People's History Museum to get glazed walkway

17:08:20 1st August 2008

The last surviving Edwardian hydraulic pumping station in Manchester is to be fitted with a glass walkway, linking it with a new building.

The move is part of a £12.2 million regeneration project that will see The Pump House building restored and become a main attraction at Manchester's People's History Museum .

Despite the modern connotations associated with the use of glass in construction, the new design will fit in with the building's 200 year history.

It will be framed with steel to match the building's historic architecture. Aluminium would have perhaps been a better option due to its higher resistance to corrosion but, as it wasn't available to builders 200 years ago, it won't be used for this project.

The glazed walkway will act as a time tunnel, linking the old building with the new building, four storeys above the ground.

The People's History Museum tells the story of Britain's working people by exhibiting and conserving fragments of life from the past 200 years.