large cities I have visited around the world.

I took Bill last Saturday to visit some historical sites.  We had a lot of fun.  We started at the Manchester Cathedral.  I can’t remember how many hundreds years old it is but at least 800 and of course expanded and modified since that time.  This cathedral was actually bombed by the Germans on December 22, 1941.  There are pictures of the back wall knocked down and as you can see the stained glass window they built showed fire as they were incendiary bombs that hit Manchester that night.  Kind of cool in a historical way.

The wood work was amazing.  Speaking with a Cathedral worker he explained to me that one apprentice might have worked on one piece of this for his entire life and died before he finished it.  There is so much history in this wonderful place.  It is a very spiritual place.  On Sunday evenings they have “Evensong” where the choir sings before the church service.  I may try to go this weekend.

Next we went to Castlefield.  Manchester is built on an old Roman site.  These pictures are largely restorations but built upon the Roman ruins.  We even saw part of a Roman road.  For those who do not know, the Romans were amazing builders of roads and buildings.  They had highways of brick and stone roads all over Europe and England.  It is one big reason why trade was able to get prosper under the Romans.  The more you learn about the Romans the more amazed you are.

England has a number of man-made canals.  These canals enabled people to move goods from one location to another using water which was easier for heavy loads than over land.  Today, people live in boats on these old canals.  I understand they are about 3 feet deep (deeper in some parts of the country where there are natural canals) but people actually live on the boats.  It is rather expensive as well.  Anyway, I saw my first Hobbit home.

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