A big day today after the first copies of Angel Meadow finally arrived, hot off the printing press. That strangely comforting smell of ink and newly-pressed paper is now wafting through the house and five boxes of books are sitting in the hallway, waiting to be picked up and read. It's hard to believe I… Continue reading Hot off the press
Journal
Angel Meadow mapped
Old maps chart the decline of Angel Meadow from a rural idyll to an industrial slum. The first detailed plan of Manchester, made in 1741, shows how the area had been divided into three hedge-lined fields, including one that marked the later path of Angel Street. Rows of cottages were laid out across the fields… Continue reading Angel Meadow mapped
Angel Meadow lodging houses revealed
Angel Meadow was Manchester's main lodging house district at a time when thousands of people were arriving in the city in search of work. Wanderers stepped off trains at Victoria Station and made the short walk to an unsafe harbour in the slum. They laid down their heads for a fearful first night in beds shared with… Continue reading Angel Meadow lodging houses revealed
Angus Bethune Reach, 1849
The lowest, most filthy, most wicked locality in Manchester... inhabited by prostitutes, their bullies, thieves, cadgers, vagrants, tramps, and in the very worst sties of filth and darkness, those unhappy wretches, the low Irish.
Angel Meadow is now available to pre-order
Angel Meadow: Victorian Britain's Most Savage Slum will be published on 28 February, 2016, and is now available to pre-order. Click on the book to visit my page on Amazon. The book will also be available online via Waterstones, WHSmiths, the Guardian Bookshop, Wordery and the Pen&Sword website.
Angel Meadow’s tobacco factory
Angel Meadow's tobacco factory loomed large over the slum's skyline and added a sickly sweetness to the toxic atmosphere. The factory was built by the Co-operative Wholesale Society in 1898 and made cigarettes and cigars from leaves imported from as far away as Borneo, Sumatra, Brazil and Cuba. The most prized workers were the cigar makers,… Continue reading Angel Meadow’s tobacco factory
Angel Meadow archaeology
Chris Wild from Oxford Archaeology North talks about the Angel Meadow dig in this interview in 2012. https://youtu.be/PqUBCQtgg0I
Sharp Street Ragged School
Sharp Street Ragged School had an inauspicious start when it opened its doors in the 1850s. Youths threw stones through the school’s windows, left dead cats on the doorstep and attacked the teachers as they were walking down the street. It took the teachers five years to win over hearts and minds in the slum and… Continue reading Sharp Street Ragged School
The Spy, 1893
The dreary wastes of Angel Meadow. Down Angel Street, with its pestiferous lodging houses, with its bawds and bullies, its thieves and beggars, one had need to visit such a place when the sun is high in the heavens. When night falls I had rather enter an enemy’s camp during the time of war than… Continue reading The Spy, 1893
The Real Sherlock
I was lucky enough recently to be invited by BBC's The One Show to appear in a short film about Jerome Caminada, Victorian Manchester's most famous detective and a true-life inspiration for Sherlock Holmes. Caminada's life is the subject of a gripping book by Manchester author Angela Buckley, entitled The Real Sherlock Holmes. Caminada's arch-enemy, his real-life Moriarty,… Continue reading The Real Sherlock
Angel Meadow 