King Charles in Manchester: photos as monarch visits GCHQ and Kellogg’s Trafford Factory

King Charles III has made a royal visit to Manchester today (20 January) on a whistlestop tour of the city region. The monarch pulled into the city centre on the royal train at Manchester Victoria this morning, the first time he has used the royal train since the beginning of his reign.

He travelled overnight from Ayr and was greeted by High Sheriff of Greater Manchester Lorraine Worsley-Carter, Greater Manchester Police Chief Constable Stephen Watson and Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham.

The first stop on his royal visit was GCHQ’s North West base in Manchester city centre, where he met with teams from across the organisation, including graduates from GCHQ’s apprenticeship scheme and director GCHQ, Sir Jeremy Fleming. He was also joined by pupils from The Co-Op Academy New Islington who took part in a special lesson aimed at inspiring the next generation of codebreakers, engineers and mathematicians.

Heron House, which opened in late 2019, is the home to GCHQ’s newest offices in Albert Square and has public space to host local technology start-ups and innovators, to collaborate with the agency on some of the biggest tech challenges of the day.

King Charles also visited the Kellogg’s factory in Trafford Park, Europe’s biggest cereal factory and the largest producer of cornflakes in the world, to mark 100 years of Kellogg’s in the UK in 2022 - with Corn Flakes and All-Bran first introduced to the British public in 1922. Charles, who unveiled a plaque marking his visit and celebrating 100 years of “bringing breakfast to Britain”, sparked laughter when he said: “Sorry I’m a year late.”

During his visit to the plant, which has just under 400 workers, Charles toured the culinary centre and heard about efforts to reduce salt and sugar content - and enquired about the popularity of Coco Pops as he stood in front of a strawberry and white chocolate version of the cereal.

And he next visited Bolton Town Hall to mark its 150th anniversary, followed by a visit to Norbrook Community Centre in Wythenshawe, where he chatted to Gareth Southgate, England football manager and Prince’s Trust ambassador.

The Queen Consort Camilla also joined a writing session with author Alex Falase-Koya and children from St Peter’s Primary School at the community centre. She unveil the Marcus Rashford Book Club Bookshelves as part of the National Literacy Trust’s continued work in the area to raise literacy levels and encourage a love of reading in the community. Alex Falase-Koya, co-author with Marcus Rashford of The Breakfast Club Adventures books, led the school children in a creative writing and storytelling session.

It comes after Camilla visited Manchester‘s Central Library on a solo trip last year.

We’ll bring you more from the latest royal visit later.