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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Karanacs 19:59, 7 September 2010 [1].

Trafford Park

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Trafford Park (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Parrot of Doom; Malleus Fatuorum 21:39, 1 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This is an article on a topic at which Iridescent excels – an industrial estate. But not any old industrial estate; this was the first in the world and is still the largest in Europe. Once the ancestral home of one of the oldest aristocratic families in England, this former deer park became one of the most important engineering complexes in Britain. Unusually for an industrial estate it also included a self-contained residential area for workers' accommodation, with shops, churches, a cinema, police station, school, post office ... Like much of Britain's manufacturing base it went into decline during the 1960s and '70s, but it was regenerated in the '80s, and now contains some quite extraordinary architecture, such as the Daniel Libeskind designed Imperial War Museum North. It's a large subject to cover, and I hope you feel that we've done it justice. Malleus Fatuorum 21:39, 1 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sources comments: Just a couple of small nitpicks:-

  • Consistency required re book publisher locations. At present some have them, some don't.
  • Ref 78 lacks a page reference

Otherwise, all sources look OK. Brianboulton (talk) 23:22, 1 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. All book publisher locations now removed and the missing page number added. Malleus Fatuorum 23:29, 1 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Quick comment: This looks an important article, and I'll add a proper review if I can find time. Just one quickie; you refer to the "Trafford" family in the lead, and the "de Trafford" family in the text. I believe the latter is correct, but only one form should be used. Brianboulton (talk) 23:38, 1 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The complication is that the family changed their name after adopting the "de" prefix following the Norman Conquest, then dropped it, then adopted it again during the 19th century (if memory serves). So what they were called depends on when they're being described. Malleus Fatuorum 23:42, 1 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I went through it and I don't see any problems with most of the FA criteria. It seems comprehensive and well-written. The sources look good; I cannot detect any gaps in coverage or poor sources. I do have a question about one of the images before I would support this for FA. File:Trafford Park - E end - 1930.jpg doesn't seem to have accurate information. If the source is unknown how do we know they died over 70 years ago? If it was taken in 1930 they could still be alive. If that makes it PD regardless, the source information should be revised. --Spike Wilbury (talk) 02:51, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment This book - Contribution to Victory. An account of some of the special work of the Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Company Limited in the Second World War. - has an OCLC number (562499712), that I was going to add in, but then I thought there might be a reason why you haven't, is there? Excellent work. Tom (talk) 23:08, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Quick driveby comment (I'll review this one properly when I get the chance.) Even though they're not in Trafford Park do you think MUFC, LCC and/or the Trafford Centre ought to be mentioned? There are only three places 90% of the world think of when they hear the words "Old Trafford", and they're the landmarks around which peoples' mental image of the area is built; to me, it's a bit jarring to see an article on the area that doesn't mention them, even if it's just a "Trafford Park is directly opposite MUFC across the Bridgewater Canal". – iridescent 11:40, 4 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Its a question of focus really, and the focus of this article is mainly on the 1,100 or so acres of Trafford Park - both Old Traffords and the Trafford Centre lie well outside this area. I can see the rationale for some mention of Man Utd's ground, as its on top of the railway line that serves Trafford Park, but only as a brief passing mention. IIRC the Trafford Centre was built on undeveloped arable land and IMO isn't relevant to this article, although the ongoing pace of development in that area means that view may be contentious. Parrot of Doom 13:30, 4 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • We could maybe work something in. The area around Man U's ground and part of the eastern end of the park have been rebranded as Wharfside in recent years. So far as the Trafford Centre is concerned, it's built on land that the Trafford Estates Company briefly controlled through their half-ownership of Dumplington Estates Ltd, so we could mention that there ... in fact I'll do that now. The LCC though is just too far away, with no obvious connection to the park. Malleus Fatuorum 14:59, 4 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • ... OK, I've added a bit, but I think that to say more would give undue weight to things that are actually outside the park, and were never in the park. Malleus Fatuorum 16:45, 4 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support with trivial nitpicks:
  • "At the end of the 19th century there were no public transport routes in, or running close to, Trafford Park"—obviously, "close to" is a relative term, but Eccles railway station and Weaste railway station, just north of Trafford Park, were two of the first railway stations ever built, opening with the original Liverpool and Manchester Railway in 1830, while the former Old Trafford railway station (now Trafford Bar Metrolink station), just outside the east end of Trafford Park, opened in 1849;
  • Am I completely misremembering, or did one of the abortive Manchester Olympic bids envisage building the stadium on the Trafford Park site?
  • Is the plural of "coot" really "coot", or should it be "coots"?
  • "Almost entirely surrounded by water", "island-like quality"—if Bing Maps is to be believed (and Microsoft never lies), it is an island, although that long Pomona Strand tongue to the east isn't a part of Trafford Park;
  • There's probably no source on this, but does anything say why this location was chosen for industrialisation (other than "it was available" and "it was on the Ship Canal")? There's a reason the eastern part of most cities are the slum quarter; prevailing winds mean industrial estates are almost always built to the east of population centres, and when they are built to the west there's usually a big gap between the two. (The Great and the Good tend to take a dim view of developments which will blanket their city in toxic smog.) – iridescent 21:05, 5 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Replies
  • So far as I'm aware the idea was always to build the Olympic stadium in the east of the city, where the City of Manchester Stadium is now. There's a world triathlon event held at Salford Quays (most) every year though, maybe that's what you're thinking of?
  • "Coot" is what the source says. I think the term's sometimes used to refer to various swimming and diving birds, at least according to the OED it is (or was) anyway.
  • It's very nearly an island, but the Bridgewater Canal and the ship canal don't quite meet in the northeast corner of the park, near Pomona Docks.
  • I've not seen anyone speculate on why the estate was built to the west of the city rather than the east, but the geography of the ship canal probably made it inevitable, coming eastwards from Liverpool and terminating to the west of the city.
  • As for public transport, although it wasn't unheard of (actually quite normal) for people to walk 10 miles daily to and from work, I would suggest that those railway stations (and Oldfield Road station) weren't really that close - one might have to get the train (probably more expensive then than it is now) and then walk a further 3 or 4 miles to work. I wondered if there were packet services running on the Bridgewater but my experience doing the Manchester Bolton and Bury Canal article suggests that the railways eliminated those very quickly. There were packet services on the Irwell, running from Victoria Arches all the way down to Latchford and beyond, but these only lasted from about 1894 to 1910. I'd suggest that a slight rewording might be appropriate, from "no public transport" to "little public transport"? Parrot of Doom 22:47, 5 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I very much doubt it, as from memory the reason that the Manchester Ship Canal had to built with locks rather than a straight cut from the sea was that Manchester Docks would otherwise have been 40 metres above the water level of the canal. Malleus Fatuorum 23:04, 6 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I reviewed the images. The one I found problematic they removed. I'm not sure if you were looking for a particular person to review them but I did look at all the licenses. --Spike Wilbury (talk) 19:46, 7 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the pointer...sorry I missed it the first time! Karanacs (talk) 19:52, 7 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
... actually, Parrot of Doom took almost all of them himself; he didn't like the ones I'd taken. Malleus Fatuorum 20:32, 7 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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