Simon English
England Revisited

On a rubgy post on the old racecourse in the bend of the River in Salford.

On a stick stuck in the playing fields roughly where the rugby post was in 1971. Back then this bend in the River Irwell had seen a recent change of use as this great open space the middle of a city had ceased to be Salford Race Course and become the rugby fields for Salford University.

Since then Rugby can not claim so much space. The south half has become football fields while the north and more isolated end has been fenced off with 8’ chain link fence and planted with a belt of poplar. Access to this open space amenity, marked on the maps as ‘Irwell Sculpture trail’ is by a new pedestrian bridge over the river to the west. Clearly a great deal of time effort and money has been invested on this programme of urban regeneration, maybe some 15 to 20 years ago, as evidenced by the trees planted along the river bank, Atlantic Ceder and other exotics.

The open grass in the middle of this ‘D’ of trees is unmown but the fescue sward indicates that this is the remains of the time it was mown playing fields. Areas of docks and coarse weeds show where the ground has been cut up by heavy machinery or fires lit by vandalism. Certainly the one visible ‘sculpture’ an unpainted oxidised 12’ high steel ‘A’ is nicely made but the oval glass insert appears to be the worse for the application of heat. Less ambitiously its base has been tagged by spray paint.

Who uses this wonderful expanse of land is not clear. The huge area of blocks of flats, each at 9 stories high, that occupied the land to the west, (at my estimation more than 1000 flats), has been completely demolished as has, with the demolition of the smoking factory chimneys beyond, the employment. The old conventional terrace and semi detached houses remain.

Along the river bank the huge stand of rosebay willow herb has been replaced by Himalayan Balsam and Giant Hogweed. It would be interesting to see if this was natural change or the result of a programme of weed control allowing one invasive species to be replaced by other more aggressive ones.

The view to the south over the football fields is a real surprise. I was expecting a real change. The centre of Manchester has been famously full of recent rebuilding and modernisation but from this viewpoint the skyline seems remarkably unchanged. The outline of the blocks of offices, flats, steeples and roofs being almost the same. Most of the building changes, as seen from here must have been done in the 1960’s.
Points 30 & 33