Manchester early 1970s

Here are a couple of photographs I took from the top of Highland House (now the Premier Inn's North Tower) on Victoria Bridge Street sometime in the early 1970s before many of the buildings shown were demolished to make way for the Arndale Centre. Most of the rest were subsequently demolished when the area was rebuilt following the IRA bomb explosion in Corporation Street in June 1996.

This is a view looking up Cateaton Street and Cannon Street and leading to Church Street. The large greenish coloured building on the right is Longridge House, then the home of British Engine Insurance Ltd which was destroyed in the 1996 bombing. Selfridges building now occupies that site and Exchange Square links it to the building with the dome on the corner which you can see on the opposite side of Cateaton Street and which is the Corn Exchange building, latterly known as The Triangle. The building with the black and white upper storey at the bottom left on the corner of Cateaton Street and Victoria Street is still there, although I had to check on Google Earth to confirm this as I've not been to that part of Manchester for years.

This photograph shows The Old Wellington Inn and Sinclair's Oyster Bar (The Shambles) in their original position off Victoria Street before the building of the Arndale Centre. The little street onto which The Shambles fronted was called 'Old Shambles'. Longridge House is on the left and the Royal Exchange, on Market Street, to the right, with the old Marks and Spencer building behind The Shambles. The grass area at the bottom right adjacent to St Mary's Gate is the site of the former Victoria Buildings, including the Victoria Hotel, which were destroyed in a bombing raid in World War II.