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Simon Knott @simonknott.bsky.social · 47m

The back of an iconic building, more familiar from the other side...

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Simon Knott @simonknott.bsky.social · 2h

To Salford Museum and Art Gallery!

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Simon Knott @simonknott.bsky.social · 2h

St Philip, Salford. Locked, but you can see through the glass door that it's stripped out and kitted for 'fresh expressions'-type worship.

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Simon Knott @simonknott.bsky.social · 3h

'When I am lifted up I will draw all people to myself' West window by Linda Walton, 1995 in Salford Cathedral.

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Simon Knott @simonknott.bsky.social · 3h

Looking from the baptistery across the crossing to the Blessed Sacrament chapel in the south transept, Salford Cathedral.

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Simon Knott @simonknott.bsky.social · 4h

Salford Education Department, 1895.

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Simon Knott @simonknott.bsky.social · 4h

Good morning from Salford! Here's Salford Cinema, 1912, now a Brazilian protestant church.

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Simon Knott @simonknott.bsky.social · 6h

The mizrah window in the Sephardi synagogue, Manchester, photographed on Monday.

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Simon Knott @simonknott.bsky.social · 17h

Burnley Central Library, earlier today. On 30 July 1971 a public meeting took place here that would begin a cultural revolution that still has its echoes today. Can you guess what it was?

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Simon Knott @simonknott.bsky.social · 17h

The wharfside at Burnley on the Leeds-Liverpool Canal, earlier today. The canal runs at one of the highest points in the town, and the wharf is on Manchester Road above the town centre.

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Simon Knott @simonknott.bsky.social · 18h

2/2 Here's the one on the other side, Science and Labour.

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Simon Knott @simonknott.bsky.social · 18h

Painting and Poetry in opus sectile tiling in the foyer of Blackburn Museum, by John William Brown, 1901, one of two pieces, one each side of the entrance.

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Simon Knott @simonknott.bsky.social · 22h

Beside it, the Burnley Miners Memorial.

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Simon Knott @simonknott.bsky.social · 22h

A short hop to Burnley, and 'Looking to the Future' by Joan Moore and Marek Zulanski, 1961 in Place de Vitry sur Seine.

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Simon Knott @simonknott.bsky.social · 23h

3/3 The Kykkos icon, Holy Mother of God with St Michael and St Dmitri, 19th Century Russian in Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery.

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Simon Knott @simonknott.bsky.social · 23h

2/3 St George defeats the dragon, a late 16th Century Russian icon in the excellent icon collection of Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery.

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Simon Knott @simonknott.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Blackburn Museum has a remarkably good, and large, collection of Greek and Russian icons. This triptych depicts Abraham and Sarah withvthe three angels, flanked by St George and St Dmitri. Greek, 1768.

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Simon Knott @simonknott.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Barbara Castle MP, born #OTD 6 October 1910, walks through Cathedral Square, Blackburn. She holds the Equal Pay Act 1970, which she piloted through Parliament and into law. She was a Blackburn MP for 33 years.

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Simon Knott @simonknott.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

The Fen bog oak table in Blackburn Cathedral. It's currently doing a tour of English cathedrals. As one Cambridgeshire native to another, I greeted it with familiarity.

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Simon Knott @simonknott.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

3/3 Icon reredos in the Jesus Chapel, Blackburn Cathedral, by John Hayward.

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Simon Knott @simonknott.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Glass by John Hayward in the south transept, incorporating 19th Century survivals from before the rebuilding of everything east of the nave. As @YalePevsner observes, for a decade in the 1960s Hayward was effectively resident church artist.

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Simon Knott @simonknott.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Looking up into the lantern tower at the crossing, Blackburn Cathedral. The corona below is by John Hayward. Laurence King designed the lantern, completed 1967, but it failed, and was replaced in the 1990s by Brian Lowe. Glass by Linda Walton, 2000.

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Simon Knott @simonknott.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

I understand there are four thousand holes, so I shall have to watch my step...

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Simon Knott @simonknott.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Incidentally, the tiled map of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway network you can see just in the shot on the left is rather good, I photographed it in 2024:

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Simon Knott @simonknott.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Victoria station not terribly busy yet.

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Simon Knott @simonknott.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Good morning from Manchester! It's getting light, and I'm off to Blackburn.

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Simon Knott @simonknott.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Some tall buildings in Manchester for those who like that kind of thing. The Greengate business district across the Irwell from Manchester Cathedral.

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Simon Knott @simonknott.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

By the end of the 19th Century there were eleven synagogues on Cheetham Hill Road, but gradually the communities dispersed and the last one closed in the 1970s, today the museum. It charts the arrivals of the communities, their lives in north Manchester and Jewish life today in England. Recommended.

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Simon Knott @simonknott.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Manchester was one of the main centres for the manufacture and distribution of cotton fabrics and related goods, and this made it an attractive place for Jewish arrivals to begin new lives, especially if they could rejoin their landsleit, the community from the towns and villages they'd left behind.

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Simon Knott @simonknott.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

In broad Mancunian accents, mostly women, they described surviving pogroms in Russia, hiding from the Nazis, escaping persecution in Syria and Iran. Again and again they said how wonderful it had been to find themselves in Manchester.

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Simon Knott @simonknott.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I found my visit to Manchester Jewish Museum this morning very moving, especially the recordings made in the 1970s and 1980s of the last surviving 1st and 2nd generation arrivals.

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Simon Knott @simonknott.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

The nice thing about chairs is that you can clear them away and leave an open space as originally intended. For example, here's Ely Cathedral a couple of weeks ago, looking west in the nave:

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Simon Knott @simonknott.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

19th Century sampler in memory of the 1819 Peterloo Massacre in Manchester. People's History Museum.

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Simon Knott @simonknott.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

As it turns out, after a few showers this morning the forecast was unnecessary pessimistic. It's a beautiful evening now.

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Simon Knott @simonknott.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

'Domestic work is varied and pleasant' A 1930s poster produced by the National Employment Exchange Service, in the People's History Museum, Manchester. At the time, roughly a fifth of the female workforce was employed in poorly paid service positions in private homes.

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Simon Knott @simonknott.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

The People's History Museum, Manchester.

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Simon Knott @simonknott.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

2/2 The mizrah and Torah scrolls in the Spanish and Portugese synagogue, Manchester.

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Simon Knott @simonknott.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Inside the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, Cheetham Hill Road, Manchester.

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Simon Knott @simonknott.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

The former Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, Cheetham Hill Road, by Edward Salomons, 1874. Today Manchester Jewish Museum.

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Simon Knott @simonknott.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Beware! Counter-drone operations active in this area.

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Simon Knott @simonknott.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

My morning wander starts in Manchester Cathedral, one of the best of the medieval collegiate churches later given Cathedral status, I think.

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Simon Knott @simonknott.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

'And on the Sixth Day, GOD created MANchester' Dantzic Street.

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Simon Knott @simonknott.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Despite its utter transformation into Britain's most vibrant city with a forest of gleaming skyscrapers over the last 30 years, Manchester city centre still has some gritty corners tucked away if you look. Thorniley Brow off of Dantzic Street. As Lowry once remarked, 'a derelict building gets me'.

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