Bury New Road
Every day, thousands of people travel up and down Bury New Road, or the A56, which runs through three boroughs of Greater Manchester – Bury, Salford and Manchester. The route from Strangeways, along the stretch of warehouses to Higher Broughton, to Prestwich Village can be considered the road that changed the world…
A closer look and a sift through its history reveals the Road’s incredible links to cultural, artistic, political, sociological and sporting change…Friedrich Engels, Mark E Smith, John Cooper Clarke, the Chartists, Mike Leigh, Morrissey, George Best, Bonnie Prince Charlie, New Order, Graham Gouldman, Bugzy Malone, Nico, 007, the world’s first DJ, David Beckham, George Best and The Smiths are just a few of the characters who have major connections with the Road…This project celebrates this amazing culture with scores of archive photos, interviews, documents and artworks.
“It’s like a magnet for us bohemians” jokes John Cooper Clarke. But Bury New Road is definitely a magnet for something, being on one of the main ley lines in the country and standing as a psychogeographer’s dream…
Meanwhile, the physical sites of the Road are now changing, so it’s also about snapshotting the current everyday culture which is slowly disappearing…
This project, snappily titled Bury New Road, is about making those thousands of people who travel up and down the route every day appreciate its specialness. Hopefully, we’re going to point out the magic…