Basic Site Details | Name: | Ellor Street Redevelopment, Pendleton | | Town, district or village: | Salford | | City or county: | | | Country: | England | | Parish: | | | Status: | | | Grid ref: | | | Notes: | Professor R H Matthew of Edinburgh University, one of Scotland’s leading consultant architects, has accepted a commission to prepare a master plan for Salford’s Broad Street redevelopment scheme which will cost £9 million. It includes a major re-housing project, reconstruction of a main shopping area, provision for a civic centre and major improvements on the A6. [Guardian 12 April 1961]
Bounded by Broad Street (A6), Cross Lane, Churchill Way and Fitzwarren Street, and centred on Ellor Street, the area was one predominantly of working class housing built in the first half of the nineteenth century which by the 1930s had become synonymous with some of the worst slums in the country. Better known as “Hanky Park,” it was the setting for Walter Greenwood’s novel Love on the Dole (1933) and Shelagh Delaney’s play A Taste of Honey, (1958), as well as one source for L S Lowry’s typical northern landscapes. Desperate to eradicate all traces of the area’s past. the City Council determined upon a scheme of total redevelopment, replacing all the terraces with high-rise blocks by 1968. But while successful in removing the physical evidence, the fiction remained. Only weeks before Matthew’s appointment and the commencement of demolition work, Granada Television broadcast the first episode of Coronation Street on 9 December 1960.
The planned civic centre was not progressed. Following Local Government reorganisation in 1974, Salford Town Hall and Civic Centre was moved to Swinton while the art gallery and theatre was finally built some forty years later as The Lowry at Salford Quays.
| Alternative Names| The following alternative names are associated with this building/design: | | | Name | Current name? | Notes |  | Broad Street Redevelopment | | |
Building Type Classification| The building is classified under the following categories: | | | Classification | Original classification? | Notes | | Street plan | | |
Events| The following date-based events are associated with this building: | | | From | To | Event type | Notes | | 1961 | 1968 | | Preparation and phased implementation of the master plan |
PeopleDesign and Construction| The following individuals or organisations have carried out design/construction work. Where architects or practices worked together, matching letters appear beside their names in the Partnership Group column. | | | Name | Role | Partnership Group | From | To | Notes | | Robert Hogg Matthew | | | 1961 | | Prepared Master Plan for the comprehensive redevelopment of the area |
Clients| The following individuals or organisations have commissioned work on this building/design: | | | Name | Notes | | City of Salford | |
Related Buildings, Structures and DesignsChild Structures| This structure or site has the following component or child structures (click on an item to view details): | | | Building Name | Notes | | Flats, Ellor Street Redevelopment, Pendleton | Five 17-storey blocks of flats at the eastern end of the Ellor Street redevelopment area. Precast concrete construction above ground floor level with concrete cross walls and storey height external facing panels. Social housing reduced to its most basic form, the elevation expresses the single and double units of which the blocks were formed.
Cost £1,500,000 |
ReferencesBibliographic References| The following books contain references to this building: | | | Author(s) | Date | Title | Part | Publisher | Notes | | Glendinning, Miles and Muthesius, Stefan | 1994 | Tower Block: Modern Public Housing in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland | | Yale University Press: New Haven and London | p189 |
Periodical References| The following periodicals contain references to this building: | | | Periodical Name | Date | Edition | Publisher | Notes | | Architectural Heritage | | Volume 19 | | pp53-82 Putting the User First? A pioneering Scottish experiment in architectural research
Soledad Garcia Ferrari, Miles Glendinning, Paul Jenkins and Jessica Taylor | | The Guardian | 12 April 1961 | | | |
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