St Michael's Flags and Angel Meadow Park

St Michael's Flags and Angel Meadow Park is a public park to the immediate northeast of Manchester city centre, in North West England. Located on a slope between the River Irk and Rochdale Road occupies an area of  acres (3 ha), but features in the formative history of Manchester. It was once an affluent suburb of Manchester, until the 19th-century Industrial Revolution altered the social standing of the area and introduced poverty and disease. Regeneration of the park in the 2000s has however modified the area and created a gateway into the Irk Valley.

History

St Michael's and All Angel's church was built in 1788 by Humphrey Owen, to seat just over a thousand people. Its foundation stone was laid on May 20, 1788 and it was consecrated on July 23, 1789. Almost twenty years later, a letter appeared in the Manchester Guardian declaring "Why one of the ugliest churches in Manchester situated in one of the most crowded and notorious parts of the City, should have so long enjoyed the pleasant sounding name 'St Michael's, Angel Meadow' is beyond understanding".Extract from North and East Manchester article, December 28, 1808

The land adjacent to the church became the largest cemetery in Manchester, used for the interment of those who had no family place of burial or were too poor to afford a proper funeral. The population density of Angel Meadow in the mid-19th century was in excess of 350 per...
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