'I can't believe what has been achieved here': Inside Castlefield Viaduct's new skyline park opening in days

There couldn't have been a more classic Manchester day for the National Trust to open their newest urban park. As grey clouds covered the city's skyline, the steely structure of Castlefield's gothic viaduct could once have been passed over, assumed derelict and beyond repair.

But not anymore. Now, specks of colour coming from plants and flowers are visible through the latticed beams, and the once-abandoned land is being given a new lease of life.

The elevated park, which runs across the Grade II listed Victorian viaduct, will open to the public on Saturday 30 July - but today, the Manchester Evening News was given a first look at the space.

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"I'm not sure I'm going to be able to speak because I'm so emotional about today," Hilary McGrady, Director General of the National Trust said as she opened the space for preview this morning. "I can't believe what has been achieved here."

McGrady first visited the site around three years ago and has been desperate to give the land, which has laid derelict since the 1960s, back to Manchester ever since.

"This project is about asking the people of Manchester how they want to use it," she told the M.E.N. "The test really here is to present a place for people from Manchester to decide what they want to do with it."

The temporary park, which has been described as a 'trial', will run for 12 months initially, during which time Mancunians will get the opportunity to feed back on the space in a series of events and forums.

The Trust has teamed up with a series of partners around the city, including the Museum of Science and Industry and City of Trees, who have all designed and planted their own