Another (less rainy) Day in Manchester

We’re off to Manchester again today so that we can visit the places which were closed on Monday. We walked to the station and took the train to Piccadilly. We then took the tram to the stop closest to the Science Museum. The guy who sold us the tickets told us that travel within the centre was included - we wish we’d known that on Monday when it was precipitating down!

The Science museum was odd - it didn’t seem to have a coherent theme. There were unrelated objects dotted around the first display area making it difficult to understand what they were trying to do.

The most interesting thing was the “Manchester Baby” which was the first electronic stored-program computer. The Baby was not intended to be a practical computing engine, but was instead designed as a testbed for the Williams tube, the first truly random-access memory. 

This was the first working machine to contain all the elements essential to a modern electronic digital computer.

As soon as the Baby had demonstrated the feasibility of its design, a project was initiated at the university to develop it into a full scale operational machine, the Manchester Mark 1.

The second room in the museum (there were only two open) was devoted to the Textile Industry and contained examples of the machines which were used. Unfortunately, having been to a working mill yesterday, these static displays were rather tame.

After the museum we found Costa and had coffee before wandering back towards the city centre following a canal. We visited the “Hidden Gem” church which was closed yesterday before grabbing a McFlurry for lunch.

Finally we visited the art gallery where Emma spent a happy hour or so soaking up the culture.

We took the train back to Kiki where we had our evening meal before settling down for the night.