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St. Peter's Church
 St. Peter's Church was built
by James Wyat in 1788. It stood where St. Peter's Square is today
until 1907 when, like a number of city centre
churches, it closed because of dropping city centre population numbers
and church attendances.
   A stone cross was erected in St. Peter's
Square
to mark
the location of the church.
     As you can see from the Adshead Map
extract below, shown with the permission of Chetham's Library, the
square was very different in the days when the church dominated
it. Below the map is a photograph of the square after the church
was demolished and the commemorative cross, by Temple Moore, was
erected. The
cross was unveiled in 1908.
  Not far from St. Peter's Church was St.
Peter's Field, where the Free Trade Hall was constructed. It was
on that field that thousands of people gathered on August 16th, 1819 to
listen to speakers in favour of Parliamentary Reform. The local
magistrates ordered mounted cavalry to disperse the crowd, an action
which
resulted in the deaths of 15 people and left more than 400 people
injured. The crowd was composed of men and women many of them
textile workers some who had walked long distances to get to Manchester
from the surrounding mill towns.
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