9 of the Best Murals in Manchester’s Northern Quarter

Alexandria Slater
3 min readJan 7, 2020

You don’t have to spend copious amounts of money to entertain yourself in the city. Taking a stroll around the back streets of Northern Quarter and exploring it’s street art is an enjoyable form of escapism and costs nothing.

1. Manchester Bee

Tib Street

Painted by Instagram artist Ketones6000, this mural pays respect to the lives lost during the Manchester Bombing in 2017. The detail that the artist has achieved is phenomenal and almost makes it look like a digitally edited photograph rather than graffiti. Art work of bees are located on almost every street corner symbolising the city’s strong sense of community.

2. “Iconic Manchester”

Port Street

Mancunian street artist Jay Sharples uses clean lines and bold colours to represent Manchester’s rave culture and acid house movement that started in 1980s. A simple design on the surface, but definitely striking and hard to miss.

3. “Make Do Mend”

Tariff Street

Manchester’s rag trade is the theme for Nomad Clan’s mural, making a political statement that the state of the country is broken and needs “mending.”

4. #CureFL

Tib Street

This portrait created by Akse is in honour of Nicola Mendelsohn, a woman originally from Manchester who has been diagnosed with Follicular Lymphoma. Akse created the mural, with the hashtag “ CureFL “ in order to raise awareness for the disease.

5. “C215"

Tariff Street

Portrait of a homeless man created by an unknown French artist.

6. “Serenity”

Lever Street

SNIK created a mural in tribute to women who still to this day face injustice. Suffragettes fought for equality and gathered in the same area where Serenity stands today.

7. “War Impact in Children’s Lives”

Brightwell Walk

Hyuro created this heartbreaking and moving mural. This work of art is difficult to dismiss and creates a sense of guilt as it forces you to recognise that war is unnecessarily inflicted onto innocent children.

8. Anthony Burgess Mural

Brightwell Walk

Tankpetrol paid respect to Anthony Burgess in this detailed portrait. Not only does the film adaptation of Burgess’ novel “A Clockwork Orange” boast a place in IMDb’s Top 250 list, but the iconic author now claims a spot in England’s greatest (subjective, I know) city.

9. “Lost Borders”

Port Street Car park

Chekos, an Italian graffiti artist created this intriguing mural. Abstract shapes layer over the detailed portrait of David Lynch, a film director who openly refuses to explain the meaning behind his films. So, in honour of Lynch you’ll have to go and experience this piece of art for yourself. There happens to be a map just below. Enjoy.

Originally published at http://alexmcrmedia.wordpress.com on January 7, 2020.

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Alexandria Slater

Multimedia Journalism Graduate. Lancashire Telegraph reporter. Freelance film critic.