Neil Roland - Gallery 69
A special series of Manchester commissions: The Princess Parkway.....

I was commissioned throughout the past couple of years, to create a large series of artworks to hang in the offices of Orbit Developments, who have a vast range of office space in a massively diverse collection of landmark buidings throughout the North West. This particular collection was commissioned for the Parkway development on The Princess Parkway, and is a celebration of the architectural details of the areas which nudge up to this arterial thoroughfare.

You are welcome to come and see all my collections at my Didsbury studio and galleries, which are open by arrangement seven days and evenings a week.

For further information, please either email neil@neilroland.co.uk or telephone 07792 365 437

Please note that the size, colours and quality of the pictures on this page have been reduced for web viewing and do not accurately represent the detail and vivid colours of the actual photographs

All Around Here in Black & White

l-r: amazing tiled sculpture of a cat in a doorway, on Hulme Library, Stretford Road; The Lemn Sissay poem written on the now closed down Hardy's Well, Wilmslow Road/Dickinson Road, Rusholme; detail beneath the eaves of the terrace homes on Horton Road, Fallowfield/Moss Side; the now demolished 1901 built Manchester Corporation Tramways clock tower, later the bus depot on Princess Road, Moss Side; Ducks and doves around Platt Fields Boating Lake; detail of the sculpted facade at ground floor level of Owens Park tower; Platt Hall and interior shot of the Georgeian architecture which is backdrop to the Manchester Costume Museum.

 

 

 

Just a Stroll from Princess Parkway

This potrait artwork contains,
Top row from left:
The entrance flooring of Fallowfield Library; the New Hall at William Hulme's Grammar School which backs onto Princess Parkway, the hall being reflected in the school's grand piano; the old door handle on the University gates at Wilmslow Road next to Owen's Park.
Middle row:
Manchester Grammar School entrance avenue; sculpted art nouveau face at Trinity Platt, the 'Terracotta Church' in Platt Fields; a pale moon appears as the sun starts to set over Platt Chapel on Wimslow Road.
Bottom row:
A door handle at English Martyrs R.C. Church, Alexandra Road South, Whalley Range; Between the terrace houses of Russell Street, through to Alexandra Park; the Moorish dome of the former South Manchester Synagogue on Wilbraham Road, Fallowfield designed in 1912 by Joseph Sunlight.

 

From Parkway Two to Town

The route from the Parkway offices on Princess Road, from their own fountains and pampas grass in the gardens, past the Williams Land & Range Rover dealership and Turing House and the Manchester Metropolitan building on one side and the Heineken Brewery, formerly The Royal Brewery, on the other, into the centre of town, the final image showing the windows of the Beetham Tower, a man standing in the centre of the central one.

 

 

 

A Stone's Throw from The Parkway Blue

L-r: the former Fallowfield Station; a lacrosse racquet with William Hulme's Grammar School behind; the gorgeous blue glazed tiled columns at St. Bede's School, Alexandra Road South; the top of the Toast Rack (the former Hollins campus of the Manchester Metropolitan University), a classic Victorian front door in Whalley Range and the iconic Hulme Arch.

 

 

 

Just Minutes from The Parkway

l-r: old orange campervan outside the lovely Barbakan bakery at Chorlton; Punjabi slippers in Rusholme; a Chorlton tram stop; 'Drink Milk For Health' on the old Creameries on Wilbraham Road; wild flowers growing between the carriageways on The Parkway; Indian sweet meats in Rusholme; Platt Fields Bridge; the lovely ornate architecture (this was at the former Pink Garlic restaurant) which has sadly been all but destroyed along the Curry Mile in Rusholme.

 

 

 

Stranger Things Have Happened.... as seen from Princess Parkway

Before restoration, the windows of the eerily bricked up lodge at Alexandra Park, were decorated with mysterious and frankly bonkers painted images which lent a fascinating air to anyone who bothered to look upwards at the Gothic Revival building.

 

 

 

Gate Way to Manchester since 1934

Celebrating The Princess Parkway, which was designed to give Manchester a 'regal and appealing' introduction from the South, this picture shows the generations of cars in a constant two-way flow, flanking the many flowers and shrubs which were originally designed to bring colour and fragrance to what has become an almighty daily slog for so many thousand commuters into the city. Today, the daffodils are the only reminder of this heady idealism. Of best laid plans.....

 

 

A Stone's Throw from the Parkway Red

left to right, the intricate, Victorian porchways of the terrace houses of Moss Side; Owens Park; window of the former South Manchester Synagogue at Wilbraham Road, Fallowfield; Revolution bar in Fallowfield; part of the East window at St. Clements Church, Chorlton; The William Hulme Grammar School fire safety system

 

 

 

 

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