Two Gorton Triumphs: Gorton Monastery and Belle Vue Zoo

Gorton Monastery – once dubbed ‘Manchester’s Taj Mahal’ - is a magnificent Grade 2 listed building designed by Edward Pugin. This event will tell the story of the building, and explain how a Charitable Trust raised the funds to save it from dereliction.

The Monastery also houses an important collection of material relating to the world-famous Belle Vue Zoo and Amusement Park, donated by its former Director, Gerald Iles. There will be a chance to see these items, along with some short films he made, which were sealed away for over 50 years, and have now been restored by the North West Film Archive. To make the collection more accessible, it has been decided to deposit it at Manchester’s fabulous Chethams’ Library, which already has a substantial Belle Vue Archive. Chethams’s Librarian, Dr Michael Powell, will deliver a short talk on the history of Belle Vue, and its surviving records.