On Grafton Street, with the vanished hotels and the Bowling Green

Hotels on Grafton Street, 1959

Grafton Street is one of those roads which I guess would be unrecognizable to anyone who grew up in south Manchester in the 1950s and for that matter any time back to the 1880s.

It runs from Oxford Road to Upper Brook Street and during the late 19th and early 20th centuries was one of those long residential streets of tall houses whose residents made their living from clerical and skilled occupations.

The Bowling Green, 2014

And in time more than a few of these properties became those sorts of hotels which you usually encounter close to mainline railway stations and might be described as cheap and cheerful.

Today much of Grafton Street has become steel and glass and is dominated by the hospital and university.

There is little in the architecture of any of the buildings to give a clue to what actually goes on behind that steel and glass and it is not hard to imagine that it would not take much to change their use and purpose.

The Bowling Green in 1970 

Along the whole of its length there are now just two properties which buck the trend.  One of these is the Grafton Arms and the other the Bowling Green, and of these two only the latter can claim a history that dates back further than the 1980s.

Sadly the Bowling Green is no more.  It closed in 2011 and judging by the comments of some of its customers was missed.*

And I have Andy Robertson to thank for the image who yet again has added another building to his growing collection of lost and at risk properties.

In time I think I shall explore both Grafton Street and the Bowling Green in more detail but for the present I just hope Any keeps snapping away.

Pictures; the Waverley, Hartford and Central Hotels, Grafton Street in 1959, H W Beaumont, m19264, Bowling Green Hotel, 1970, A Dawson, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and the Bowling Green today, courtesy of Andy Robertson

* Bowling Green, Grafton Street, Pubs of Manchester, http://pubs-of-manchester.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/bowling-green-grafton-street.html