> Bricked Up Doorway Next To Barton Memorial Arch 📍

Here there is a bricked up doorway and two grilles leading to a space with white ceramic tiles (as reported on Reddit). A number of people have written to suggest that the space is an old public toilet. A local resident wrote:

The Bricked up doorway on Barton used to be Public Toilets until around 1970, until new ones were built directly opposite, which is now a park.
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The Toilets was used by the Barge people carrying good above on the canal. From what I can remember you went in through a single door, Gents to the left and Ladies to the right.

Bricked up public toilets

Barton Memorial Arch

Next to the bricked up doorway is the Barton Memorial Arch. This marks the location of James Brindley’s original Barton Aqueduct and is constructed from one of the relocated arches along with a tablet with the below inscription. You can see a photo of the old aqueduct on Manchester’s Local Image Collection.

This arch originally formed part of the famous Barton Aqueduct, and spanned this road at a point 15 yards east of this tablet. It was removed to allow of Barton Lane being widened in 1893 and re-erected in its present position in 1894 by the Eccles Corporation.

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