Wythenshawe: The Story of a Garden City

Wythenshawe’s early history began as the Domesday village of Northenden. This north Cheshire ‘den’ has had its share of drama and personalities—a Civil War siege, incidents in the 1745 Rebellion, the two main instigators of Peterloo and a couple of famous murders. These were nothing, however, compared to the invasion by Manchester which, after battling with the land-owners through the 1920s, crossed the Mersey armed with a Parliamentary permit to build its great garden city. It was designed by Barry Parker to house 100,000 and achieved its fame, not as a garden city, but as the world’s largest council estate.