Victorian inspiration for MMU’s Hulme campus
THE Victorian streets that once stood on the site now occupied by Manchester Metropolitan University’s new Hulme campus were demolished in slum clearances, but they will now lend their names to some of the new buildings.
The university has invested around £140m in the facility which opens in September for 6,000 students of education and health, including teacher training and nursing.
It is naming the student accommodation blocks, which have 1,100 rooms, Dale, Warde, Dunham, Vine and Stamford after former streets.
An archaeological dig took place before construction began in summer 2012 and unearthed the foundations of streets which began to criss-cross the former farmland from the 1830s. The work also uncovered the footprint and cellars of the Holy Trinity Church on Stretford Road, designed by George Gilbert Scott.
Senior lecturer in archaeology at MMU Dr Faye Sayer said: “Between 1831 and 1841, the population of Hulme trebled, and Hulme was incorporated into the new municipal borough of Manchester. People forget Hulme was once a thriving commercial and artisan district whose population reached 75,000 by the 1870s. Nearly all of the evidence of Hulme in its heyday has been lost, so it is fitting that the Birley Campus will ensure these names live on into the future.”
An energy centre to the south of the campus is to be called the Sir Robert Angus Smith building after the 19th century chemist who worked at Grosvenor Square, Hulme, on pioneering work on air pollution.
