There are tonnes and tonnes of tourist traps in Manchester, but we decided that the best way of learning about the city was by talking to an expert.
Josh runs free city walking tours each day, and gave us a quick example of the sort of stuff he has to offer.
Josh runs free city walking tours each day, and gave us a quick example of the sort of stuff he has to offer.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Hi I'm Theo with Manchester World and today I'm joining Josh who runs a free
00:04walking tour around Manchester to try and learn more about the city for
00:08International Tourism Week. Hi my name is Josh I set up free Manchester walking
00:12tours about 10 years ago it's a daily tips-based tour that runs every day at
00:1611 a.m. and today I'm going to show you a couple of the highlights of the city
00:20centre of Manchester. Manchester really developed as a modern city in the late
00:231700s when you get the Industrial Revolution. Manchester is the world's
00:26first industrialized city but the flip side is being the first you also make
00:30the mistakes first and therefore a lot of great political movements begin life
00:35in Manchester in reaction to those kind of difficult and dire conditions. So this
00:39is Alan Matheson Turing he's the kind of father of modern computer science quite
00:44famously cracked the Enigma codes in World War two after which he came to
00:48Manchester and helped to build the world's first computer that could
00:50program information and also store information. This city was based on
00:54economic migration Jews in the east of Europe wealthy German Italian merchants
00:58Irish of course which is really I think seen today in the fact that Manchester
01:03is the third most linguistically diverse city on earth. After London and after New
01:08York there are more languages officially spoken in Manchester than any other city
01:12and one of the areas that reflects that migration and the contribution that
01:16economic migrants made to the city is of course in Chinatown. As you can see the
01:21town hall here is currently under renovation like so much of Manchester
01:25they're just about peeling back the scaffolding and you can see right at the
01:29top the golden cotton ball. Manchester was a synonym for cotton based textiles
01:34all around the world and so for example in the Swedish language and the Czech
01:38language the word Manchester means corduroy trousers that I am sporting
01:42today. This is an important memorial here in Manchester it's the memorial for the
01:47Peterloo massacre which took place on the 16th of August 1819. If you come to
01:51the top you'll see here there's a compass which points to
01:57massacres which have taken place all around the world since the Peterloo
02:00massacre. Here we are in the the Royal Exchange the Royal Exchange Theatre
02:04it's originally a cotton exchange for trading cotton these are the prices of
02:08cotton from the final day of trading. I think this building encapsulates the
02:12city because you can see the industrial Manchester and the Manchester side by
02:17side the the empty warehouses have become the Chinese restaurants and
02:21raves and offices or the empty train station in St. Peter's Square that's now
02:25a conference center it was a music venue for a while and yeah here the Royal
02:29Exchange of cotton trading is now a place where ideas and creativity is
02:33traded instead. I really can't thank Josh enough for his help as he says he runs a
02:38free walking tour around Manchester there are tours every day starting at 11
02:42a.m. in Sackville Gardens next to that Alan Turing statue. The thing that will
02:46stick in my head is this the the Royal Manchester Exchange there having the old
02:49prices from the final day of trading and then having this uber modern uber cool
02:54in the round theater. Thank you for watching follow Manchester World for
02:57more and please give Josh's walking tours a go