The Royal Mail’s 26-stamp, alphabetical journey around the UK concludes with the second part (M-Z) of its UK A-Z series and the launch of 14 new stamps, featuring iconic landmarks across all four countries. UK A-Z Part 2, issued on 10th April, celebrates some of the UK’s most famous tourist attractions. They range from the impressive Narrow Water Castle in Northern Ireland and the dramatic Urquhart castle in Scotland to the beautiful Portmeirion in Wales and our own Manchester Town Hall.

The First Class Manchester Town Hall

Manchester Town Hall was designed and built in 1877 by Alfred Waterhouse, and is the headquarters of Manchester City Council.

The original Manchester Town Hall was constructed between 1822-1825, but was quickly outgrown as Manchester enjoyed the boom years of its local textile industry.

Planning for a new town hall began in 1863, when the Manchester Corporation demanded a building ‘equal if not superior, to any similar building in the country at any cost, which may be reasonably required’. They were presented with a building in 1877 that is regarded to this day as one of the finest interpretations of neo-gothic architecture in the United Kingdom.

The town hall was granted Grade I Listed status in 1952.

Royal Mail has kindly let me offer you a complete set of the new set of 14 stamps of the UK A-Z Part 2 completely free.

Unfortunately there’s a small number of sets available.

To make this as fair as possible leave a comment here and I’ll put all comments into a draw. I’ll then ask the winners to email me their addresses and I’ll send off their set.

Happy commenting!

There’s still feverish activity at the new Clayton Hall Museum as everybody finishes the painting, adjusting the pictures and placing the food in the most artistic way they can.

The Clayton Hall Museum is obviously going to be an ongoing project with furniture added and changed. Room dressing changed from time to time. Maybe even the guides will take turns! It’s certainly expected that more rooms will be opened up for the museum as time goes on.

There’s a unique opportunity for you to see the results of months of hard graft when Clayton Hall Museum actually opens on Saturday 28th November at 1pm until 4pm for viewing. There will be people on hand to answer questions and tell you something about the rooms.

I’ve been asked if I could help man the event. Is that called volunteering?

Anyway, I will be there. So look out for a slightly sleep deprived person who will still to do his best to answer your questions as intelligently as possible!

The museum itself is half of Clayton Hall and has been dressed to show the Halls’ Victorian period. The other half of the Hall has residents, some of whom are apparently ghosts,

Clayton Hall is one of the few remaining moated manor houses in England and you reach the hall over a nice little bridge.

I look forward to welcoming you to the Clayton Hall Museum Victorian experience on Saturday, for one day only (at least from me anyway).

Clayton Hall museum looks like a great new school curriculum resource for the Victorian period. It’s about to be opened for exactly that purpose.

Volunteers with help from Manchester Leisure have been decorating and finding appropriate furniture to show how the hall might have looked during Victorian times.

They’ve even had the kitchen range re-installed so that as soon as you walk in it looks just as you’d expect a Victorian kitchen to look.

They’ve just had their open day for teachers to view before the museum’s grand opening.

All the teachers that came were enthusiastic and some have already booked one or more dates to bring classes.

I suspect it could be fun for more schools to find out about this little gem. To see the progress to date check the Friends of Clayton Park’s where there are some nice photos of people working!

I picked up a nice little paper backed book on Bury in ASDA the other day. It showed old photographs of Bury from days gone by. You could see streets full of empty space – no rush hour to disturb the photographer!

Anyway, I enjoyed reading it so much that it got me to thinking…

I wondered if there’s any good books out there about Manchester that you’ve come across. If you email me or leave comments about the one you’ve found that was good I’ll look into it and add it as a kind of library resource.

I’m depending on you to come up with at least one book that you’d recommend and why! So get your thinking cap on.