Manchester Mayfield Railway Station (NOT ‘train station’ please, we’re not in America), is the largest derelict space in Manchester, a remarkable feat given that it’s been abandoned for over 30 years. It’s even more remarkable when you consider the extraordinary amount of development that has happened in Manchester since the infamous bomb in 1996. Mind you, I said that about London Road Fire Station as well, which is all the more remarkable given that the two sites are more or less across the road from each other.

Sited adjacent to Manchester Piccadilly, if you have ever travelled into that station, you will no doubt have seen Mayfield without perhaps knowing what it was. That said, it is less noticeable now since the roof was removed in 2013 as it was in a dangerous state.

The station had an unremarkable history. Built just after the railway crazed Victorian era, it opened in 1910 and the main building lacks the style and embellishments of many other city railway stations, instead being functional in its aesthetics. It was originally conceived as an overflow station for Manchester London Road (now known as Manchester Piccadilly) with regular trains running to the suburbs and it was proposed (possibly unrealistically) that city workers could go home for lunch. But it was never that successful as a station and apart from a time when Piccadilly was undergoing electric action work in the 1950’s, never that busy.

Closure came in 1960, but following a brief period of disuse, it was reopened as a parcels depot. A conveyor bridge was built across Fairfield Street to link with the parcels office at Piccadilly, and the station continued in this capacity until 1986, when it finally closed for good.