Wheel of Manchester
Ferris wheel

The Wheel of Manchester was a transportable Ferris wheel installation at Piccadilly Gardens, Manchester, England. The wheel was originally a smaller installation based in Exchange Square, first assembled in 2004. The wheel's size was increased to 60 metres (197 ft) in 2007, and plans existed to increase this further. However, these plans were never submitted. The wheel was dismantled in 2012 to make way for 2012 Olympics celebrations and Metrolink construction work. In 2013, a new 52.7-metre (173 ft) wheel was installed in Piccadilly Gardens. It was dismantled in June 2015.
History
2004–2007
The first wheel was first installed in 2004 which was a success and consequently a larger 60-metre (197 ft) wheel was erected in May 2007.
2007–2012
The wheel returned in May 2007 and was sponsored by the Manchester Evening News. A larger wheel was initially planned for 2008, but it was never installed.
“Wheel of Manchester” enters the record as ferris wheel. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Wheel, Manchester and Ferris can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Wheel of Manchester” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Wheel, Manchester and Ferris provides the most credible route into that argument.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7992032. Authority coordinates are 53.484, -2.243. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2004, 2007, 2012 and 2013.
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This entry incorporates text from “Wheel of Manchester” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.