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Look at a map of Greater Manchester, and it’s easy to trace the meandering course of the River Medlock from its beginnings in the hills above Oldham, past Lees and Ashton, and on through Daisy Nook Country Park towards Clayton Vale.

But once it crosses the last green swathes on the edge of Manchester, the thin blue line becomes more sporadic, often disappearing from view completely, before briefly reappearing again alongside buildings and roadsides, until it finally empties into the River Irwell, on the other side of Castlefield.

In Manchester’s growing city centre, the river was seen as a nuisance, something which got in the way of development and needed to be culverted and hidden away under ground.

One hundred and fifty years ago, upstream the Medlock was crucial for the mills and dye works that lined its banks – it was a raw material, a source of power and an outlet for industrial quantities of sewage and effluent. But in Manchester’s growing city centre, the river was seen as a nuisance, something which got in the way of development and needed to be culverted and hidden away under ground.

Now, as part of the European Water Framework Directive, which maps out what EU member states must do to improve their rivers and water courses by 2027, a stretch of the river is being brought back to life.

Initially, as part of a pilot project, a 400m section of the Medlock across Clayton Vale is being restored by a triumvirate of the City Council, Environment Agency and the Groundwork Trust.

“What this particular project does, in microcosm, is provide a very challenging idea,” explains Dave Barlow, Environmental Strategy Lead at the council. “It has been picked up by the Environment Agency, who have basically said: 'if we can make it work here, we can make it work anywhere.’ It’s not an easy win by any means.”

The Medlock was once a key feature of Philips Park in East Manchester, one of the world’s first municipal parks, which opened in 1846. However, after a series of major floods, including the Great Flood of 1872 when the Medlock burst its banks and washed away gravestones and bodies from the nearby Philips Park cemetery, the river was finally culverted in 1909.

The aim was to try and control its flow, and some eight million terracotta engineering bricks were used to line parts of the river, the same Accrington bricks that were used in the foundations of the Empire State Building. Bright red and rock hard, the Medlock became dubbed the Red River, while with all the vegetation stripped away and the wildlife gone, it took on all the charm of an open sewer.

The aim was to try and control its flow, and some eight million terracotta engineering bricks were used to line parts of the river, the same Accrington bricks that were used in the foundations of the Empire State Building.

“We are dealing with some seriously well-built Edwardian infrastructure,” says Barlow. The bricks were laid on top of a concrete apron and they’ve proved “hellish to remove,” he adds.

“They didn’t mess around and it was their way of taming the river,” he continues, although it actually had the reverse effect, as by increasing the speed of the water flow, they also increased the risk of flooding.

“They didn’t recognise the strength of natural processes and how you could work with them, which is the learning curve we’ve been on ever since – to try and be more sensitive to the natural environment and make the most of the river.”

As well as improving the river’s resilience as a flood defence, the restoration also dovetails neatly with the council’s Biodiversity Action Plan. With the bricks removed, and the river slowed and widened, it’s hoped that nature will take over again. “For the first time in 100 years, fish will be able to swim and spawn happily in this part of the Medlock,” says Barlow.

Kingfisher, brown trout and other life critical to a thriving ecosystem have already returned

Kingfisher, brown trout and other life critical to a thriving ecosystem have already returned, he continues. “Four hundred metres might not sound a lot, but to invertebrates it’s a whole new planet to colonise.”

The Environment Agency, along with United Utilities, are currently working to improve water quality across Manchester, including measures to stop pollutants., such as run-off from roads, getting into the rivers in the first place. By acting as a natural filer, vegetation on the banks is helping this process, too.

The project is also being seen as an EU exemplar of how to go about restoring an urban river. So far the Environment Agency has spent £500,000 on the Medlock and once the pilot finishes in the next few weeks, it’s hoped funding can be found to restore more of the 1.4km stretch that flows towards the city centre.

But Barlow is realistic and concedes that it simply isn’t practical to bring all the hundreds of metres of hidden rivers under Manchester back to life. “You’ve got to make sure that the effort you pout in is going to be worthwhile,” he says.

Main image of the Medlock in Daisy Nook Country Park via Flickr user Pedrik