Blackened Buildings of Manchester Before the Clean Air Act

I can’t believe the Manchester Evening News is on HN. I bet they’ve pillaged these pics from Manchester Revisited (FB group).<p>As I said in another comment, look up the Lowry paintings to get an idea of how bad the air was in industrial England. He lived in Salford, right beside Manchester.<p>Most of Manchester city centre is old warehouses and offices, the city was basically a giant coal-powered factory and distribution centre. The St. Anne church in central Stockport (again near Manchester) didn’t get the cleaning treatment until the 2010s, I honestly believed it was just built black.<p>Imperial Britain was basically like today’s China: bustling, polluted, exploiting the poor and vulnerable (child labor etc etc), with no care whatsoever for consequences as long as someone was getting rich.

While I&#x27;m sure my lungs are very thankful for the regulation I really dig the ominous look of the blackened buildings. Reminds me of the Cologue cathedral: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;upload.wikimedia.org&#x2F;wikipedia&#x2F;commons&#x2F;5&#x2F;53&#x2F;Gothic-Cologne-Cathedral-004.jpg" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;upload.wikimedia.org&#x2F;wikipedia&#x2F;commons&#x2F;5&#x2F;53&#x2F;Gothic-C...</a>

10 Downing Street, the Prime Minister’s official residence, famously has black-painted bricks in order to mimick the effects of coal smog.<p>Apparently, when cleaned in the 1960s to reveal it’s yellow London bricks, it just didn’t look right!<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;uk.businessinsider.com&#x2F;why-10-downing-street-door-is-black-2015-12" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;uk.businessinsider.com&#x2F;why-10-downing-street-door-is-...</a>

I grew up in Pittsburgh. During my childhood I remember a lot of black stone buildings. I always assumed there was some kind of dark colored stone that was used to build buildings &amp; churches. It wasn&#x27;t until I was 12 or so that these buildings started getting cleaned that I realized they were all soot stained.

Possibly related - London’s Great Fog of 1952 was a big catalyst for change, with 4000-12,000 dying in a few days due to health problems from the fog. It was pretty grim.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Great_Smog_of_London" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Great_Smog_of_London</a>

Most UK cities looked like this for the entire portion of my life I wasn&#x27;t allowed to vote yet. I grew up in London (and slightly in Edinburgh area) and the centres of Edinburgh and Glasgow were pitch black all over right into the late 1980s when the sandwashing <i>began</i>.<p>This photo of London St Pancras station, for example, looks like it is colour-drained, but that&#x27;s really how it looked until they washed the building in the 90s.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;farm2.static.flickr.com&#x2F;1818&#x2F;43873591751_154164f8d5_b.jpg" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;farm2.static.flickr.com&#x2F;1818&#x2F;43873591751_154164f8d5_...</a><p>That sign was inlined with slightly-feeble red neon, and that will remain my mental image of how this station looks even though obviously it&#x27;s been utterly transformed since:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;blackcablondon.files.wordpress.com&#x2F;2012&#x2F;04&#x2F;st-pancras-front.jpg" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;blackcablondon.files.wordpress.com&#x2F;2012&#x2F;04&#x2F;st-pancra...</a>

I remember in 1997 in Toulouse&#x2F;France, they cleaned a lot of building before hosting some games of the 1998 FIFA World Cup.<p>It was a shock to realize how dirty they were before that !

The site says &quot;soot&quot;. But I wonder if these are limestone or marble faced, and it&#x27;s mainly from SOx pollution.

Now I&#x27;m wondering how many modern movies about pre-1960s London get this historical detail right.

Was in Sheffield recently, not far from Manchester. The town hall still appears to have the sooty facade. In the context of all the new stuff surrounding it, the sooty building kind of looks nice. Maybe it&#x27;s worth keeping some of these in their sooty state as a reminder (and warning) of how horrible the air once was?

Proof at last! I always felt that the chimney sweeps seemed way too happy.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=4I-b_GJ4ltk" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=4I-b_GJ4ltk</a>

Clean Air Act combined with some wall cleaning acts, beautiful.

Watch the last few minutes of The Ipcress File with Michael Caine - he walks out of his bosses office and across London&#x27;s Trafalgar Square - and the whole place is black with a century of soot. It&#x27;s astounding as i have only ever known it after a mass sand blasting in the eighties (my Blue Peter Annual showed pictures)

I&#x27;d very much like to know when the blackened buildings were photo&#x27;d. Something more precise than &quot;before the 60s&quot;<p>Also (2015)

Why is it that the lightest part of the Spring Gardens before cleaning happen to be the darkest parts after cleaning?

Were these buildings then cleaned, or do the buildings &quot;recover&quot; through natural processes (rain etc)?

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.minneapolisfed.org&#x2F;publications&#x2F;the-region&#x2F;cost-v-benefit-clearing-the-air" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.minneapolisfed.org&#x2F;publications&#x2F;the-region&#x2F;cost-...</a>

A huge difference.<p>Imagine what it will look like when we ban diesel from urban &amp; suburban areas!

A good example of government regulation improving quality of life!

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