Skip to main content

Modern Architecture in Salford

Memories Workshop

Last month we held a small in person workshop at the Working Class Movement Library with some of our oral history interviewees. We wanted to give them the opportunity to meet each other and to share, compare and contrast their memories of growing up and living in Salford from the 1960s onwards and the changes […]

Representations & Perceptions of Salford

by Chris Hughes Chris Hughes is a graduate of the University of Salford and the University of Manchester, and a freelance political commentator, and founder of alt-politics https://www.alt-politics.co.uk/. Background image: Ellor Street and Unwin Street area under redevelopment, c1960s, University Salford Photographic Archive, ULS/3/89 The Modern Backdrop is a project that has caught my interest and imagination, […]

Take part in our oral history interviews to share your memories

As part of the Modern Backdrop project we are carrying out oral history interviews with people who remember the changes that occurred to housing in Salford and the Pendleton area from the 1950s to the 1970s. If this sounds like you – please get in touch! Your memories will help us to analyze the transition […]

‘They were anxious to get on and get redevelopment going’

This week we are posting excerpts from an interview between Professor Miles Glendinning and another architect involved in the design and building of the Ellor Street Development Area, Norman Raitt. Raitt had trained in Aberdeen, and after two years working in Sweden joined the Edinburgh University Architecture Research Unit (referred to in the interview as […]

‘We tried to help them make Salford as good as it could be’

Extracts from an interview with the architect-planner Percy Johnson Marshall In this blog piece, we publish extracts from an interview between Professor Miles Glendinning and Professor Percy Johnson Marshall, who was one of the ‘architect planners’ employed by Salford Council to work on the design and construction of the redevelopment of Pendleton in the 1960s.  […]

The Reverend Stanley Horrocks (1922-2005)

by Paul Dyson Photograph above: Stanley Horrocks, St James Church, Higher Broughton, 1977 Recently, we posted an article by Paul Dyson on his memories of Higher Broughton. The post was illustrated with photographs by Paul's stepfather Stanley (Stan) Horrocks. This post now focusses on Stan and his love for Salford and photography. Stan was born […]

Review of our workshop: Slums, Slum Clearance, and Slum Dweller in Britain (1950-1975) 

by Daniela Atzori and Laura Janicka Photograph: Michael Goodger, Back yard, 1969. The event took place on Friday the 20th of January. We were welcomed with hot coffee and refreshments. At 9.30 Tanja Poppelreuter and Alexandra Mitchell introduced us to the Modern Backdrop project and outlined the plan for the day.  The first speaker of the day was […]

Higher Broughton: Development and Change

by Paul Dyson Photographs by Stanley Horrocks Higher Broughton has really been our family home. My sister and I lived there for most of our pre-adult lives and we both returned hundreds of times up to 2019 to visit our parents there. Our mother spent over seventy years there as a resident. However, the one […]