Trafford Park

Trafford Park est un quartier de Trafford, dans le Grand Manchester, en Angleterre. Il fait face à Salford Quays, au sud du canal maritime de Manchester, et est situé à 5,5 km au sud-ouest du centre-ville de Manchester et 2,1 km au nord de Stretford. Jusqu'à la fin du XIXe siècle, c'est là que se trouve la maison d'origine de la famille Trafford, qui est ensuite vendue à l'entrepreneur Ernest Terah Hooley en 1896. S'étalant sur une surface de 12 km², c'était le premier parc industriel du monde et reste la plus vaste en Europe. Trafford Park est presque complètement entouré par de l'eau. Le Bridgewater Canal en forme les limites sud-est et sud-ouest, et le canal maritime de Manchester, qui ouvre en 1894, en est la frontière nord-est et nord-ouest. Hooley souhaitait développer le transport maritime dans le quartier, mais le canal met longtemps avant d'attendre le trafic escompté, et c'est pourquoi les premiers temps le parc est utilisé pour des activités de loisir comme le golf ou le polo. La British Westinghouse est la première entreprise majeure à s'y installer, et en 1903 elle emploie la moitié des 12 000 travailleurs du parc. Trafford Park est intimement lié aux usines MetroVick, un fournisseur important de matériel au cours des deux guerres mondiales, qui produit le moteur Rolls-Royce Merlin utilisé par le Spitfire et le Lancaster. En 1945, jusqu'à 75 000 ouvriers travaillent dans le parc. Ce nombre commence à décliner au cours des années 1960 à la suite de certaines délocalisations. On compte 50 000 travailleurs en 1967, et le déclin se poursuit tout au long des années 1970, et s'accélère même, les bateaux modernes étant trop larges pour passer par le canal. On ne compte plus que 15 000 ouvriers en 1976, et l'activité industrielle disparait pratiquement du parc dans les années 1980. En 1961, le cosmonaute russe Youri Gagarine était l'hôte de l'usine de Trafford Park à l'occasion de son passage à Manchester. Le Trafford Park Urban Development Corporation, créé en 1987, a renversé la tendance. Durant les 11 années de son existence, le parc attire 1 000 entreprises, créant 28 299 nouveaux emplois et générant 1,759 milliard de livres sterling d'investissements privés. En 2008 1 400 entreprises sont implantées dans le parc, employant approximativement 35 000 personnes.

Nearby Places View Menu

Parkway tram stop

Parkway (originally proposed as Parkway Circle) is a Manchester Metrolink tram stop built on the line to the Trafford Centre. It is located just east of the Parkway Circle roundabout in Trafford Park and includes a Park & Ride facility. It opened on 22 March 2020.

Landmark Train

Trafford Park is an area of the metropolitan borough of Trafford, Greater Manchester, England, opposite Salford Quays on the southern side of the Manchester Ship Canal, 3.4 miles (5.5 km) southwest of Manchester city centre and 1.3 miles (2.1 km) north of Stretford. Until the late 19th century it was the ancestral home of the Trafford family, who sold it to the financier Ernest Terah Hooley in 1896. Occupying an area of 4.7 square miles (12 km2), it was the first planned industrial estate in the world, and remained the largest in Europe over a century later. Trafford Park is almost entirely surrounded by water; the Bridgewater Canal forms its southeastern and southwestern boundaries, and the Manchester Ship Canal, which opened in 1894, its northeastern and northwestern boundaries. Hooley's plan was to develop the Ship Canal frontage, but the canal was slow to generate the predicted volume of traffic, so in the early days the park was largely used for leisure activities such as golf, polo and boating. British Westinghouse was the first major company to move in, and by 1903 it was employing about half of the 12,000 workers then employed in the park, which became one of the most important engineering facilities in Britain. Trafford Park was a major supplier of materiel in the First and Second World Wars, producing such equipment as the Rolls-Royce Merlin engines used to power the Spitfire and the Lancaster. At its peak in 1945, 75,000 workers were employed in the park. Employment began to decline in the 1960s as companies closed in favour of newer, more efficient plants elsewhere. By 1967 employment had fallen to 50,000, and the decline continued throughout the 1970s. The new generation of container ships was too large for the Manchester Ship Canal, which led to a further decline in Trafford Park's fortunes. The workforce had fallen to 15,000 by 1976, and by the 1980s industry had almost disappeared from the park. The Trafford Park Urban Development Corporation, formed in 1987, reversed the estate's decline. In the 11 years of its existence the park attracted 1,000 companies, generating 28,299 new jobs and £1.759 billion of private-sector investment. As of 2025 there are 1,400 companies within the park, employing 40,000 people.

Industrial Landmark

593 m

Trafford Park Aerodrome

Trafford Park Aerodrome (Manchester) was the first purpose-built airfield in the Manchester area. Its large all-grass landing field was just south of the Manchester Ship Canal between Trafford Park Road, Moseley Road and Ashburton Road and occupied a large part of the former deer park of Trafford Hall. Today's Tenax Road runs north–south through the centre of the site of the old airfield, which was 0.7 miles northeast of today's Trafford Centre.

Airport Historic Site

Village tram stop

Village is a tram stop on the Manchester Metrolink's Trafford Park Line. It is located adjacent to Village Way and is close to the Village Circle roundabout, its namesake. It opened on 22 March 2020. It was the least used stop on the Trafford Park Line in the 2021/22 financial year.

Train

Manchester Plant

The Manchester Plant is a large food factory in North West England; during World War II, it was the largest food factory in Europe. It is devoted to manufacturing Kellogg's cereal and related products.

Industrial