This guide covers four places in the north of Manchester city centre that sit within a few streets of each other: the National Football Museum in its glass building, Manchester Cathedral, the medieval Chetham's Library next door and the John Rylands Library on Deansgate. Between them they span six centuries, from the 1421 collegiate church to a football museum that only arrived in 2012, and three of them are stops on our scavenger hunt.
National Football Museum
England's national museum of football started out in Preston, at the Deepdale stadium, where it opened in 2001. It moved to Manchester and reopened on 6 July 2012 in Urbis, the sloping glass building on Cathedral Gardens. Urbis was designed by Ian Simpson and opened in 2002 as a museum of city life, one of the symbols of Manchester's rebuilding after the IRA bomb of 1996; its walls are made of around 2,200 panes of glass laid in horizontal strips.
Inside, several floors tell the story of the game from its early rules to the modern professional era, with shirts, trophies, programmes and art. The collection includes the ball from the 1966 World Cup final, and the museum runs the English Football Hall of Fame. Changing exhibitions cover everything from women's football to kit design, and there are interactive games where you can try your own skills. It is the first stop of our scavenger hunt.
- The shape of the building itself: a glass wedge that rises steeply towards the cathedral end, best seen from Cathedral Gardens.
- The Hall of Fame displays, which honour players, managers and teams who shaped the English game.
Manchester Cathedral
The cathedral began as a collegiate church, founded in 1421 by Thomas de la Warre, the rector and lord of the manor, with a licence from King Henry V and Pope Martin V. It only became a cathedral in 1847, when the Diocese of Manchester was created. It is often said to have the widest nave of any cathedral in England, because chantry chapels were added along both sides, creating double aisles. A German bomb in 1940 destroyed the Lady Chapel and blew out all the stained glass, and the IRA bomb of 1996 damaged the building again.
The most precious things inside are the carved wooden choir stalls from the early 16th century, made at the workshop of William Brownflet of Ripon. Under the tip-up seats are thirty misericords, among the finest in Europe, carved with animals, people and scenes of daily life; one is the earliest known picture of backgammon in Britain. Because the old glass was lost, almost all the windows are modern.
- The Fire Window by Margaret Traherne, from 1966, a blaze of red glass recalling the 1940 bombing.
- The Healing Window by Linda Walton, installed in 2004 to mark the restoration after the 1996 bomb.
- The Angel Stone in the south porch, a small carved angel holding a scroll; experts disagree on its date, with estimates ranging from around 700 to the 12th century.
Chetham's Library
Tucked away beside the Football Museum, on the edge of Cathedral Gardens, Chetham's Library was founded in 1653 under the will of the merchant Humphrey Chetham, and it claims to be the oldest free public reference library in the English-speaking world. It occupies buildings from 1421, put up for the priests of the collegiate church that became today's cathedral. The same buildings house Chetham's School of Music.
In its early days the books were chained to the shelves, a practice given up in the mid-18th century. The library's most famous readers were Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, who studied together in a window alcove of the reading room when Marx visited Manchester in the summer of 1845. Chetham's is not on the scavenger hunt route, and you visit by booking ahead.
- The window alcove where Marx and Engels sat, with copies of the economics books they read laid out on the table.
- The 15th-century sandstone college buildings around their courtyard, built for the priests of the collegiate church.
John Rylands Library
This Victorian Gothic library on Deansgate was built by Enriqueta Rylands in memory of her husband John Rylands, one of the city's great textile manufacturers. It was designed by the architect Basil Champneys, built between 1890 and 1899, and opened to readers on 1 January 1900. It was one of the first public buildings in Manchester to be lit by electricity, and made its own power on site until 1950. Since 1972 it has been part of the University of Manchester.
The building looks more like a church than a library, with stone vaults, stained glass and a long reading room on the upper floor. Its collections include the St John Fragment, a scrap of papyrus with lines from the Gospel of John, believed to be the earliest surviving piece of any gospel, and a copy of the Gutenberg Bible. Today it is officially called the John Rylands Research Institute and Library, and it is one of the stops on our scavenger hunt.
- The Historic Reading Room on the first floor, lit by oriel and clerestory windows with stained glass by C. E. Kempe.
- The white marble statues of John and Enriqueta Rylands by John Cassidy, which stand in the reading room.
How to see them in one walk
Start at the National Football Museum in Cathedral Gardens. Chetham's Library is right next to it, and the cathedral is only a few steps away. From the cathedral, walk past the shops of Exchange Square and follow Deansgate south to the John Rylands Library. If you want more, the Royal Exchange and St Ann's Square are a short detour on the way.
See Manchester with World City Trail
Our Manchester scavenger hunt turns the city centre into a game you play on your phone. The route links 10 stops, from the National Football Museum to the Science and Industry Museum, and the National Football Museum, Manchester Cathedral and the John Rylands Library are all stops, along with the Royal Exchange Theatre, Piccadilly Gardens, Manchester Art Gallery, St Peter's Square, the Town Hall and Albert Square. At each stop you solve a puzzle and learn something about the place, at your own pace.
There is also a self-guided walking tour and an outdoor escape game in Manchester, for people who prefer a different format.
Play the Manchester scavenger hunt →
Take the self-guided walking tour of Manchester →
Play the outdoor escape game in Manchester →
Facts checked in October 2026.