There’s just days to go until Manchester will be filled with beautiful blooms as The Manchester Flower Show makes its return.
The huge event coincides with the Jubilee celebrations and the four-day bank holiday weekend.
This year, the popular flower displays will include a Jubilee Trail to celebrate the Queen’s 70-year reign.
10 specially-created, Royal-inspired installations will appear around town thanks to The Manchester Flower Show, brought to the city by Manchester BID.
The full map of the Jubilee Trail is below, so you can walk your way through all the photo opportunities and beautiful displays.
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Beyond the official trail, shop windows, squares and statues will also be given botanical makeovers.
The Manchester Flower Show will take place between 2 and 5 June – you can find out more at themanchesterflowershow.com.
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The 10 Jubilee Trail displays to look out for at The Manchester Flower Show
The Crown
This huge planter will be filled with a mix of tropical palms and jewel-like English flowers.
You’ll find the crown-shaped structure in the Arndale outside Next, designed by Decordia.
Changing of the Guard
This new display will transport you to London without leaving St Ann’s Square.
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FROG Flowers will install a display near Watches of Switzerland that will feature a Buckingham Palace guard’s hut, Trafalgar Square lions, and a very British show of red, white and blue flowers.
Queen Bee
One of the bee sculptures from the Wild in Art Bee in the City art trail has been upcycled and covered in artificial flowers for The Manchester Flower Show.
A real flower crown on the bee’s head has been designed by local florist Frog Flowers. You’ll find it upstairs in the Arndale, near Wilko.
The Crown Jewels
A throne surrounded by fresh and dried flowers – including delphiniums, roses, peonies, hydrangeas, alliums and agapanthus – will appear at the Royal Exchange.
If you snap a photo with it, tagging @verdurefloraldesign and @royalexchangemanchester (make sure you’re following both accounts), you could win a £100 voucher to spend with Verdure Floral Design.
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Queen of Pop
Heading outside the Arndale now to New Cathedral Street, which will be taken back to the 1960s for a real taste of flower power.
Step through the Pop Art arch to find planters and wheelbarrows overflowing with blooms, inspired by Andy Warhol’s portraits of Queen Elizabeth II.
Horse Play
The Queen’s passion for horses will be celebrated with another display, this time a horse made of twisted willow leaping over a gate.
Artist Sarah Hayes will also create flower-filled drinking troughs at its base – you can see it at the Cross Street End of King Street.
The Ju-bee-lee Garden
Purple is the colour of the Jubilee, but it’s also the colour that attracts bees.
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So the Ju-bee-lee Garden will be filled with purple lupins, delphiniums, lavender, salvias and verbena to draw in our buzzing pals to the site on Upper King Street.
The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Urban Garden
St Ann’s Square will host a centrepiece of The Manchester Flower Show – an urban garden that’s both very now, and also very old.
With seven aged oak posts (one for each decade the Queen has been on the throne), cottage garden flowers, and three native trees, this garden invites you to explore its dappled shade and pretty colours.
The Jubilee Kiosk
Making a return this year will be The Manchester Flower Show’s red telephone box, which explodes with beautiful blooms.
It’s a perfect photo opportunity down on King Street, near Deansgate.
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The Commonwealth Tuk-Tuk
As a nod to the Commonwealth, a tuk-tuk nicknamed Queenie will be adorned with blue and purple flowers, grown just across the border in Cheshire.
It will appear on New Cathedral Street, near the entrance to M&S and Selfridges.
Featured image: Manchester BID
Manchester
Legendary landlady of The Peveril of the Peak pub has passed away
Daisy Jackson
Nancy Swanick, the legendary landlady behind Manchester’s much-loved Peveril of the Peak pub, has died.
The pub shared a statement today to confirm that Nancy, 96, who was the pub’s landlady for more than 55 years, passed away earlier this week.
She’s become something of an icon across the UK and was the oldest and longest-serving landlady in the country.
The Peveril of the Peak – or simply The Pev, to most of us – had just been named the best pub in the UK earlier this week.
The Pev has now assured fans that the pub will remain in the Swanick family, even without Nancy at its helm.
They said in their touching statement: “We will continue to cherish it as we did Nancy.”
In their full statement, The Peveril of the Peak wrote: “We are sad to say that our beloved Nancy, landlady for over 55 years, passed away peacefully on 28th July.
Brits start petition to save Jodrell Bank Observatory from closure amid budget cuts
Danny Jones
Greater Manchester, the North West and Brits at large are urging people across the country to pen a petition to save the Jodrell Bank Observatory from closing down for good.
In fact, this is just one petition among numerous protests over its impending closure.
For anyone who somehow hadn’t come across the sad news, the national institution that is Jodrell Bank Observatory (JBO) in Cheshire, which includes the award-winning and world-famous James Lovell Telescope, is scheduled to shut down permanently by March 2028.
Despite having served a crucial part in alleviating Cold War tensions back in the 1960s, operating as an important scientific hub under the University of Manchester umbrella, and remaining a major tourist pull for the region, it’s unfortunately lost its funding and is on course to be decommissioned.
While the massive Northern landmark near Macclesfield is home not only to the largest telescope in the UK, important physics research and even an annual music, arts and science festival in the form of Bluedot, its cultural significance doesn’t appear enough to keep it solvent.
Described as a “huge blow to astronomy” not just here in Britain but for the global industry as a whole, the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) have even described it as a form of “scientific vandalism.”
Having been open since around the end of WWII, before going on to possess the largest steerable radio telescope of its kind in the entire world by 1957, it’s been used to identify distant planets, stars, galaxies and more up in the far reaches of space.
Dr Megan Argo, reader in astrophysics at the University of Lancashire – which also shares a fruitful partnership with the centre alongside UoM, Cambridge, York and many more – said in a statement: “Jodrell Bank is still a very active facility and remains at the forefront of research.
“Recent upgrades have facilitated new discoveries about planet, star and galaxy formation which tell us about our own history, helping to answer one of humanity’s biggest questions: are we alone in the universe?” Put simply, the steps currently being taken have been called “short-sighted” to say the least.
With that in mind, people across the sector and online are now rallying behind the initiative to try and rescue the important and historic UNESCO site before it’s too late.
Cheshire and Warrington mayoral candidate Ben Fletcher is one of several notable names that have publicly backed the push to save the Jodrell Bank Discovery Centre as a whole, along with its highly valuable facilities.
Meanwhile, one user on X added: “I’ve got an opinion on the Jodrell Bank stupidity – and I’m sorry, but that’s a polite understatement. But it is frankly unrepeatable in impolite company, let alone polite.
“I hope the nitwits who have made the decision feel proud about themselves though. Because pride comes before the fall.”
You can see the numerous posts from supporter voices on the Change.org page, including everyone from impassioned scientists and researchers who first discovered their love for these subjects by visiting the attraction, as well as Northerners who simply enjoyed some of their most precious memories there.
The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) needs to cut an estimated £700 million by 2029/30, and JBO needs to find enough funds to cover its £2.8m budget to avoid closing in the next couple of years. So, if you’ve been stirred by the passionate appeals, you can sign the petition HERE.
Much wider than greater Manchester. Remember going as a child from Merseyside, and have taken my children, too.
Daisy Jackson -
30th May 2022 
