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Charlotte Street, MANCHESTER, M1 4EX

Stunning brickwork mural looms over Manchesters Chinatown

Part of Manchester's "Chinese Quarter", Faulkner Street, Manchester.

A slab-and-podium office block built in 1964 to the designs of Gunton & Gunton. Like a lot of Manchester's 1960s towers it has recently been refurbished, in this case reclad in 2003. Such work always seem to entail the loss of simple clean lines and the addition of fussy details, and while this is no exception, it's not a bad job.

This small black-and-white plaque between two Chinese restaurants on the side of Faulkner Street facing the car park, was erected in 203 to mark the bicentenary of John Dalton’s atomic theory. This theory, the prime source of Dalton’s fame, was first announced in 1803 while Dalton was in lodgings here. Dalton moved to Manchester in 1793 when he was appointed teacher of mathematics and natural philosophy at the New College, Manchester. He rented rooms in what is now Chinatown but was then the Georgian area of St James’s around the long-demolished church of the same name. He lived in three properties in Faulkner Street and nearby Booth Street before purchasing 27 Faulkner Street where he lived from 1835 until he died in 1844 Dalton made over 200,000 notes on the weather (when meteorologists refer to ‘oldest known records’, they are often referring to Dalton’s work) and wrote many papers and two books on meteorology. He suffered from colour-blindness – an inability to tell red from green – and wrote the first scientific paper about the affliction. Ironically the word for colour-blindness in a number of European languages features his name. It is Daltonismo in Spanish, Portuguese and Italian but in English, we just say ‘colour-blindness’ and ignore Dalton’s contribution. However, John Dalton is most famous for his Atomic Theory which he first presented as a postscript to a paper on the absorption of gases by water and other liquids. He first presented this paper to the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society in October 1803. This work is widely regarded as the beginning of modern chemistry. His name lives on in John Dalton Street. There is a statue of him in the entrance of Manchester Town Hall, and also outside the Dalton Building at Manchester Metropolitan University, on the corner of Oxford Street and Chester Street (and also this small plaque hiding away in Faulkner Street).

Looking across the portico over the entrance to the gallery in Mosley Street.

Former warehouse, built c1856-58, with stone ground floor with a tall arcade, alternating pediments to second-floor windows, and a line of chimneys. The two at the corner are disposed in such a way as to mirror the splayed corner below. Grade II listed. One of a fine series of mid-C19th former warehouses on the south side of the street, built between c1850-65 to the designs of Edward Walters "in his personal and highly influential interpretation of the palazzo style" (Pevsner). Almost all occupy a whole block (to allow access to loading bays at the side), are of fine brick with stone dressings, and of five storeys and basement. "What matters in all is the conscientious and discriminating decoration, the amount of which depended on the purse of the client."

Former warehouse dating from c1855 with quoins, keystones, sill bands and segmental windows. Grade II listed. One of a fine series of mid-C19th former warehouses on the south side of the street, built between c1850-65 to the designs of Edward Walters "in his personal and highly influential interpretation of the palazzo style" (Pevsner). Almost all occupy a whole block (to allow access to loading bays at the side), are of fine brick with stone dressings, and of five storeys and basement. "What matters in all is the conscientious and discriminating decoration, the amount of which depended on the purse of the client."

This large brickwork mosaic on the gable end of a building in George Street overlooks a public car park in Manchester's China Town.

Mid-C19th stone ex-warehouse, possibly designed by Edward Walters. Pevsner describes it thus: "texture is carefully controlled: rusticated basement, channelled ground floor, four storeys above, with ranks of windows between superimposed pilasters". Grade II listed. This is in Chinatown and the ground floor is occupied by a Chinese restaurant.

Decorated with red lanterns to mark the Chinese New Year.