An area of open ground in north Manchester once hosted meetings with Keir Hardie and Emmeline Pankhurst, and became the focus of a battle for political freedom. ROD PETERS tells the tale.

Boggart Hole Clough in the 1890s covered some 147 acres of rough grass, sandy slopes, fields and natural woods. The geography of the Clough is such that a cup-shaped hollow, open to the brook side, makes a natural amphitheatre in the slope, holding perhaps 30,000 people.