Manchester audiotours

Manchester gave the world the Industrial Revolution, and the world has had complicated feelings about this ever since. The first factories, the first trade unions, the first public railway, the first free public library, the first computer: the city's record of invention is relentless and slightly exhausting. The Science and Industry Museum on Liverpool Road, inside what was the world's first inter-city railway terminus, is the right place to start making sense of it, and it does not require much effort to see how the cotton mills of Cottonopolis in 1820 connect to the digital economy in 2026.

The music history is inseparable from the city's identity in a way that is unusual even for cities that take music seriously.

Joy Division, the Smiths, the Stone Roses, Oasis, the Hacienda, and the Madchester moment of the early 1990s all grew from specific streets and specific venues that still exist, even if the venues themselves have changed use. King Tut's Wah Wah Hut on St Vincent Street is still open and still booking bands. The Barton Arcade, the cast-iron Victorian shopping arcade between Deansgate and St Ann's Square, is one of the finest pieces of commercial architecture in Britain and frequently overlooked.