In Shambles Square

Now the Old Wellington Inn was not somewhere I regularly went to.  

I guess that was because it was hidden away behind all those concrete buildings which went up in the 1970s as part of the Arndale development.

No matter how many umbrellas and tables were put out even on a sunny day sitting outside the pub was like sitting in a yard.  But ironically it was those very buildings that protected it from IRA bomb in 1996 and prompted the redevelopment of the area.

This led to the pub and the adjacent Sinclair’s Oyster Bar being dismantled, and moved 300 metres and rebuilt closer to the Cathedral and creating a  more pleasant open space than the one it had inhabited before.

I have to confess it is still not a pub I often go to, partly because it gets so busy and is still a bit off our beaten track.  But I think it works and Peter's painting does show it off to its best.

It is also somewhere I have written about already, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/market-place-1894.html

Pictures; the Welllington and Sinclairs circa 1976,  from the collection of Rita Bishop by kind permission of David Bishop and the painting of the Welllington Inn and Sinclairs today,  2011, © Peter Topping, web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk  facebook: www.facebook.com/paitningsfrompictures