St. Peter's Square: Manchester Travel Guide (4.6★)

Stone, trams and a rotunda

The square is a working space. Trams glide across pale granite paving, office workers cut through toward Oxford Street, and the curved Portland stone drum of Central Library takes up the north side. E. Vincent Harris designed the library, and it opened in 1934. Its colonnaded rotunda is the shape everyone photographs.

Behind it, Harris’s Town Hall Extension links through to Alfred Waterhouse’s Gothic Manchester Town Hall on Albert Square. The modern glass blocks of One and Two St Peter’s Square close the southern edge. The 2010s redevelopment opened the square up, which is why it now reads as one wide plaza rather than a road junction.

Memorials worth stopping for

The open paving holds three things worth seeking out:

• The Cenotaph: Edwin Lutyens’ war memorial from 1924. It was moved to its present spot during the redevelopment.
• St Peter’s Cross: a stone cross marking where St Peter’s Church stood until it was demolished in 1907. The square takes its name from that church.
• Emmeline Pankhurst statue: Hazel Reeves’ “Rise Up, Women” (2018) shows the Manchester-born suffragette standing on a chair, mid-speech.

The bigger history is nearby. On 16 August 1819, cavalry charged a crowd demanding parliamentary reform on St Peter’s Field, which took in this area. This became the Peterloo Massacre. Jeremy Deller’s stepped Peterloo Memorial, unveiled for the 2019 bicentenary, stands a few minutes’ walk south beside Manchester Central, the former railway station.

Riding in and moving through

The St Peter’s Square Metrolink stop sits in the middle of the square. Most of the network’s lines pass through here, so trams from Piccadilly, Victoria, Deansgate-Castlefield and MediaCityUK all stop at it. You can also walk in about 10 minutes from Oxford Road station or 15 from Piccadilly.

The Midland Hotel is just across the junction on Peter Street. Albert Square is behind the Town Hall Extension, and Deansgate is a short walk west.

Using the square without getting in the way

Trams move quietly here, and they run across open paving rather than behind kerbs. The tram lanes are marked by the track and changes in the paving. Look both ways at every crossing, even where it seems to be pedestrian space.

On the trams, you can touch in and out with a contactless card or phone at the yellow readers on the platform. You can also buy a ticket from the stop machines before boarding. Do one or the other before you step on, because inspectors check.

Inside Central Library, the domed Wolfson Reading Room is a study space, so keep conversation and phone calls out of it. Ground-floor areas are more relaxed. The library has fixed hours even though the square is always open, so check them before you plan around a visit.

On Remembrance Sunday, the Cenotaph is the focus of the city’s service, and parts of the square are given over to it. Respect the cordons and the silence. On other days, the Cenotaph’s steps are not a seat.