Manchester has always had the ability to reinvent itself. Evolving from a Roman fort to an Elizabethan linen market town and a Georgian market centre, it became the world’s largest cotton spinning town in the early nineteenth century. In the Victorian period it was a commercial, engineering and port city. After industry declined in the mid-twentieth century Manchester re-emerged as an education, music and sports destination. The urban regeneration needed to revive Manchester was an archaeological opportunity to explore the city’s deep roots and its more recent radical past. Over fifty digs have been undertaken since 2000, changing our understanding of the city’s origins, which are prehistoric, Roman, and international.

Archaeological remains from bricks and cobbles to pots and glass bottles have helped to bring to life the world’s first industrial city, with its pioneering canals and railways, filth and poverty. Even the city’s newer history of live music has been rediscovered through modern archaeology.