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In 2022 Manchester got it’s own answer to the New York City High Line when the Castlefield Viaduct opened – a lush sky garden built on a Victorian-era steel viaduct right through the city centre.
This 120-metre-long National Trust-owned garden was initially a pilot scheme. But now the viaduct is here to stay, and has been given the green light by Manchester City Council to not just become a permanent park but get bigger.
Architects BDP and Twelve Architects have written a proposal to grow the garden on the Grade II-listed viaduct to 330 metres, transforming it into a ‘sky park’ inspired by the Big Apple attraction.
The proposed landscape could see WaterAid’s Gold medal-winning garden from 2024’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show, designed by architect Je Ahn and landscape designer Tom Massey, transported to Manchester. The showstopper of the design is a planted rainwater harvesting pavilion, which filters and stores rainfall for irrigation, while slowing the flow of heavy downpours and providing shade.
The second phase of the scheme will see a second entrance to the park created from Egerton Street on the west side of Mancunian Way. That includes an expansion to Pomona Island in Trafford and several other entrances along the route.
The National Trust said the end result would be a space that ‘respects the listed structure, celebrates the nature, beauty and history of the viaduct, and complements existing plans for the city’. However, the trust still needs to raise a further £3 million before work can go ahead on the project.
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