Walking from Cornbrook toward Stretford along Chester Road – which is one half of my Tram Trip to Altrincham
There is a cluster of former industrial buildings around Empress Street.
First up is the Empress Brewery.
The Empress Brewing Company was established by Charles Dawes in c. 1880, although the company was sold to William Henry Fulford in 1884, who had recently sold the Monarch Brewery in Salford. Fulford was based at the Empress Brewery on Clarence Street in Manchester, but had relocated to new premises on 383 Chester Road. These had been built in 1889 and operated initially as the Old Trafford Brewing Company, but the name had changed to the Empress Brewery Company by 1895. The company acquired a number of breweries and associated licenced house during the early 20th century, however, in 1929 it was taken over by Peter Walker and Son. The brewery closed in 1955.
The building was converted into offices in 1992 as part of the development of the Empress Business Centre, which saw new office and business units built to form a courtyard.
Including the Queens Arms on Honey Street Red Bank, one of the first independent real boozers back in the 1980’s, subsequently it has seen various uses last seen on my Collyhurst Circular walk.
The development of the site can be traced from the sequence of Ordnance Survey 1:2500 maps. The First Edition of 1893 shows the site as undeveloped. The First Revision map of 1908 shows 384 Chester Road to have been developed, and the site of the National Works to have been occupied by an open-fronted L-shaped range along the western and southern sides, with a detached rectangular building in a central courtyard. It is possible that these buildings all formed part of 384 Chester Road, listed as being occupied by H, G & O Lewtas, lamp manufacturers, in Slater’s trade directory for 1911. The Second Revision map of 1922 shows the early building to have been subsumed by the current building.
1961 Local Image Collection
Later the home of Lion Foodpackers Ltd and Crimpy Crisps.
Situated on the lower ground floor of a gorgeous, red brick, landmark building, this 2 double bedroom apartment merits further inspection. A good size living room opens on to a good fitted kitchen. It also has a great, spacious shower room. It also benefits from a parking space, although a great attraction is the location, being just 1 mile from Deansgate and the City along with being 10 minutes walk to a Metro station.
Then we have the Veno’s Building, which was once a pharmaceutical company founded by William Henry Veno. He established a company in the US before returning to Britain and founded the Veno drug Company in Manchester in 1898.
In 1925 the company was sold to Beecham Estate and Pills Ltd. In the 60s the building was under the name Progress House and was home to the Co-Operative Press Limited, later to become Trafford Press.
Rare sighting of a Profil aka Stymie Bold Italic hyphen.
Designed by brothers Max and Eugen Lenz and first cast by Haas in 1947.
The front elevation was originally in red brick, with a later faience facade applied.
Veno’s a stalled and cursed development. In 1925 William Henry Veno sold his company for £500,000, a decision he later rued. He sought to enhance his million pound fortune but lost everything through speculative investments and the 1929 Depression. He shot himself at his home during a fit of impulsive insanity.
It was also the home of Germolene, a thick antiseptic ointment with a distinctive pink colour and scented with oil of wintergreen
The pub was open, but the Alan Boyson mural was in need of repair.
The missing panel, stored in the pub’s cellar was subsequently reinstated.
Then, following a Modernist crowdfunding project instigated by Richard Brook and Christopher Marsden, Alice Vincent-Barwood restored the work, during July 2022.
Sadly in August 2023 the pub lost its licence and remains closed.
Wandering from Town to Moston yesterday, I happened to pass by, so I took some photos, here they are:
At one time named the Royal Swan, in the later years its name was changed to the Blazing Stump and before closure became a night club known as Bonkers.
A lost venue once loved for being the “wackiest fun pub” in the 1980s.
Date of closure unknown but thought to be late 1980s or early 1990s.
On the Dock Road was the ‘Swan Hotel which also opened in 1878. The nickname of the Swan Hotel was ‘The Blazing Stump’ and the story goes that an old seadog with a wooden leg used it to poke the fire. In those days pitch was used as a wood preservative, which is probably why his wooden leg caught fire when poking the fire one time too many – hence ‘The Blazing Stump.’
Due to its location near the Wallasey Docks majority of the customers who visited the pub came off the grain or ore boats. The pub would be thronged with Norwegians, Greeks, Germans, Swedes and Arabs and local people. When the pub was full the place had an unusual and interesting flavour because of this rare variety of people.
The ‘Stump’s’ days were numbered when less and less ships visited the Wallasey docks. The building still stands but remains unused, with the owner looking for a big payout sale. Or who knows, the doors may just open once more.
Now construction company AP Mitchell and Evoke Architecture have submitted plans to Wirral Council to completely turn the site around.
The plans include outdoor seating areas with benches, an outdoor event space, food and drinks vendors, and a large bar. A private function space will sit inside the new building which will be called the Dock Road Food Hall.
The design works carefully to balance modern design with reminiscent character features, sympathetic to the original building and surrounding historic buildings of similar style. The result is a contemporary structure that aligns with the evolving character of Dock Road and the Wirral Waters masterplan.
Arriving by train and ascending into the light – here’s the station lights.
The railway station has sharpened up its apron and facade.
We have transformed the station forecourt. It has become a quality gateway which delivers a great first impression for visitors arriving in Doncaster by train. This will help stimulate interest from investors and developers, helping to attract new investment and create jobs for the borough and wider region.
Celebrating engineering, speed and connectivity and stretching forty metres in length the public art at Doncaster Station consists of forty seven monoliths which are a nod to Doncaster’s past, present and future. With a fountain and three impressive water walls, the art takes centre stage in the new public space as you step out of the train station and head into the town centre.
The concept was devised by Doncaster Council and further developed by Chris Brammall.
Typically the high and low streets of Britain’s industrial towns and cities, are an amalgam of architectural style and fashion, spanning at least two or three centuries.
Behind the buff faience frontage is a lovely, small two-room pub with a well preserved interior created under plans of 1934. It was remodelled by the Grimsby brewers Hewitt Brothers Ltd who were Doncaster’s biggest pub owners for many years.
Of course, every town had a Burton’s – the tailor of taste.
This post war infill has that distinctive Festival of Britain feel, original metal window frames, Portland stone and blueish slate like panels.
The revamped Frenchgate Shopping Centre, officially opened on October 4th 1968, has in places an upper tier, resistant to zinc over cladding.
The centre has been the heart of the city for over 40 years and was originally called the Arndale Centre because it was built, owned and managed by the Arndale Group. It was renamed in 1988 after a change of ownership, with the new name reflecting the name of the street which passes to the east of the centre and which is one of Doncaster’s main shopping streets.
The sale of the centre came just a year after Frenchgate had undergone a £200 million facelift to transform it into the country’s first shopping centre with integrated public transport and retail interchange.
We propose this is fundamentally transformed though the addition of apartments that wrap along the back of the first-floor retail with a further 2.5 new storeys placed on top. We also feel additional height -up to seven or eight storeys, is justifiable to the corner of Frenchgate and Trafford Way.
The Lovers were once located in the Arndale, removed to a local garden, unloved – then later reinstated in the Waterdale Centre, where we will embrace them a little later.
Turn right to take in the 1920s mosaic remake remodel of the Grade II listed Blue Building.
The Blue Building which used to be the Doncaster Design Centre and Tourist Information Centre was originally the home of John Whitaker, a wine merchant, and son of James Whitaker who was Mayor of Doncaster in 1758.
In 1925 the complete building was demolished apart from the facade which was retained and given a facing of decorative blue tiles. The intention was to build a shopping arcade from High Street to Printing Office Street. Only part of the arcade, known as the Westminster Arcade was built. It had a number of shops, the largest being that of Woodhouse & Co Furnishers.
Two adjacent 60s extensions – to the right a redundant post office to the left an almost redundant telephone exchange, with the earlier brick built exchange in smack dab the middle.
Turn another corner and it’s all at the Co-op now – the Grade II listed Danum Co-operativeBuilding, department store and offices: 1938-40 designed by T H Johnson & Son for the Doncaster Co-operative Society Ltd.
Over the road a zig-zag Halifax Building Society branch, tightly contorted by its corner footprint.
To the right of the Danum, this former Boyes store, having relocated to the Wilko site, the building is ripe for residential conversion.
To the left the Colonnades Shopping Centre a fierce angular glass and brick bunker of mixed office and retail space – the sole occupant seeming to be Home Bargains.
A £3.3m makeover of the Colonnades shopping mall in Doncaster town centre was completed in 2019.
The scheme of works was co-ordinated by Doncaster Council and funded by the Sheffield City Region Local Growth Fund.
Built in the 1980s, the brick built building received a major overhaul. The investment saw the visual appearance enhanced inside and out. The five floors were transformed into the prime office space needed in the town centre and the enhancements to the retail area were also finished.
The shift in the town’s axis to the Frenchgate and Market areas, seems to have taken the wind out of its sails.
The former flicks now a redundant pale brick behemoth – no more and ABC.
Doncaster’s new £250,000 ABC cinema, part of the Golden Acres development near the town centre, was opened on May 18th 1967.
Closed in January 1981 for conversion into a triple screen it re-opened on 9th April 1981 with seating in the three screens for 477, 201 and 135.
The Cannon Group took control in the mid-1980’s and it was re-named Cannon and it closed on 18th June 1992, screening its opening film Doctor Zhivago.
Cinema Treasures
The Golden Acres development seemed to have morphed into the Waterdale Centre.
It is currently being reshaped to provide a line of desire twixt the Civic and Cultural areas, from the town centre. There are still the remnants of homes, shops and a pub amongst the demolition – almost inevitably there is new paving.
Waterdale is a well-known part of Doncaster’s town centre. During its heyday it was a bustling area with people flocking to shops and the like – it was a place you had to visit while you were in town. However, it had suffered a steady decline which continued when the southern bus station closed – Frenchgate Interchange opening, and Doncaster College moved to the Hub at the Waterfront. With limited public transport entering the area and no student population on its doorstep, less people had reason to pass through.
Demolition of the College.
The Civic and Cultural Quarter is transforming Waterdale reconnecting it to the town centre. The quality and content of the plans is raising the profile of this part of town to new levels. The carefully thought out layout and consistent building design is giving the area a clear identity. It is already becoming a big attraction that draws people in and encourages redevelopment in the neighbouring areas.
The weary walker is diverted toward the Civic Quarter Car Park.
The former Civic Offices are to be demolished.
Demolition of the Central Library is well under way.
Facing the former library we find the CAST Theatre, Civic Buildings and Savoy Cinema, grouped around Sir Nigel Gresley Square.
Within the square is a frieze, salvaged from the former Gaumont Cinema, the work of sculptor Newbury Abbot Trent.
The Gaumont Palace Theatre in Hall Gate at the corner of Thorne Road, Doncaster opened on 3rd September 1934 with Jesse Matthews in Evergreen.
It was designed by architects WE Trent and W Sydney Trent.
In 1949 WH Price the Borough Surveyor produced an outline plan for the area, with a green space at its heart, it was never realised. In 1955 Frederick Gibberd produced his plan to include a ten storey Town Hall, Art School, Technical College and Civic Theatre, revised and reduced in 1963 – eventually his Police Station and Law Courts were completed in 1969.
The former NHS Clinic at the ‘T Junction’ is transformed into a day care service.
The building was designed in the office of the Doncaster Borough Architect’s Department in a team led by borough architect Mr LJ Tucker.
The ceramic designs were a later addition when it was discovered that the large open areas of glass overheated almost everything inside, the work was undertaken by LJ Tucker and family.
The sculptural work by Franta Belsky, now has a skip for company.
As a footnote the work by Fabio Barraclough reveals a murky past.
Barraclough was born in Madrid in 1923, to a Spanish mother and Yorkshire father who founded Madrid’s Chamber of Commerce. He moved to London with his family in the 1930s as a refugee from Francoist Spain. He taught fine art and sculpture at Rugby School, where colleagues considered him “highly entertaining, a most unorthodox and highly gifted” teacher. He established himself during the 1960s and early 1970s as an authority on sculpture, publishing in academic journals and becoming a member of the Royal British Society of Sculptors.
In 2000, it was revealed that Barraclough, while outwardly living the life of anti-apartheid activist since the 1970s, had been a paid informant of the South African state security police. The media was used to promote his image as a “brilliant, liberal artist with apparently impeccable credentials” in order to gain public trust, while he was funnelling money from anti-apartheid groups to the police. He died on 6th January 2019.
Over the way faros the green sward is St Peter in Chains RC – A large and striking design by JH Langtry-Langton, incorporating important furnishings by J F Bentley from the predecessor church, along with good furnishings of the 1970s. The churches houses the modern successor to the medieval shrine of Our Lady of Doncaster.
Figurative stained glass by Patrick Feeny for Hardman in 1973 and abstract glass fitted in 2000 as part of reordering and revival of the shrine.
Designed by architects Bond Bryan and built by main contractor Willmott Dixon, the new cultural and learning hub has been created following the restoration of four existing buildings.
A key focal point of the scheme is the restored frontage of the Edwardian former Doncaster High School for Girls, which has been framed by Senior’s slimline SF52 aluminium curtain wall and showcased within a new steel-frame building. The glazed facade, which was fabricated and installed by Senior’s supply chain partner Chemplas, also features Senior’s aluminium commercial doors.
Walking along Rochdale Road yesterday, I was suddenly arrested by the Pleasant Street street sign.
Having already been suddenly arrested last week, by the Bland Close street sign.
With my expectations defined by the above definition, I ventured along the street in search of happy satisfaction.
Coincidentally – The 18th century entrepreneur Josiah Wedgwood pioneered many of the marketing strategies used today, including the satisfaction or you money back guarantee, on the entire range of his pottery products. The money-back guarantee was also a major tool of early US mail order sales pioneers in the United States such as Richard Sears and Powel Crosley Jr. to win the confidence of consumers.
However at someone between 1968 and 2024 the housing had been cleared away – also missing in action is the Golden Lion pub adjoining Pleasant Street on Rochdale Road.
The Golden Lion was a proper old pub on the very busy rochdale road in the Harpurhey area of Manchester. Once inside there was a decent lounge and a basic bar i had a drink in the lounge and this was quite a comfy room.
This pub was a Whitbread tied house and there were two real ales on the bar I had a drink of Chesters bitter and this was a nice drink the other beer was Chesters mild. I thought this was quite a nice pub but sadly this pub has now been pulled down in the name of progress.
So here we are here today – yesterday has long gone and tomorrow never knows no how.
What’s left to see?
Manchester Hand Car Wash
Manchester Tyres
Pleasant Street Allotments
The allotments have had issues with fly tipping back in 2021.
There is now a lockable barrier in place on the cobbled cul-de-sac.
Photo – Howard Bristol
It is understood that the heaps of rubbish, including bin bags full of waste and unwanted wood and cardboard, have been growing in recent weeks.
Howard Bristol, the Secretary of the Pleasant Street allotments committee, said the situation has been ongoing for some time but has worsened since the removal of nearby CCTV cameras.
He told the Evening News that the road has been – piling high with rubbish, and that the area also had issues with the woodland behind the allotments being used for drug dealing during summer.
Pat Karney, councillor for Harpurhey tweeted about the flytipping on Sunday, calling it – unbelievable and disgraceful.
He added that those responsible should be – locked up in Strangeways for a long time, before adding that the council will – get it cleared.
This is Oldham Road Manchester – this also Memory Lane.
Walking from the city centre to Failsworth I noted the absence of public houses, some long since demolished, some now serving other purposes – very few open selling beer.
Many of the breweries no longer trading.
Much of this the consequence of changing economic circumstances, the decline in manufacturing and subsequent serious absence in regular drinkers.
I do remember the huge Winston Churchill relief in the Room and R100 Airship wooden panelling in the lounge. Also of note were the ornate plater work ceilings and pendulous lighting, much damaged as the pub awaited restoration.
The A6 is Britain’s fourth longest road. Its route varies greatly from the lower lands of the South East, though the Peak District, right though the heart of Manchester city centre, then onwards towards Preston. It then goes though the historic city of Lancaster before skirting the Eastern fringe of the Lake District before ending in Carlisle, bang on the start of the A7.
North from Stockport towards Manchester, the A6 was a wide, four lane road, but still 30 mph, which usually flowed pretty well. According to Mudge, it looks like it has now been massacred by bus lanes and red paint. Shame. We meet the A57 from the east, just south of the city centre, and multiplex until we reach Mancunian Way, the A57 heading off as a short urban motorway, the A6 heading into the city centre via London Road/Piccadily, where it loses its number and vanishes. It would have gone straight down Piccadily/Market Street to meet Deansgate, and then across the River Irwell into Salford, and up Chapel Street, where the number reappears. Market Street has been pedestrianised for years, so the A6 has long ceased to be a through route.
The road now begins slightly further south than it used to. Instead of starting on Fairfield Street in Manchester city centre, it begins immediately as the Mancunian Way ends, which at this point is the unsigned A635(M). The motorway flows directly into our route. There’s a TOTSO right at a set of lights, and we pick up the old alignment, which now starts as the B6469.
We can see the new City of Manchester Stadium on the left, site of the 2002 Commonwealth Games and now home to Manchester City FC. The road switches between S2 and S4 as it passes through the rather run-down urban areas of Ardwick and Gorton. A short one-way system at a triangular-shaped junction with the A662 leads onto a wider stretch as we near the M60 junction. This area is set to see significant industrial growth, with whole swathes of land either side of the now D3 road cleared and ready for development.
The obvious place for the A664 to start is on the A665 Manchester & Salford Inner Relief Route, which at this point is actually two parallel one-way streets. However, many maps show the road continuing a short distance into the city centre to end at traffic lights by the Shudehill Interchange – this is presumably for historic reasons: the road originally continued along the High Street to its terminus on the A6 Market Street.
The road heads northeastwards through the suburbs, the street name Rochdale Road, already emphasising its destination. Initially dual, the road narrows just before crossing the bridge over the railway line east of Victoria station. It continues through Collyhurst and widens again just before crossing the A6010 Intermediate Ring Road, which here is made up of two parallel one-way streets, requiring two separate sets of traffic lights to cross.
Now non-primary – but still dual for a short distance more, the road runs in a more northerly direction through Blackley, where it becomes wooded for a short distance as it passes the Boggart Hole Clough park. Slightly further on the road has been straightened, after which it bears right to widen considerably and cross the A6104 at traffic lights just before M60 J20, which only has west-facing sliproads. The road narrows again on the far side of the motorway and leaves Manchester for Rochdale at the same point.
Oh how I loved this place my family drunk in here for years and years, I remember waiting outside on a weekend with a packet of crisps and a glass of coke, waiting for them to come out. I think it was the first place I had my first legal drink, loved the place hate to go past now and see it as a Premier. Anyone seen Dave and Ann lately once upon a time landlord and landlady, does anyone know how they are doing?
Sunday afternoons karaoke and everyone sat outside in the summer – oh the memories.
I used to Drink in there around 1975/76, it was OK in those days, a local wrestler used to drink in there, his name was Alan Kilby, I saw him fight on TV a few times.
The former pub’s striking roof is still striking – sadly the last orders bell stopped striking long, long ago.
The shop was busy and the chips from the chippy were just the job on a cold damp November day.
Changes in the demographics of the area, social trends and the general economic malaise, have ensured that many estate pubs are no longer able to thrive and prosper.
Hyde Road was a football stadium in West Gorton, Manchester, England.
It was home to Manchester City FC and their predecessors, from its construction in 1887 until 1923, when the club moved to Maine Road.
Billy Gillespie on the ball.
Before its use as a football ground, the site was an area of waste ground, and in its early days the ground had only rudimentary facilities. The first stand was built in 1888, but the ground had no changing facilities until 1896; players had to change in a nearby public house, the Hyde Road Hotel.
As a Chester’s house, a condition of the club’s official link to the pub was that supporters and club officials and players would sup Chesters ales, and in return Stephen Chesters Thompson of the brewery helped finance stadium improvements.
The move of MCFC to Maine Road in 1923 following a fire at the Hyde Road ground, didn’t adversely affect the Hyde Road Hotel and it continued to serve the West Gorton community and the once-bustling Hyde Road thoroughfare.
As late as the 1980s, renamed the City Gates, it was a popular watering hole before the match for supporters travelling in from East Manchester. It was kitted out in all sorts of MCFC memorabilia and was run by George Heslop, City legend of the 1960s, after he’d had the Royal George in town.
Sadly, as the community around it was decimated, the pub struggled and its last hurrah was as the City Gates theme pub. The business failed in 1989 and the pub sat empty and rotting for twelve years until it was demolished, despite a half-hearted fans campaign to save it. Two keystones from the Hyde Road Hotel reside in the MCFC memorial garden and are all that remain of this significant Manchester pub.
By 1904 the ground had developed into a 40,000-capacity venue, hosting an FA Cup semi-final between Newcastle United and Sheffield Wednesday the following year.
The stands and terraces were arranged in a haphazard manner due to space constraints, and by 1920 the club had outgrown the cramped venue. A decision to seek an alternative venue was hastened in November 1920, when the Main Stand was destroyed by fire. Manchester City moved to the 80,000-capacity Maine Road in 1923, and Hyde Road was demolished shortly afterward. One structure from the ground is still in use in the 21st century, a section of roofing which was sold for use at The Shay, a stadium in Halifax.
Maine Road – which in turn closed on May 11th 2003, City losing 1-0 to Southampton
City are now at home at the Etihad – formerly the Commonwealth Games Stadium.
I had always known the area as the Olympic Freight Depot – seen from the passing train.
I cycled by the other day and the containers are long gone – the site is being cleansed to a depth of two metres.
Loitering by the gates, I asked if I may take some snaps .
Please y’self – so I did.
So what’s next on the cards, for this little corner of local history – set twixt Bennett Street and Hyde Road?
New homes is on the cards – and on the hoardings.
Plans have been revealed for a 337-home development on the Olympic Freight depot in West Gorton.
Brought forward by Sheffield-based Ascena Developments, the planning application to Manchester City Council outlines proposals for 191 houses and 146 apartments, split across two blocks.
Alongside the homes, the development would include a 3,000 sq ft circular community centre and café, shop, and a unit which is earmarked for a chip shop.
Kellen Homes has been granted planning consent to redevelop the thirteen-acre Olympic Freight depot on Bennett Street in Manchester into 272 homes.
The developer, owned by Renaker founder Daren Whitaker, lodged plans for the West Gorton scheme last year following the withdrawal of an earlier and larger scheme drawn up by Sheffield-based Ascena Developments.
More than once, though that’s no reason not to do so again – so I did.
Saying hello to Harold.
Harold saying hello to us:
Nostalgia won’t pay the bills; the world doesn’t owe us a living; and we must harness the scientific revolution to win in the years to come. This scientific revolution is making it physically possible, for the first time in human history, to conquer poverty and disease, to move towards universal literacy, and to achieve for the whole people better living standards than those enjoyed by tiny privileged classes in previous epochs.
He warned change would have to reach every corner of the country; The Britain that is going to be formed in the white heat of this revolution will be no place for the restrictive practices or for outdated methods on either side of industry.
Standing sentinel over one of Nikolaus Pevsner and John Betjeman’s favourite railway station front elevations.
Through a passage darkly.
Emerging into the light of day and the demolition of the Kirklees College 1969-72 by Borough Architect Charles Edmund Aspinall.
My thanks to the Metropolitan team who invited me in beyond the barriers.
We provide safe and efficient demolition services across a broad range of projects, from the small domestic dwelling to large scale industrial units – we offer the complete solution. With excellent communication and impeccable health and safety standards, we can project manage the decommissioning a structure on time and on budget.
Edward VII is under wraps.
Everything else is up for smash and grab – including the later concrete block immortalised by Mandy Payne.
LIDL is coming – and some homes
The final details have now been signed off by the council and work on the six-acre site – which includes the Grade II-listed original Huddersfield Royal Infirmary – can now begin.
The vandal-hit and fire-damaged late 1960s and early 1970s college buildings are to be demolished and Lidl will build a new supermarket with a 127-space car park. The store will eventually replace the store on Castlegate.
The former hospital will be retained and the site will see 229 apartments and an office complex. The apartments are expected to be for older or retired people.
Huddersfield’s £20M game-changing bus station is set to be completed by the end of 2025 with a living grass roof, sixty bike cycle hub, upgraded shops and new facilities
Crossing the road to the Civic Centre and the perennially empty piazza which along with the Magistrates Courts and Police Station was the work of the Borough Architects team – led by Charles Edmund Aspinall.
Walking excitedly toward the Exsilite panels set in the stone faced columns – a brand name for a synthetic, moulded, artificial marble.
Magistrates Courts
Police Station
Dick Taverne served under Harold Wilson’s premiership in the 1960s, he served as a Home Office Minister from 1966 to 1968, Minister of State at the Treasury from 1968 to 1969 and then as Financial Secretary to the Treasury from 1969 to 1970.
In 1970, he helped to launch the Institute for Fiscal Studies, now an influential independent think tank and was the first Director, later chairman.
The vision is to create an inclusive space where families, residents and visitors can enjoy a vibrant mix of music, arts, food and more in one central area, overlooking a stunning new urban park.
The council plans to demolish the Piazza Centre and create a new events/live music venue, a food hall, a museum and art gallery, a new library and a new multi-storey car park, all centred around a new Town Park.
Named after one of the Twentieth Century’s finest artists, the space nurtures a new and inspired generation of designers. Through visual and physical connection, the environment encourages students to work together, stimulating communication and ingenuity, the ingredients of successful collaboration.
Take that to the bank/s
Keep savin’, keep buildin’ That interest for our love Take that to the bank Keep savin’, keep buildin’ That interest for our love Take that to the bank
HSBC was designed by Peter Womersley, who also designed the thoroughly modern private house, Farnley Hey, near Castle Hill, which won the RIBA Bronze Medal in 1958.
Halifax Building Society
Having walked around town for more hours than enough I sought respite in The Sportsman and a glass of Squawk multi-berry fruited sour
Another great looking estate pub that was on the same estate as the Hipp which it was also fairly close to.
There was the usual two rooms inside, I had a drink in the bar room which was quite busy on my Friday afternoon visit, there was also a more comfortable lounge.
The pub was a Robinsons tied house, there were two real ales on, I had a drink of Robinsons Bitter which was a nice drink, there was also Robinsons Mild on.
We are committed to the growth and development of individual, our local and international communities. In the interim may I use this medium to invite you to be part of the move of God in our church, the Pathfinder.
The Lord bless your richly as you navigate through in Jesus name.
On the day of HM Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee I cycled around Ashton under Lyne.
Recording and commenting upon the material changes which had occurred, during her reign of some sixty years. In turn many of these things have in themselves disappeared from view.
Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes.
Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow.
Let reality be reality.
Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.
Lao Tzu
Celebrating the gradual decline in spelling – Gill Scot Heron meets Tameside, everyone’s a winner.
Celebrating the proliferation of California Screen Blocks, hanging baskets and vertical blinds.
Celebrating the Pound Shop a profusion of road markings and pedestrian safety barriers.
Celebrating High Visibilty Workwear and the proliferation of the logotype
Celebrating advances in Information Technology and the decline of the retail sector.
Celebrating advances in fly-posting, street skating, youth culture and musical diversity.
Celebrating the re-use of redundant banks, sun beds, tattooing and t-shirts.
Celebrating advances in charity chop furniture pricing and the proliferation of leather sofas.
Celebrating the proliferation of the shuttered window, babies and home made retail signage.
Celebrating niche marketing in the child-based, haircare market and developments in digitally originated vinyl signage.
Celebrating street art and British popular music and modern cuisine.
Celebrating Punk Rock, wheel clamping and British can-do!
Celebrating the introduction of decimal coinage, raffle tickets, cheap biros, affordable imitation Tupperware, raffles and the Union Flag
Celebrating the huge importance of Association Football, hazard tape, shuttered doors and the ubiquity of the traffic cone.
Celebrating the ever growing popularity of Fancy Dress.
Celebrating pub tiles, the smoking ban, the use of plywood as an acceptable window replacement material and the current confusion regarding Britishness and Englishness.
Celebrating satellite telly, faux Victoriana and the development of the one way traffic system.
Celebrating plastics in the service of the modern citizen.
Celebrating laser-cut vinyl, adhesive lettering, regional cuisine and the imaginative minds of those who name our modern retail outlets.
Celebrating the welcome Americanisation of our youngster’s diet – Slush you couldn’t make it up!
Celebrating the welcome Americanisation of our youngster’s diet – Slush you couldn’t make it up!
Celebrating the return of the £1 pint, here at Oliver’s Bar, formerly The Cavern, a superbly appointed Bass Charrington owned, underground pub.
My thanks to Emma Noonan for kindly appearing in the doorway.
Celebrating our ever widening range of ethnic cuisine and the use of the ingenious A4 laser-written poster montage.
Celebrating the wide variety of vernacular tribute bands – Reet Hot Chilli Peppers?
Celebrating the ever popular art of colouring-in and the wide availability of the felt tip pen.
Back out onto Dorning Street in search of telephone exchanges, three telephone exchanges.
Inter-war
Sixties.
Seventies.
Just around the corner is an expansive GPO Sorting Office of 1959.
Across the way is the Technical College.
The foundations of Wigan & Leigh College date back to 1857, and the current institution was formed in April 1992 through the merger of Wigan College of Technology and Leigh College.
Partly formed from the Thomas Linacre Technical School.
Architects: Howard V Lobb G Grenfell Bains & Hargreaves 1954
Curious decorative brick motif – a floor plan of the building.
My thanks to Mark Watson for his erudition and insight.
Across the road the former Grammar School now an NHS Centre.
Wigan Grammar School was founded in 1597 and closed in 1972 as part of the comprehensive education movement. it became Mesnes High School until 1989, and then the Mesnes Building of Wigan College.
Construction began on the County Playhouse in 1916. However, due to a shortage of materials and labour during World War I, it was not completed until 1919.
Finally opened on 22nd December 1919 with The Peril Within – starring Dorothy Gish.
Onwards to the Wallgate News.
Finally to The George public house.
All ages, all different, all characters all like a bevvy.
Now I’m going east to Dalton Street, home to the Collyhurst cowboy.
Photograph: Dennis Hussey
This is an illusion within an illusion, twice removed.
The Hollywood recreation, recreated on the rough ground of post war Britain.
In 1960 the area was a dense network of streets, industry and homes – demolished during the period of slum clearance.
Escaping the dark, dank Irk Valley onwards and upwards to Rochdale Road.
The Dalton Works Arnac factory survived until 2008
Photograph: Mikey
The tight maze of Burton Street and beyond, reduced to rubble.
Dalton Street was not home to the Dalton Gang, they lived here in Oklahoma
It was home to imaginary gangs, committing imaginary crimes, in an imaginary Manchester, in ITV’s Prime Suspect Five.
Kangol capped criminals doing business outside the Robert Tinker on the corner of the very real Dalton and Almond Streets.
The Robert Tinker was an estate pub in a run down area of Collyhurst. The pub looked pretty grim from the outside, but it was smarter than I expected inside, I had a drink in the lounge which was carpeted and comfortable. This was a Banks’s tied house and there were two real ales on the bar, I had a drink of Banks’s bitter and this was a decent drink, the other beer was Banks’s mild. This pub closed about two years after my visit and looked derelict, it has now been demolished.
Robert Tinker was the owner of the Vauxhall Gardens, a Victorian pleasure venue.
At the openingthere was a special attraction, a giant cucumber which had been grown in the gardens reaching a length of seven feet and eight inches and a large and beautiful balloon was to be liberated at 9pm
Much of the red sandstone used for building in Manchester and the surrounding area, including stone for the Roman fort at Castlefield, St Ann’s Church in the city centre, Manchester Cathedral and the original buildings of Chetham’s Hospital, came from Collyhurst Quarry. Geologists use the term Collyhurst Sandstone for this type of soft red sandstone, which occurs in North West England
Tinker died in 1836 and gradually his gardens were whittled away, the subsoil was sold to iron moulders who cherished its certain properties and before long the trees were chopped down and houses were being built on the former site.
Those houses are in their turn whittled away, replaced in the 1960’s with fashionable tower blocks.
Architects: J Austen Bent 1965
In total five thirteen storey blocks – Humphries, Dalton, Roach, Vauxhall and Moss Brook Courts
Subsequently purchased by Urban Splash and refurbished:
Designed by Union North Architects, the names for the Three Towers were decided in a public competition and the winning names were Emmeline, Christabel and Sylvia – naming the towers after the Pankhurst sisters and their mother.
The remains of the remaining Eastford Square homes tinned up and secured awaiting who knows what.
So let’s take a short walk, see how things stand.
The area now forms the core of the latest municipal Masterplan – Victoria North.
Victoria North is a joint venture programme between Manchester City Council and developer Far East Consortium.
An internationally recognised developer, FEC specialises in residential led mixed-use developments and hotels, along with its casino and car park operations throughout mainland Europe.
The cowboys are now long gone – or are they?
When I was a cowboy out on the Western Plain Well, I made a half a million Working hard on the bridle reins
Come a cow-cow yicky come a cow-cow yicky, Harpurhey
Modern Mooch 