Welcome to Manchester, a city that turned itself from a market town into the workshop of the world within a single lifetime, and then left most of the evidence standing. This walk begins at your own front door, because the Marriott Victoria & Albert is one of the better pieces of that evidence, and it takes you to two places within ten minutes that changed the way the world moved goods and people.
You are standing in front of two warehouses that went up around 1838 for the . Behind the building runs the , and that river is the whole reason this place exists: barges brought raw cotton up from the sea at Liverpool and carried finished cloth back down again. Victoria Warehouse came first, built in an L so that one range faces Water Street and the other runs along the quay, and Albert Warehouse was added at the northern end.
Walk round to the river side if you can and look up. The tall slots cut into the brick are where goods were winched straight out of the boats, floor by floor, and the quay below is made of stone blocks the size of a dining table. Inside, the iron columns, the broad timber beams and the bare brick were kept rather than covered, which is why the building was in 1974 and why your room looks the way it does.
One more thing before you set off. The site across Water Street was , where was filmed for half a century. One street, two centuries of Manchester at work.
Enjoy the walk.
Leave the hotel and follow Water Street away from the river, then turn left into Liverpool Road, where a long low brick frontage begins on your right.
Sources. Story: Historic England list entry 1254727; Manchester City Council listed buildings register
