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The rise and fall of 'Fort Ardwick': The estate so ugly there were calls to 'execute the builders'

It was the lost south Manchester estate which became a nightmare for its tenants. Coverdale Crescent - nicknamed 'Fort Ardwick' - was a short-lived legacy of the 'slum clearance' years, when Manchester families were moved from inner city terraces into new council homes.

And images, recently uncovered from our archives, Mirropix, have awakened memories of an unfortunate chapter in Manchester's housing history.

In the late 1960s, Manchester Council was presented with the huge problem of rehoming thousands of tenants whose homes were earmarked for demolition. With a reluctance from tenants to move into high-rise flats, the town hall came up with the plan to build modular concrete estates, of six to 10 storeys, which could be quickly built on relatively small plots.

In Beswick, just to the east of town, and Ardwick, just south east of the city centre, these brutalist complexes consisted of deck-access homes built using the Bison concrete wall-frame system.

Read More:10 things you no longer see at McDonald's from the 1980s and 1990s

In Ardwick, the new estate on Coverdale Crescent was completed in 1972, providing 500 homes for displaced families. It was hailed as the future - but the dream quickly went sour.

Dubbed 'Fort Ardwick' because it looked like a concrete fortress, by the mid-1980s it was clear it was riddled with structural faults. Water was leaking through the roofs and concrete was crumbling away.

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One reporter wrote a damning article of Fort Ardwick in 1987 for the Bedfordshire on Sunday newspaper after staying over in the estate for a friend's wedding.

The writer, Nick George, described a "complex of flats and

Read more on manchestereveningnews.co.uk