Thoughts from Manchester's birthplace

As part of some of the research I am doing into Manchester's History,I took a walk down to Castlefield basin early yesterday morning.

It was a cold clear day and the water in the canal basin was frozen,the only sound that percolated the cold silence being the roar of the trams and the trains across the Victorian viaducts.It seems strange that this was once part of the bustling heart of Manchester.




My main purpose was to look at the Roman park.What was left of the Roman ruins were wiped away during the late 18th and 19th centuries as first the Rochdale canal and then the railways were built.
The reconstruction of the North Gate is built on what was found of the original foundations,a rough stone plinth.
The gate we see today is an interpretation of how it would have looked around 200AD.The Roman Road headed North from here,running parallel to Deansgate across Liverpool Road before heading towards where the cathedral now stands.

This photo captures the old and the New Manchester with 21st Century Hilton Tower overlooking the North Gate of the 2nd century fort






Just along from the reconstruction are the Roman gardens.it was here that excavations in the 1970's first established a civilian town outside of the fort servicing the garrison