Signage – Page 11 – Modern Mooch

Sheffield Streets

Posted on November 29, 2018November 29, 2018 by modernmoocher

I had time to kill – in search of early Sunday morning visual thrills.

I took to the mean streets of Steeltown UK.

Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. He is the hero; he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor—by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world.

He will take no man’s money dishonestly and no man’s insolence without a due and dispassionate revenge. He is a lonely man and his pride is that you will treat him as a proud man or be very sorry you ever saw him.

The story is this man’s adventure in search of a hidden truth, and it would be no adventure if it did not happen to a man fit for adventure. If there were enough like him, the world would be a very safe place to live in, without becoming too dull to be worth living in.

Raymond Chandler

It was 8am – low bright sun pierced the achingly empty space between the long high industrial buildings.

There was nobody to share the morning – yet the clearly audible kling and klang of work pervaded the air, along with the lingering aroma of engine oil and decay.

This is what I found:

St James Coffee House – Burnley

Posted on November 14, 2018November 14, 2018 by modernmoocher

124 St James’s Street Burnley Lancashire BB11 1NL

Having never ever been, I thought it time to go.

To Burnley.

Several trains from Stockport later, along the length of the East Lancs Line, I arrived at Burnley Manchester Road Station via the reinstated Todmorden Curve.

Having wandered aimlessly awhile, it was time for a spot to eat – and there it was a vision to behold before my very eyes.

St James Coffee House

We’re situated in the town centre on St James’ Street, just a little bit further down from DW Sports – the old JJB store and next to the entrance to the old Empire Theatre, when you get to the art gallery you’ve gone too far!

The menu had caught my eye – pie!

To get in and get some grub was my sole and urgent imperative.

A warm welcome awaited, and even warmer food, served with alacrity and aplomb – tasty homemade meat and potato pie, chips, peas and gravy. A soft light crust and mushiest mushy peas – a real delight, seen off in no time and all washed down with a piping hot mug of tea.

£4.40 all in – service with a smile, in cosy, comfortable, traditional café surroundings.

I’ll be back – go and treat y’self soon.

Park Hill Pubs – Sheffield

Posted on November 8, 2018November 8, 2018 by modernmoocher

I’m a virtual visitor to the four pubs that served the population of Park Hill Estate.

I arrived late on the scene from not too distant Manchester, sadly much too late to stop and have a pint in The Parkway, Scottish Queen, Link or Earl George.

Built in the 1960s when municipal architecture spoke of optimism and innovation, the story of the estate is an oft told tale of decline and renovation.

Grade II* listed the building’s structure has prevailed, the original social structures, tenants and consequently their pubs have not.

Bewitched by the fragments which I photographed on my belated visits, I have searched the archives of Picture Sheffield, Postcard Cafe and Little Bits Of Sheffield.

Piecing together photographs and the distant reminiscences of those that lived, breathed and drank in their pubs beneath the streets in the sky.

The Link on Park Hill had some colourful characters.

If you want any info on the Link next time you are in town see the man selling fishing tackle outside Castle Market ,he is called Chris Hardy his dad ran the link in the 60’s they used to have the Sun Inn on South St before Park Hill was built, tell Chris that Alan Betty’s cousin told you about him.

I once did a job outside the Scottish Queen and had a lump of concrete thrown at me! it landed about 2m away, that made me jump!

Joe Fox used to be the landlord in the George in the 70s, didn’t stand for any messing about.

Sheffield Forum

Earl Francis! Of course! That was driving me mad; I was just going to ring my mum and ask her if she could remember what it was called. I think it closed in the early 90s, at the same time as the renovations of Hyde Park Walk and Terrace – 1990/1991, if I remember correctly.

The Earl Francis was still open in 1994 – the last time I went in there, but was dying on its feet.

Park Hill is empty, and due to be refurbished.

It’s amazing to think that each complex had all these pubs and people actually went in them! Drove past Park Hill a few months ago at night and it didn’t look like a soul lived in them.

Not surprised the Tavern has closed down. Don’t know whether people are happy or sad about it…They looked like an absolute dive, but I’ve always wanted to go and have a look around them to see what they’re like close up!

Why is it amazing to think that?

Sheffield Forum

The Parkway

Picture Sheffield 1965

52e4c0ea3efb77a9235e04b54f6554997ff794f3

Picture Sheffield © S Cole 2011

The flats and in particular the Parkway Tavern were used in the 2014 film ’71 – which was set in Northern Ireland. So this photograph showing the bar with a packet of crisps is actually slightly misleading because the crisp bag was only a printed film prop and what looks like broken glass on the bar is fake! – Mr C

© Little Bits of Sheffield

The Scottish Queen

A new pub could open on the site of what was once voted Britain’s second most dangerous watering hole. The Scottish Queen at Park Hill was notorious for violence, with only the most hardy drinkers brave enough to cross its threshold.

April 2015 saw the launch of a new exhibition space in Sheffield, housed within the former Scottish Queen pub at the Brutalist icon that is the Park Hill estate. The Scottish Queen hosted a temporary programme of exhibitions, events and residencies in partnership with a range of artists and organisations from across Sheffield supported by S1 Artspace.

Possibly the second toughest art space in Britain.

The Link

Picture Sheffield

© Matt Surgeon

Sheffield History

© Postcard Cafe

The Earl George

Picture Sheffield

In the 1960s 70s I used to go in the Link pub, I liked the Scottish Queen pub as well.

Do you think they’ll open all the pubs again when all the work is finished?

Gates and Doors – Sheffield

Posted on November 3, 2018 by modernmoocher

Early one morning – just as the sun was rising.

I took to the sunny Sunday October streets of Sheffield, bound I knew not where.

In search of something and nothing, which I possibly never ever found.

Following secret signs, symbols and words, doors and gates shut in my face.

Before I knew it I was back where I started.

Clark Brothers – Thomas Street Manchester

Posted on October 3, 2018October 3, 2018 by modernmoocher

Who you gonna call?

0161 834 5880 · 34-36 Thomas Street M4 1ER Manchester – Clark Brothers.

There’s nowhere quite like it – a wonderland of wares from who knows where?

Well mostly from upstairs where they hand print the signs.

They have everything that you never ever knew that you really wanted.

At prices you just can’t resist.

The finest selection of candy striped bags.

Things which twinkle and shimmer like no other things could ever do.

Transform your home into a 380 degree 365 24/7 winter landscape or tropical retreat.

Just to wander the wobbly floorboards, is to enter a palace of variety that fills the senses with pure unadulterated delight.

Step inside love and lose yourself in a garden of artifice, happiness and joy!

Al Faisal – Thomas Street Manchester

Posted on October 3, 2018October 3, 2018 by modernmoocher

Things, as we know, come and go – by 1807 Thomas Street had arrived.

At the heart of the new Manchester – providing dwellings, shops, pubs and manufacturing premises for the masses.

One of the earliest architectural complexes of the Industrial Revolution.

1908

Pifco – Manchester Manufacturing

1938

The Millstone 1970

Bay Horse 1970

Both pubs have survived and the street is home to several relative newcomers, including the Richard Goodall Gallery and celebrated men’s outfitters Oi Polloi.

Also the location of my most favourite shop in the whole wide world.

From the 70’s onwards the area had been at the centre of the Asian garment trade – and so it came to pass some 26 years ago the Al Faisal arrived, one of several curry cafés, feeding the faces of the passing parade.

I’ve eaten there for most of that time, fed very well indeed thank you very much, for way less than a king’s ransom.

Yesterday I popped in at teatime, for my tea – posters proclaimed an imminent move.

The whole block is to be demolished and a hotel to be built – there is naturally a suspicious resistance to such change, what was a protected area of historical interest, is fast becoming a deregulated playground for the avaricious developer.

A Manchester council spokesman said:

Our building control officers have been engaged with owner of the property on Thomas Street for some time.

The condition of the building means there is an imminent danger of collapse and a potential threat to pedestrians. Unfortunately, the poor weather has only served to add to our concern over the safety of the building.

A conservation specialist will be on site working closely with the building owner to ensure as much of the fabric of the property can be retained as possible, and only parts that are unsalvageable will be removed to ensure public safety.

Manchester Evening News

Rumours have also been rife concerning the fate of the nearby This & That – an essential part of the heartbeat of the city – the affordable independent trader.

I sat and ate happily, and was privileged to be given a tour of the kitchens by owner Tariq, recording for posterity a site of some culinary and social consequence.

Let’s take a look around and look forward to a meal just across the road real soon.

The Beefeater Grill – Halifax

Posted on September 27, 2018October 8, 2025 by modernmoocher

1 George Street, Halifax, West Yorkshire, HX1 1HA

The Beefeater Grill and Griddle is a long established family run grill and coffee house located at George Square Halifax. The place has an old fashioned feel to it and serves typical English cafe food which seems to make it popular amongst its local regulars.

Long may it do so.

Strangers to the town we wandered the streets in search of sustenance.

Bewitched bothered and bewildered – seduced by the tiles and signage, it was love at first sight.

The ability and will to resist the broad brush of regeneration and reinvention is all too rare, the traditional café is constantly under threat – the Beefeater has prevailed.

A stunning tiled exterior, a multi level interior and a menu to match, it’s win, win, win, win all the way.

We went inside and ate.

These tiles were originally designed by Kenneth Clarke, subsequently redesigned as the cheaper Turinese range by James Rushton and Leonard Gladstone King for Malkin Tiles, 1960 – 68.

Variety and Vitality in Ceramic Tiles – March 1960 issue of ‘Design’ magazine.

Rob McCrorie – Flickr

These tiles decorate the fascia of Fusciardis in Eastbourne.

And in addition the former C&A in Hanley.

Type Travel – Manchester

Posted on September 20, 2018February 5, 2024 by modernmoocher

This is a journey through time and space by bicycle, around the rugged, ragged streets of East Manchester.

Undertaken on Sunday September 2nd 2018.

This is type travel – the search for words and their meanings in an ever changing world.

Hyde Road

The Star Inn – former Wilsons pub

Devonshire Street North

Former Ardwick Cemetery

Great Universal Stores former mail order giant

Palmerston Street

The River Inn abandoned pub

Every Street

All Souls Church – listed yet unloved

Pollard Street East

The Bank Of England abandoned pub

Ancoats Works former engineering company

Cambrian Street

The Lunchbox Café Holt Town

Upper Helena Street

The last remnants of industrial activity

Bradford Road

Brunswick Mill

The little that remains of Raffles Mill

Old Mill Street

Ancoats Dispensary loved listed and still awaiting resuscitation

New life New Islington

Redhill Street

Former industrial powerhouse currently contemporary living space

Henry Street

King George VI and Queen Elizabeth passed by in 1942

Jersey Street

Former School the stone plaque applied to a newer building

Gun Street

The last of the few Blossom Motors

Addington Street

Former fruit merchants – refurbished and home to the SLG creative agency

Marshall Street and Goulden Street area

The last remnants of the rag trade

Former bed spring manufacturer – latterly became the County Archive.

Sudell Street

All that’s left of Alexandra Place

Entrance to the former Goods Yard

Back St Georges Road

Sharp Street

Simpson Street

Where once the CWS loomed large

Charter Street

Ragged but right

Aspin Lane

Angel Meadow

Corporation Street

Rochdale Road – Manchester

Posted on September 14, 2018September 17, 2018 by modernmoocher

Each and every time I wandered by, I wondered.

The whys and wherefores of your seemingly unknowable comings and goings.

Standing alone, aloof and unloved on the corner of Rochdale Road and Sudell Street.

Something was missing.

I was missing something.

In 1813 there’s a field

In 1836 something’s there, but not it’s you.

Yet.

By 1900 the days of the two up, two downs are numbered – sanitary dwellings are the order of the day, plans are drawn up, the local council have decreed that workers dwellings are to be built.

Local Image Collection

Known as Alexandra Place or The Dwellings.

You must have been home to many too many to recall, then you were gone again.

Save for one old triangle, refusing to jingle jangle to the modern dance.

I do not know what fate awaits you, I only know you must be strong.

A change is gonna come.

The Bank Of England – Manchester

Posted on September 3, 2018September 3, 2018 by modernmoocher

Standing stately on the corner of Carruthers and Pollard Street, safe as houses.

As safe as the houses that are no longer there, along with the other public houses, along with the jobs, along with the punters – all long gone, it’s a long story.

Look out!

Mind that tram, full of the boys and girls in blue, off to shriek at a Sheikh’s shrine.

The Bank of England was one of Ancoats’ first beerhouses, licensed from 1830 and ten years later it was fully licensed with attached brewhouse. The brewery did well, in fact it had another tied house, the Kings Arms near Miles Platting station nearby. The brewery was sold off in the 1860s but continued as a separate business for a few years.

Pubs of Manchester

Ancoats, the core of the first industrial city, a dense cornucopia of homes, mills and cholera – its citizens said to find respite from disease, through the consumption of locally brewed beer.

Once home to a plethora of pubs, now something of a dull desert for the thirsty worker, though workers, thirsty or otherwise are something of a rarity in the area.

One worker went missing, some twenty years ago Martin Joyce was last seen on the site, the pub grounds were excavated – nothing was found.

Manchester Evening News

When last open it was far from loved and found little favour amongst the fickle footy fans.

To the north a tidal wave of merchant bankers, to the east redundant industry.

The Bank of England has gone west.

So clean the mills and factories

And give me council houses too

And work that isn’t turning tricks

Like building homes and making bricks.

Danny Moran

Eva Brothers – Clayton Manchester

Posted on August 24, 2018 by modernmoocher

Eva Brothers of Crabtree Forge, Crabtree Lane, Clayton, Manchester.

1909 The partnership of James Eva, Archibald William Eva, Victor Eva, Arthur Eva, and Frank Eva, carrying on business as Forge-masters, at Crabtree-lane, Clayton, Manchester, under the style or firm of Eva Bothers was ended. All debts due would be settled by Archibald William Eva, Victor Eva, Arthur Eva, and Frank Eva, who continued the business under the same style.

By 1953 The EVA group of companies was the largest edge tool makers in the world, exporting most of their products. The associated companies included: Chillington Tool Co, Edward Elwell Limited of Wednesbury, A. W. Wills and Son Limited of Birmingham, John Yates and Co Limited of Birmingham, and the Phoenix Shovel Co Limited of Cradley Heath.

1958 Acquired T. Williams Drop forgings and Tools of Small Heath, Birmingham

1959 Planned to convert into a holding company; depressed demand for heavy engineering but continued group prosperity were anticipated.

1960 Eva Brothers paid dividends and made scrip issue; changed the name to Eva Industries as the holding company.

1976: Eva Brothers continued to be a part of Eva Industries.

Graces Guide – for further information.

This is where Manchester’s prosperity was created, engineering along with King Cotton, formed the financial foundations of the city. These industries are now all but vanished, along with the communities and skills that created them, work and wealth are elsewhere.

Years of free-market economics, acquisition, asset stripping, amalgamation and monopoly have bequeathed a legacy of loss.

Once bustling and business like sheds and yards, are now forests of buddleia and bramble. The sound of metal on metal, but a dull memory, amidst the wilder side of wildlife and the gentle whisper of peeling paint.

Come with me now to the Kingdom of Rust.

Harbour Bar – Scarborough

Posted on July 27, 2018July 27, 2018 by modernmoocher

1-3 Sandside, Scarborough, North Yorkshire, YO11 1PE.

Do you remember the first time?

Sometime around 2011, I fell in love with the Harbour Bar Scarborough.

A family business serving home made ice cream since 1945.

It’s a magical world of mirrors, melamine, signs and ice creams.

Since then I’ve been back for a banana split and take the opportunity to take a few more snaps, I never leave anything less than overwhelmingly happy and full.

Linda’s Pantry – Manchester

Posted on July 10, 2018 by modernmoocher

Turn off London Road and into Ducie Street, it’s just around the corner from Piccadilly Station.

Enter a world of warehouses, homes and industry.

Return some fifty years later and you’ll find a café on the corner.

Return last Saturday you’ll find that it’s gone.

No more of this.

Top class scran at prices to suit all pockets.

Linda and her crew have packed up the pans and scrammed.

Read all about it – Manchester Evening News

The face of the city changes, as one by one faces and places disappear, new build and mass tourism making ever new demands on space.

The rag trade is in tatters and the tatters are long gone.

It would seem that there is no place for the traditional café or its customers.

So thank you and goodnight, the last pie, chips and gravy has left the counter.

Shut the door and turn out the lights.

Sale Pyramid Odeon Cinema

Posted on June 28, 2018June 29, 2018 by modernmoocher

Cinema Treasures

Located in Sale, Cheshire, now part of Greater Manchester. Designed by the famous British cinema architectural firm, Drury & Gomersall, the Pyramid Theatre is a classic example of an Egyptian-style cinema in Britain and had a 1,940 seating capacity.

The frontage although not particularly Egyptian in overall design does have various Egyptian style mouldings and fluted pillars. Internally, the Egyptian theme was again largely mouldings and finishes like Graumans Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. The theme was included in the specially designed Christie Organ, which was installed in the Blue Coat School in Oldham.

Following a request by the school to remove the organ in 2008, the organ was in storage for five years. The Christie has now been donated to the Lowe Side Trust, by the LTOT, along with funding for refurbishment and installation, of both consoles, into Lowe House Catholic Church, St. Helens, Lancashire. As of the beginning of 2018 the the original pit console is now fully functioning in the Church. The Egyptian style stage console is now under refurbishment to full theatre specification. Website for this project will be available shortly.

Lancastrian Theatre Organ Trust

The Pyramid Theatre changed hands a couple of times between its opening on 24th February 1934 and 21st December 1942 when it was taken over by Oscar Deutsch’s Odeon Theatres Ltd. chain. It was re-named Odeon on 18th June 1945.

In 1981, the Rank Organisation closed 29 of its Odeon cinemas and the lease for the Odeon Sale was bought by the Tatton Cinemas group and it was re-named Tatton Cinema. Stage shows returned to the theatre, however the runing costs caused the lease to revert to Rank in 1984 and the building was closed.

The cinema was purchased by Trafford Borough council for £200,000, but by 1987 the costs to the council were estimated at £1.5 million. A campaign was started to save it from demolition.

In 1988, it was advertised for sale by tender and by 1990 the cinema was converted into an American themed nightclub, known as JFK’s

The nightclub closed around 2001 and the auditorium was transformed into a franchised L.A. Fitness Centre, using a former front stalls exit as its entrance. The main entrance and foyers are currently unused. In 2013 it became a Sports Direct Fitness Club.

The Pyramid Theatre was designated a Grade II Listed building in November 1987.

It is currently closed and seemingly unused.

I often cycle passed and wonder about your past, and a possible future.

Our cinema heritage is and always had been under threat, listed and unloved desperately seeking the care and attention to survive into another other century. Subsequent repurposing has proved temporary and unsustainable, without the concerted efforts of local authority, charitable trust and enthusiastic amateurs, you will remain a silent pharaonic sentinel by the side of Washway Road.

Forever.

“Only the best is good enough for Sale”

Castle Street – Edgeley #1

Posted on June 14, 2018June 14, 2018 by modernmoocher

I have shuffled and shopped up and down Castle Street for some forty years or so – things have come and things have gone – and continue to do so. High streets have always been subject to so many external forces, they reshape and reform, in rhythm with the times and tides of history.

Horse drawn carriages and trams are long gone, along with the double-decker bus, people powered people rule in a pedestrianised precinct, charity begins at Barnardo’s, the Co-op has been and gone and returned, just up the way.

Two whole chapels, pubs and cinemas seem to have just disappeared.

So let’s take a short trip through time and space along a short strip of Stockport’s past.

Get your boots on.

Pictures from Stockport Image Archive

Taylor Street Gorton – The Pineapple

Posted on June 12, 2018June 12, 2018 by modernmoocher

To begin at the beginning or thereabouts, Taylor Street was at the heart of Gorton to the east of Manchester city centre.

A typical street of tightly packed brick terraces, dotted with shops, pubs, people and industry. I worked there as van lad for Mother’s Pride bread back in the 70s and saw those shops, pubs, people and industry slowly disappear.

Beyer Peacock whose immense shed dominated the northern end of the street, simply ceased to be, as steam gave way to diesel.

As full employment gave way to a date with the dole.

Adsega opening on nearby Cross Street heralded the arrival of the super fast, self-service supermarket, and sounded the death knell of the cosy corner cupboard.

The local pub was The Bessemer – its name forging an unbreakable link with the surrounding steel industry, that eventually broke.

To the left of the pub is the Bishop Greer High School construction site – the first of the new build that would later dominate the area, along with wide open spaces where shops, pubs, people and industry once were.

When the school eventually shut its doors, it became an annex of Openshaw Technical College, and I found myself working there in the 80s at the East Manchester Centre, until its eventual closure.

It’s now sheltered accommodation for the lost and lonely:

Located in a quiet suburb of Manchester with excellent links to the city centre, Gorton Parks has an exceptional range of facilities spread out across five separate houses, each offering a different care option. Melland House offers dementia residential care, Abbey Hey provides nursing dementia care, Debdale is the house for intermediate nursing care and Sunny Brow offers general nursing care.

We sought solace in The Pineapple.

The streets were trimmed and slimmed, much of the past a mere ghostly presence, almost imprinted on the present.

A brave new world of brand new modern housing, with an Estate Pub to match.

A busy bustling boozer – lots of live and local action for the lively locals, latterly seeing out time as a house of House – a real bangin’ Bashment, bass-man bargain basement.

Until time is finally called – no more four to the floor, last one out shut the door.

Nothing lasts forever and a sign of the times is an upended pub sign, lying dormant in the dust.

The Chunky no longer a great big hunk o’funk.

The big screen TV forever failing to deliver all the action, live or otherwise.

Latterly transformed into Dribble Drabble.

And so the beat goes on as successive waves of success and recession, boom and bust free-market economics, wash over the nation and its long suffering folk.

Its enough to drive you to drink.

Long Lane Post Office – Heald Green

Posted on May 30, 2018May 31, 2018 by modernmoocher

190 Wilmslow Rd, Heald Green, Cheadle SK8 3BH

The original Long Lane Post Office is still there but not here:

However – I digress.

One fine day, some time ago there popped into my consciousness a Sixties retail mosaic in the Heald Green area – I tracked down its precise whereabouts online, in the modern manner.

Thinks – one fine day, just you wait and see I’ll pay a visit to the Heald Green area.

So today I did, it started off fine and finished up less so.

Jumped the 368 from Stockport Bus Station alighted at The Griffin.

Walked aways up the road and there it was, almost intact – it’s original name obliterated with lilac exterior emulsion – did it once read healds?

Why of course it did – the local dairy and retailers were the shop’s original owners.

A few tesserae are missing otherwise the piece is as was – a wobbly jumble of text, shape and colour.

Self service – at your service.

Macclesfield Railway Station

Posted on May 28, 2018 by modernmoocher

Where the Victorians modelled their stations on cathedrals, temples and palaces.

Modern Man models his on shopping centre and office blocks.

Richards and MacKenzie – The Railway Station

Though it seems to me that Macclesfield Station, in its earlier and current states, refuses to dovetail neatly into either of these sloppy binary paradigms.

The former – single storey buildings, fitting unostentatiously into the topographic and practical constraints of the site. A neat, tightly packed rhythm of brick arches with a compact and bijou porch welcoming the expectant traveller.

The latter a functionalist block, fully utilitarian crossings with lift access columns, embodying a particularly industrial demeanour.

From the golden age of steam to the moribund years of diesel, Macclesfield sits comfortably somewhere, betwixt and between ugly duckling and fully fledged swan.

Nestled in the lea of the East Cheshire Highlands, offering practical everyday transport solutions to the beleaguered commuter.

No frills, no thrills.

The London and North Western Railway opened the line between Manchester and Macclesfield on 19 June 1849 – Macclesfield Central was born. Later it would become a key station on the Stafford branch of the West Coast Main Line, remodelled in 1960 and rebranded as the much snappier Macclesfield Station.

Which it proudly announces topically and typographically to the world.

Welcome to Macclesfield a town that is clearly going places, and so are you.

The station won the Best Kept Station in Cheshire Award for 2007, but was reported in summer 2011 to be distinctly shabby, with peeling paintwork.

And yet there is something in the constituent Platonic steel, glass and concrete forms that never ceases to amuse and amaze me, this is Brutalism on a human and provincial scale.

The raw concrete softened with three or four shades of grey, as a concession to the delicate suburban sensibilities of this once silk-fuelled town.

Take a trip with me – join the Cheshire train set.

Strangeways #3 – Black and White World

Posted on February 16, 2018February 16, 2018 by modernmoocher

I’ve been here for the last fifteen years on and off, snapping away, capturing something of the area’s ever changing moods, the old, the new, the borrowed and the blue.

Wading through the archives, or searching for the remains of modernity.

On this occasion I have chosen to work on black and white film – the medium conveying something timeless, at a time when things are forever changing.

Let’s take a contradictory look and walk around those familiar, unfamiliar streets of Strangeways – where colourfully clad industrial barn, collides with blackened brick and stone behemoth.

Eastford Square Collyhurst – Slight Return

Posted on February 13, 2018February 13, 2018 by modernmoocher

I’ve been here before and after.

After now seems further away, forever awaiting redevelopment – waiting.

No more Flower Pot Café and a warm welcome from Lee and the lads.

Nearly nine years on – the shutters are down and nobody is home, save for the Lalley Centre – offering food, support and care to the community.

Though Sister Rita Lee has now move on to pastures new.

The homes and shops remain resolutely shut, un-lived in and unloved, though the City plans to re-site the resident sculpture, the residents remain absent without leaving.