14/06/2026
📷 A clutch of children, one proudly astride a bike. Their clothes, bell-bottom jeans, a tartan skirt, and knee-high white socks are tell-tale signs of the era. The image was taken in a terraced street in Lower Broughton in 1970.
Two decades earlier in 1951 a little girl on a mission strides with purpose across the cobbled road to the ice cream shop in Grecian Street. Two young lads, the best of friends, are on Woden Street in 1929. They are well-booted and one has in arm around the other "as the magic of childhood shines though".
In Princess Park in Irlam in the 1960s, before they were filled in on health and safety grounds kids splash in the paddling pool. In Mandley Park in 1978 a solitary lad flies through the air on a rope strapped to a tree.
Images of children at play are just one theme among 100 photographs which make up a glorious exhibition to mark Salford's centenary as a city.
The collection has been chosen by the public from an digital archive of 30,000 images of the city. All of life is touched on - work, play, the sweeping away of terraced homes to be replaced by high rise blocks, theatres, pubs, royal visits, and once bustling docks. The oldest image dates from 1857.
