brewery – Modern Mooch

Manchester Arterial – A5103

Posted on January 5, 2024 by modernmoocher

The A5103 is a major thoroughfare running south from Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester city centre to the M56 in Northenden. The road is two-lane dual carriageway with a few grade-separated junctions. It is used by many as a link to the airport and to the motorway network south.

The road starts at Piccadilly Gardens where it meets the A6. It heads along Portland Street – at one time it ran along the parallel Mosley Street, past fast-food outlets and off-licences and then meets the A34 Oxford Street. It multiplexes with that road north for 200 yards into St Peter’s Square and then turns left into Lower Mosley Street, initially alongside the tramlines and then past the former Manchester Central station, now a conference centre with the same name. The road becomes Albion Street and goes over the Bridgewater Canal and under the railway line east of Deansgate station. The road then meets the A57(M) Mancunian Way at a roundabout interchange. This is where most of the traffic joins and leaves.

The road is now 2×2 dual carriageway with the name Princess Road. It passes under the Hulme Arch, a grade-separated junction with the A5067, with an unusually large central reservation. This is presumably because of the proposed plans from the 1960s of a motorway. However, after passing under the junction, there are innumerate sets of traffic lights, with the B5219, the A6010 and the A5145, as well as many other unsigned roads. There are also many speed cameras set at 30 mph.

The road picks up pace as we exit the sprawl of South Manchester and the road becomes Princess Parkway, with a 50 mph speed limit. We cross the River Mersey and almost immediately hit the M60 at J5.

Except for the Manchester City Centre section – which was numbered A5068, this road did not exist on classification in 1922. Princess Road was built in 1932 to serve the new southwestern suburbs; initially it ran between the B5219 and A560 and was numbered B5290, with the road later extended north into the A5068 on the southern edge of the city centre and renumbered A5103.

The northern extension through Hulme initially followed previously existing roads, so followed a zigzag route. As part of the road’s upgrade and the reconstruction of Hulme in the 1970s the road was straightened and the original route can no longer be seen. The A5068 was severed around this time with the construction of the A57(M) and the A5103 took on its city-centre section, taking it to the A6.

Sabre Roads

See also Bury New Road and Cheetham Hill Road and Rochdale Road and Oldham Road and Ashton New Road and Ashton Old Road and Hyde Road and Stockport Road and Kingsway.

Leeds – The Garden Gate

Posted on April 25, 2015January 26, 2021 by modernmoocher

Friday afternoon, clouds gather along a long walk from the Leeds city centre, following an unforgivingly long dual carriageway, not without its hard won charm, we reached the Garden Gate.

A Tetley Heritage pub the most beautiful in Yorkshire, clad in warm glazed ceramics of the highest decorative order, a terrazzo porch and open door welcomes the weary walker.

Ready for a pint?

Leeds Pale Ale £2.60 a pop and a fine drop it is too, why not stay and have another!

The interior arrangement of rooms cluster around a fine tiled bar, linked by corridors, clad in curved wood and large etched windows, lit with the original fittings – all in an intoxicating Nouveau style.

The cellar is lined in heavy glazed white brick and retains its rugby league history with extant showers and physio room, former home of the Garden Gate ARLFC – it says so on the first aid kit.

A thinned bar of green soap rests on the side of the long-dry bath.

The staff and customers were warm, chatty and informative – my thanks for their generous hospitality.

Its worth the walk.

My thanks to Ms. Natalie Ainscough for her cheery company, innate sense of direction and can do attitude.

http://www.gardengateleeds.co.uk

Huddersfield – The Sportsman

Posted on March 17, 2015July 25, 2020 by modernmoocher

Turn left out of the station, round past the George, big and closed. Head under the railway viaduct – there it is right in front of you, on the corner of John Street.

The Sportsman.

You will not find a finer pub, but you don’t have to, you’re there.

Striding across the decorative deco porch, pushing aside the weighty timber and glass doors. Inside a dull warm afternoon light, falls lazily through the windows. White globes glow low from the ceiling, gently washing the well worn parquet floor. Put your bags down on the upholstered seating, walk up to the bar get a pint pulled, then another – take your time it’s fluid.

The main room is wide and welcoming, side rooms smaller and intimate.

Decorated in a post war muted style, all wood and restrained colour, certainly not over fussy or over decorative. It has a style that doesn’t impose itself upon you – simply whispers in your ear

Pub.

Look out for the tiles, a series of sporting scenes in the gents, mysterious.

Do yourself a favour, have a drink there soon.

http://www.undertheviaduct.com/about/

http://www.examiner.co.uk/news/west-yorkshire-news/toilet-tiles-mystery-huddersfields-sportsman-4966441

Wigan – The Springfield

Posted on March 15, 2015December 7, 2016 by modernmoocher

Standing amongst a high density of housing, once homes to the thousands of mill workers that lived, loved, laughed and drank here, The Springfield prevails.

Built in 1903 by Heaton and Ralph for Oldfield Breweries it has retained much of its original character and features and is listed on CAMRA’s Historic Pub Interiors inventory.

http://www.heritagepubs.org.uk/pubs/historic-pub-interior-entry.asp?pubid=605

Having walked from the centre of town, following a full day of snapping this and that I was ready for a swift half of well kept Tetley’s Bitter. The staff were more than friendly and happy to assist me in recording this fine and welcoming hostelry. By day quiet and on the dark side, by night it comes to life. Large family and function rooms, a cards and doms tap room, pool and TV caters for customers of all ages and interests.

I have tried to capture the weight of sunlight as it falls softly, through the etched glass of the pub, a unique quality known only to the daytime drinker.

If you’re passing pop in.

Wigan – The Pagefield Hotel

Posted on March 9, 2015March 26, 2018 by modernmoocher

Like many large Edwardian pubs The Pagefield is now closed, though of great social, architectural and historical importance, the economics of industrial decline and changing patterns of leisure almost always point to a change of use rather than reopening as a boozer. Though more commonly becoming a Tesco or Sainsbury’s, plans have been submitted for both conversion to flats and a possible Indian Restaurant, neither seem imminent.

The building is blessed with etched and stained glass windows, a richness of architectural type, mosaic porch and a grandeur in scale and detailing. Once serving a high density of housing in the Springfield area, the mills that fuelled the economy of the area are now long gone, along with the wages that bounced over the bar.

It was named after the Pagefield iron rolling mills which were just down the road – thanks to Steven Buckley for the inside track, his great grandfathers worked at the mill.

Originally a Bolton based brewery Magee and Marshall owned the pub, passing to Greenall Whitley and then the usual succession of entrepreneurial pub companies.

“Magee Marshall & Company was a brewery that operated from the Crown Brewery in Bolton. It was founded by David Magee, a brewer and spirit merchant in 1853. He moved from the Good Samaritan Brewhouse to the Crown Hotel in the 1860s and built the Crown Brewery in Derby Street next to the hotel. After his death he was succeeded by his sons, who acquired David Marshall’s Grapes Brewery and the Horseshoe Brewery. The company was registered as Magee Marshall & Company Ltd. in 1888. The company acquired Henry Robinson’s Brewery in Wigan and Halliwell’s Alexandra Brewery. In 1959 it was acquired by Greenall and Whitley and closed in 1970.

The brewery, built around 1900, was in the “traditional brewery style” with a five-storey section for gravity processing and an ornamental tower. Up to the 1950s the company transported water, high in dissolved calcium carbonate content, in tankers by rail from Burton on Trent for the brewing process.”