World-renowned artist L.S. Lowry immortalised his home town with his paintings of Salford scenes peopled with his trademark 'matchstick men'. The mills and the docks have gone; but today the Lowry Centre stands along side the Ship Canal, an innovative modern complex which fosters history and the arts.Salford is firmly back on the map, and the old dock warehouses have become sought-after apartments and offices. This new history of Salford chronicles events from its evolution some time at the end of the New Stone Age, through Romano/Celtic times and mediaeval expansion, down to the 'heyday' of the Industrial Revolution, the slow decline of the 20th century and the city's 'rebirth' in the 1990s and early 21st century. History is essentially about people and, while all the facts are here, the inhabitants of Salford peep through the curtains of time as well in the events, stories, images and legends that help to bring Salford and its past to life.