Railway station and bridge have been compromised by the construction
Know what you think.
Before we enter, I have two important pieces of information: First, there's been a name change. It was: The Museum of Science and Industry now it's: The Science and Industry Museum and the second thing is: in mid-2021, the museum is being renovated. There's a multi-million pound restoration project in progress, so many parts of the museum are closed, including the Grade 1 listed Liverpool Road station, the world's oldest surviving terminal railway station
But there is still plenty to see to see, including two stunning special exhibitions. Manchester is where Mr Rolls and Mr Royce met and founded the famous car company. Manchester is where the first electronic stored program computer was developed in the 1940s. It was reconstructed on its 50th birthday in 1998.
It's called the Baby, with all its valves, knobs, wires and dials, it has a tiny fraction of the power modern devices, but at the time it was groundbreaking. What does the dot pattern on the screen signify? The store, or 'memory' of the machine was a cathode ray tube. The beam of the CRT could be deflected to any one of 1024 positions on the screen, each of which could be made to store one of two kinds of electrical charge. Each such position represented one binary digit of data. The state of the charges could be seen as glowing dots and dashes on the fluorescent screen, representing '0's and '1's. And that's part of an interview I did with Chris Burton, Project Manager of the Small. Scale Experimental Machine Rebuild Project in 1998. In the Textile Gallery we can gain an impression of what a cotton mill looked like on the inside, though without the deafening sound.
I find the industrial architecture very attractive, with those early 19th century style window panes. The floor-to-celing opaque windows add atmosphere and drama to the hall. Yes, what made Manchester famous was cotton. The wealth of Cottonopolis led to the construction of magnificent warehouses like this one. I understand Manchester City Council narrowly voted against its demolition in the 70s. Do you recognise it? It's Watt's Warehouse on Portland Street, now the Britannia hotel. The museum is housed in several large former industrial buildings. There's a lot of space.
The far end of the museum site is closed for renovation. It's not possible to visit the 1830 station and here are no steam train rides. We can look along the tracks to the controversial Ordsall Chord link bridge, which was built to allow trains to cross between north and south. This is the view from a train travelling between Victoria and Oxford Road stations. Through the construction of this link line, the world's oldest surviving terminal railway station was cut off from the main line. The new line also cuts across George Stephenson's Grade 1 listed Irwell bridge built in 1830. Today, nearly four years after it was opened, only one train per hour travels along the link each direction. Was the damage to Manchester's precious world-famous railway heritage site justified? Answers in the comments.
The gigantic mural is one of the most memorable features, but it's looking rather faded. This is how it looked in 2004. Here are more photographs taken on previous visits some in 2004 and in 2015.
Here is another memory: the large silver
Ball sculpture that stood outside the entrance.
Let's flip the reflection so it makes more sense. We can see the cogwheel symbol on the right and on the left the Air and Space Hall. It's currently closed, but this is how it looked in 2004. That's an AVRO Shackleton, made in Woodford, Stockport, south of Manchester.
This is how the exterior looked before and this is now. The building is being renovated, but the planes are still there inside, visible through the front window. Now let's go into the first of two exhibitions. This is the waiting area. I love the colour and design of these backlit panels. We push open the big door and enter the exhibition Top Secret, about everything from ciphers to cyber security, past present and future. We go back to the First World War when the code-breaking of enemy messages gathered pace. In the Second World War, Bletchley Park played a key role.
We can examine some of the equipment that was used. Mostly female teams worked tirelessly to decode enemy messages. The German language also needed to be deciphered. There are some weird and wonderful non-military encryption devices, including this German-made cipher machine. Nice design but not very secure. This artwork produced for the exhibition symbolises today's deluge of data. For a full explanation, visit the exhibition. Further themes are the balance between security and privacy, investigating the threat to national security, GCHQ today.
That's the GCHQ building called the doughnut, in Cheltenham, and what's this strange thing? It's a chaotic pendulum, used by Cloudfare to keep online messages secret. More on this device and the use of lava in the exhibition. Top Secret is fascinating and thought-provoking. Highly recommended. Now we're on the top floor, where there are lots of activities to help adults and children to learn about science. But we're going to enter a different world, the world of Factory, which was more than just record company. We can thank Tony Wilson, Alan Erasmus, Rob Gretton, Martin Hannett, Peter Saville and others for creating this legend. So what's the connection with science and industry? A very obvious one: Factory was was inspired by Manchester's industrial character.
And let's not forget: Music is an industry, a very important one. I was mesmerised by the guitar in a glass case in the middle. It's the Vox Phantom MK 6 special electric guitar that was played by Ian Curtis of Joy. Division. I'd love to play it.
Dating from 1967, it helped to transform
Joy division's sound a decade later.
With its switches and dials we can
See how science and creativity come together in the electric guitar.
There's a dazzling array of posters, records, photographs, typed letters, documents, and more musical instruments including these early synthesisers.
We see a direct line of succession from the Baby in 1948 to the early synthesisers and computers in 1978. I tried out an early Korg monophonic synthesiser. In the late 70s, music was starting to become high-tech. Science was powering the music industry. These posters by Peter Savile exemplify the factory aesthetic. We see symbols from a industrial site finding their way onto a poster and record sleeve. Waveforms from from an oscilloscope were used by Peter Saville on an iconic Joy Division album sleeve. I thought I knew a bit about Factory but I've learned a lot more by visiting this exhibition.
There are some superb black and white photographs showing clubgoers and Manchester street scenes from the 80s. After looking in on a Durutti Column gig, exit through a recreation of the Hacienda. We do need to leave as quietly as possible, so we don't wake up the children who are sleeping. Actually, I don't think this poster came from the Hacienda. If you know, please write in the comments. And that concludes our visit to the Science and Industry Museum. The shop sells a range of items including Factory merchandise. Through the window we can see the cogwheel against a changing Manchester skyline.
Let's take a look back to a page from my Eyewitness in Manchester website, dated 4 January 1999. "The Museum of Science and Industry is to be doubled in size. Work will start in February and the extension will cost £14m. Funding comes from the EU, the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Department of Culture. The award-winning museum has come a very long way in the last quarter of a century. In the seventies, there were plans to house the museum in the unique warehouse building. York House, which was demolished in 1975 to make way for a development which was never built. The Museum was first housed at the Oddfellows Hall on Grosvenor St, All Saints, before moving to its present site in Castlefield next to the Granada studios.".
So what does the future hold for the Museum? The Power Hall is under renovation. The rest of the museum will be transformed. I look forward to the re-opening. I hope you'll get to visit the Science and Industry Museum very soon. So that's it, I hope you found this article of interest, maybe even inspiring. Please like the article and click on the logo to subscribe. And if you'd like to see more artifacts, from Factory , I can recommend the Manchester Digital.