Phill Rawlins Online - Manchester aviation and transport photography

Manchester through a viewfinder, 2002 to 2004

Aircraft on final approach, ships working through the Ship Canal, and a city rebuilding itself after the 1996 bomb. Around 110 photographs taken by Phill Rawlins, kept together in one place.

Browse the photo gallery Start with Concorde

Aerial view over Manchester city centre photographed from a light aircraft in April 2003
  • 110+Photographs in the archive
  • 40Pages covering the North West
  • 2002–04Years the photographs were taken
  • 0Adverts, trackers or pop-ups

Explore the collection

The archive is arranged by subject. Each section has its own page with larger versions of every photograph.

What is in this archive

Everything here was photographed between 2002 and 2004, mostly within an hour of Manchester. It began as a personal record and grew into something closer to a survey: what flew over the city, what floated through it, and what was being built and knocked down while it happened.

  • Aviation. Concorde's retirement, three police air support units, the Red Arrows at two displays, military visitors at Barton, and a helicopter gallery built up one airframe at a time.
  • The city. Aerial surveys over Manchester and Salford, the redevelopment of Ancoats and Spinningfields, and the skyline at night.
  • Water. The Manchester Ship Canal from Eastham to Mode Wheel, including the Barton Swing Aqueduct and the swing bridges that still stop traffic.
  • Further afield. Dunham Massey, Liverpool's waterfront, and the far north of Scotland around Caithness and Dunnet Head.

How the site is organised

Photographs are grouped by subject rather than date, because that is how most people look for them: someone wants the Concorde pictures, or the canal pictures, not everything taken in October 2003. Every gallery page has thumbnail images that open into a larger view.

There are no adverts, no tracking scripts and no third party requests anywhere on the site. Pages load from this domain alone and will work offline once saved.

Frequently asked questions

The three questions people ask most often. Read all of them.

When were these photographs taken?

Between 2002 and 2004. The Concorde photographs date from October 2003 and the Red Arrows displays from September 2003; the aerial surveys were flown in 2002 and 2003.

Can I use a photograph from this site?

The photographs remain the property of the photographer. Get in touch with what you need and how it will be used and you will normally get a straight answer.

Why do some pages describe aircraft that no longer fly?

Because the archive is a record of a particular moment. Concorde was retired in 2003 and several of the airframes shown here have since been withdrawn, sold or scrapped. The pages are left as they were written, with notes where things have changed.

Recently added pages

New sections written for this archive.