Manchester LGBT Heritage Trail

Rainbow mosaic, set into the pavement outside Manchester Town Hall

The Manchester LGBT Heritage Trail, also called the Out in the Past Trail, is a series of guided walks round the City of Manchester visiting sites of importance for gay history.

The trail is marked by rainbow flag paving stones, which were inaugurated by the City Council in 2005 and funded by a grant of £39,500 from the Heritage Lottery Fund. They were designed by local mosaic artist Mark Kennedy.

In 2007 it was described as one of Manchester’s most popular official guided walks.

Stopping places on the trail are:

1. The New Union and Manto
2. Alan Turing Memorial and Beacon of Hope
3. The Rembrandt Hotel
4. The Village
5. Minshull Street Courts
6. Site of Grassroots book shop
7. former premises of Manchester Labour Press Society, one of whose directors was Edward Carpenter
8. site of the Temperance Hall, Hulme venue of the 1880 Manchester drag ball
9. Church House, where the North-Western Homosexual Law Reform Committee was inaugurated in 1964
10. The Stuffed Olive and Heroes
11. The New Bailey Prison
12. Cumberland Street, where Henry Stoakes lived in the 19th century
13. The John Rylands Library
14. Manchester Town Hall
15. The Café Royal
16. Manchester Art Gallery
17. The Gaumont Cinema and the Snakepit
18. The Rochdale Canal