Report - Cathedral Steps, Manchester, March 2010

I know this site has had many reports in the past, but i still wanted to share our trip.

Visited with Appo

Since i first started reading reports on this site, the cathedral steps had always been one of my top places to visit. After a few months i had found all the entrances, but everytime i was gonna do it other things stopped me from doing it.

Yesterday then i decided that i had to stop the boredom of last uni day and asked around if anyone was free. Appo was in the same situation as me, so we went for some abseiling at river street and other places in town and then proceeded towards the Cathedral steps.

None of us had ever been inside. I had been told that it would be easy enough without ropes, but i was very glad we did have one with us. I was properly scared but we were finally inside, what a feeling!

There have been many reports with extensive history so here just a few lines.

The Victoria Arches were a series of arches built in the embankment of the River Irwell in Manchester. They served as business premises, landing stages for Steam packet riverboats, and also as World War II air-raid shelters. They were accessed from wooden staircases which descended from Victoria Street.[1]

Regular flooding of the river resulted in the closure of the steam-packet services in the early 20th century, and the arches were used for general storage. In World War II the arches were converted for use as air raid shelters. The arches are now bricked up and inaccessible; the staircases were removed in the latter part of the 20th century.

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On with the pictures

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Thanks for looking