HANGE AT MANCHESTER CENTRAL - Manchester's finest and best-situated station was the appropriately-named Central, opened in 1880 by the Cheshire Lines Committee and its superb train shed a€ with a span of 210ft and a height of 90ft a€" was one of the most outstanding examples of Victorian railway architecture. The three partners of the CLC a€" the Great Central, Great Northern and Midland a€" subsequently became constituents of the LNER and LMS as the sign on the frontage proclaims, beneath the legend 'Cheshire Lines Railway', an entity which did not actually exist! However, the billboard on the Lower Mosley Street wall advertises British Railways and so dates our photograph as the early years of nationalisation, c1950. Wooden buildings at the front of the station were originally intended to be temporary but lasted until closure, while the structures straddling the forecourt are part of a covered walkway (later removed) to the railway-owned Midland Hotel. Manchester Central closed in 1969 and, after over a decade of uncertainty, re-opened as the 'G-Mex' exhibition hall in 1986.