Can it really be the case that most of the foreign visitors to Manchester are drawn to the home city of the globally famous Manchester United football club, rather than to its many other historical and cultural connections such as Peterloo, Marx and Engels, the Industrial Revolution, Pankhurst, Lowry, the Hallé Orchestra, the Smiths and the Stone Roses?
If so, then it is surely appropriate that the city’s brilliant Victorian and Edwardian architecture includes, in addition to classical and gothic stone exteriors, many buildings in red brick, whether huge hotels, warehouses and university buildings or more modest terraces.
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Although most widely known as a fire station, this building opposite Piccadilly railway station also housed a coroner’s court, a police station and an ambulance station.

St Mary’s Catholic Church, known as “The Hidden Gem” after a description by a bishop in the 19th century. This building dates from the 1840s, but the parish originates from 1794.

Part of Manchester’s Northern Quarter, with the former fish market on the right and adjoining shops.

From this direction, the red bricks of the former warehouse Chepstow House are somewhat overwhelmed by the green tiled facade of the Peveril of the Peak pub.