Bury New Road
Every day, thousands of people travel up and down Bury New Road on foot…in cars, buses and, if they're very brave, on bikes. The stretch between the Arena and the M60 Junction in Prestwich is generally considered to be a clogged up, pollution infested but unfortunately necessary schlep in and out of Manchester town centre.
The route from Strangeways, along the stretch of warehouses to Higher Broughton, to Prestwich Village, doesn't appear to have many remarkable buildings, nor many other roadside attractions…until a closer look and a sift through its history reveals the Road's incredible links to cultural, artistic, political, sociological and sporting change…
Friedrich Engels, Mark E Smith, John Cooper Clarke, the Chartists, Mike Leigh, Morrissey, George Best, the Jacobites, New Order, Graham Gouldman, Bugzy Malone, Nico, David Beckham and the other Class of '92s are just a few of the characters who have major connections with the Road…This project will be celebrating this amazing culture and asking ‘Why here?’
“It's like a magnet for us bohemians” jokes John Cooper Clarke. But Bury New Road is definitely a magnet for something, being on one of the main ley lines in the country and standing as a psychogeographer's dream…
Meanwhile, the physical sites of the Road are now changing, from the new Manchester College building in front of Strangeways, to the proposed huge regeneration of Prestwich Town Centre, which councils state would be a catalyst for further development. Higher Broughton itself has already changed beyond recognition, with house prices rocketing from affordable to unaffordable in a short space of time. It's also about snapshotting the current everyday culture which is slowly disappearing…
This project, snappily titled Bury New Road, is about making those thousands of people who travel up and down the route every day appreciate its specialness. Hopefully, we're going to point out the magic…
