the story
ALWAYS MADE FOR SOMETHING.
For almost 150 years, Campfield has been a place where Manchester comes together.
ALWAYS MADE FOR SOMETHING.
For almost 150 years, Campfield has been a place where Manchester comes together. A market. An exhibition hall. A place for industry. A museum. A stage. And now, a place to work, create, make, meet and experience.
The buildings have changed many times. What happens inside them has changed even more. But Campfield has always been made to be used.
IT STARTED WITH A MARKET.
Campfield's story begins in Victorian Manchester. The Upper and Lower Campfield Market Halls were designed by Manchester architects Mangnall and Littlewood and completed in 1878, built on a site already known for its markets and fairs.
Sitting either side of St. Matthew's Church on Liverpool Road, the two great iron and glass halls were created as public markets, filled with traders, produce and people.
From the beginning, Campfield was somewhere to gather, exchange and do business.
And it didn't stay just a market for long.
A PLACE FOR NEW IDEAS.
By the end of the nineteenth century, Lower Campfield was already finding new uses.
Its huge open interior made it a natural home for exhibitions, gatherings and events. In 1882 it hosted the Smoke Abatement Exhibition, an early attempt to confront one of industrial Manchester's biggest environmental problems.
By 1900, the market had been enclosed and in 1909 it became Manchester's City Exhibition Hall. Trade shows. Industry. Entertainment. New products. New technology.
Campfield became somewhere Manchester could come to see what was happening, and what might happen next.
MADE IN MANCHESTER.
Throughout the early twentieth century, Campfield continued to change with the city around it. During the First World War, the Lower Hall was used as an indoor parade ground for the Manchester Pals Battalions. Between the wars, it returned to public life, hosting exhibitions celebrating Manchester's textile, engineering and commercial industries.
For the Manchester Centenary Exhibition in 1938, the Parks Service even created an indoor park complete with a working fountain inside the hall. During the Second World War, its enormous interior found another purpose: testing barrage balloons.
Campfield had become something remarkably adaptable. Market when Manchester needed a market. Exhibition hall when it wanted to show the world what it could make. Industrial space when the city needed it. The building kept changing because Manchester kept changing.
A WINDOW INTO THE FUTURE.
After the war, Campfield returned once again to exhibitions. Through the 1950s and 60s, shows including Brighter Homes and Ideal Homes filled the hall with new products, technology and ideas for modern living.
For generations of Mancunians, Campfield was somewhere you could walk through the doors and discover something new. In 1974, the building's architectural and historic importance was recognised with Grade II listed status. Three years later, a major fire badly damaged the eastern end of Lower Campfield. It could have been the end of the story. Instead, Manchester chose to save it.
PLANES IN A MARKET HALL.
Campfield's next life was perhaps its most unexpected. Following restoration, the Manchester Air & Space Museum opened inside Lower Campfield in 1983. Full-size aircraft filled the Victorian hall, celebrating Manchester's contribution to aviation and engineering.
In 1985 it became part of the Museum of Science and Industry and, as the Air and Space Hall, would become familiar to generations of people growing up in the city. But even then, Campfield was never only a museum. Gigs, fairs, installations, tastings and events continued to bring people into the building. Until 2020, when the Air and Space Hall closed its doors. Another chapter had ended.
THEN, CAMPFIELD STARTED AGAIN.
The latest chapter takes Campfield back to something close to its original purpose. A place for people.
The historic halls have been restored and reimagined as part of a new Campfield, bringing workspace, studios, technology, production, events, food, drink and public life together under the same roofs. Original Victorian architecture sits alongside spaces designed for the way people work and create today.
Businesses are being built here. Films and content are being made here. Founders are starting things here. Events fill the halls. Coffee is poured every morning. And every Saturday, traders and shoppers return as Campfield becomes a market once again.
Almost 150 years after the first stalls opened, people are gathering here again.
THE BUILDINGS CHANGE.
THE IDEA DOESN'T.
Campfield has never really been one thing. It's been a market and a museum. An exhibition hall and an industrial space. Somewhere to trade, learn, gather, discover, celebrate and make things.
Today, that same spirit continues.
Different people.
Different ideas.
Different industries.
Same halls.
And the story is still being written.