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Second Avenue, MANCHESTER, M17 1DZ

Built in 1914 as the primary school for Trafford Village, a role that ceased with the disappearance of residential properties in the area. It has been converted to office accommodation. The architecture is remarkably modern for the period.

Built in 1914 as the primary school for Trafford Village, a role that ceased with the disappearance of residential properties in the area. It has been converted to office accommodation. The architecture is remarkably modern for the period.

Following the construction of the Manchester Ship Canal in 1895, Trafford Park, the ancestral home of the de Trafford family since medieval times, was transformed into the World's first, planned, industrial estate. In among all the great factories that formed the industrial estate a "workers" village was built along American lines of a gridlike pattern of "Avenues" and "Streets". This hotel was opened for visitors in 1902, on the corner of Third Avenue and a road now known as Village Way.

This was built as a British Legion club, but has survived as a local pub for the industrial estate.

The corner of Third Avenue and Eleventh Street lies at what was the heart of Trafford Park Estate. The old terraced houses that once housed the workers have long been demolished and replaced by modern business units. However here a range of shops including several kinds of eatery still serve workers on the estate.

The shops, church and Village Inn pub are the only surviving functional elements of the original Trafford Village, the former residential area within the Trafford Park Estate. At the height of the estate, there would be 30 or so trams, later buses, lined up in this street ready to take workers back to Manchester and Salford.

The Manchester Ship Canal can be seen to the top and right (where Mode Wheel Locks are visible). The Bridgewater Canal is on the left. The large roundabout near the centre is Parkway Circle, Village Circle roundabout is to the lower right.

Bronze plaque on Image It is inscribed: Marshall Stevens 1852–1936 To whose foresight, energy and ability the successful development of Trafford Park as an industrial area is due

The memorial to Marshall Stevens, who is credited with being a prime mover in the creation of the Trafford Park Industrial Estate. Marshall Stevens (1852 – 1936) was a property developer whose work with Daniel Adamson and others led to the construction of the Manchester Ship Canal, completed in 1894. In 1897, Stevens become general manager of Trafford Park Estates, a company set up to develop Trafford Park, the ancestral home of the de Trafford family, into what became the first and largest planned industrial estate in the world. He also served as Conservative Member of Parliament for Eccles from 1918 to 1922. After Stevens died and was buried in St Catherine Church at Barton-upon-Irwell, shareholders in Trafford Park Estates subscribed to pay for a memorial. A 22-ton block of Welsh granite with a bronze portrait medallion and inscription was designed and made by Ashton upon Mersey sculptor, Arthur Sherwood Edwards. It was unveiled at the junction of Trafford Park Road and Ashburton Road in October 1937. In 1993, the memorial was relocated to Wharfside Promenade with the introduction of a new road layout but as this site became part of Imperial War Museum North, the memorial was put into temporary storage when construction work began on the museum. It is now in Trafford Park Village at the junction of Third Avenue and Eleventh Street, opposite the St Antony Centre. The memorial is inscribed: Marshall Stevens 1852–1936 To whose foresight, energy and ability the successful development of Trafford Park as an industrial area is due Image] Abridged from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Stevens (Wikipedia)