A Bird's Eye View of Manchester

The view was drawn by H. W. Brewer, an architectural artist known for his bird's eye views of British cities, and published on 9 November 1889 as a supplement to The Graphic, the London illustrated weekly. Readers unfolded it from the paper; copies that survived a century on a wall are now rare.

A bird's eye view is a city drawn as if seen from high above it, every street and building laid out in perspective. Before aerial photography, views like this were how a city showed itself to the world, and Manchester in 1889, at the height of its cotton trade and with the Ship Canal under construction, had plenty to show.

The numbered key printed beneath the view names its landmarks, so the print doubles as a map of the Victorian city.

The original is out of copyright and was scanned with its owner's permission. Our print is made from that scan rather than from a photograph of a reproduction, which is why the lettering and hatching hold up even at the original's published size, 128.3 x 59.7 cm.