Down behind Piccadilly Station waiting for the Northern Hub ....... part 3 stories of of pubs and lost roads

The Star and Garter on Fairfield Street is one of those pubs that most people know even if they have never stepped inside.

The Star & Garter, 2014

Andy Robertson recorded it recently in a new set of photographs.*

It has been a listed building since June 1980 and a popular venue for music.

One source suggests that there was a Star and Garter as early as 1808 just about a hundred yards further along Fairfield Street and “moved brick by brick to its current location in 1877.”**

This earlier site was where today there is a little island on the corner of Baring Street and Travis Street.

The Star & Garter, 1844

The 1842 OS shows it as a substantial building bearing the name of the Star and Garter.

That said there are no references to it in the street directories for the 19th century and as late as 1877 there was only a beer shop close to the present pub continues run by George Clark.

And Mr Clark I found in the rate books for that year renting the property at number 14 Fairfield Street from a Mr Gibson who owned the adjoining two properties and charged an annual rent of £28.

The pub on the corner of Neild Street, 2014

Now I have been drawn into the history of the place, and will have to go off and look at the licensing records in the archives, especially as that date of 1877 is intriguing.

The following year there is no reference to either men on Fairfield Street so just possibly the beer shop closed when the Star and Garter was erected late in 1877.

Six years earlier number 14 had been home to Thomas Shawcross who gave his occupation as a shopkeeper.

Neild Street and Station Street, 1844

For now I shall have to await that research but as you do I wandered off down behind the pub along Neild Street which in its little way presents another small point of interest.

Today it runs for a short distance beside the old railway buildings before petering out in a dead end.

Back when the Star and Garter opened for business in 1877 it took a different route running directly south and is now buried underneath Mayfield Station.

That stretch that now comes to a dead end was before 1910 Station Street and it too came to an abrupt halt in front of the Boiler House and filtering ponds of the Mayfield Printing Works.

Now this may not be the most riveting of stories but it was one that took time in the making.

The site of number 14 Fairfield Street with Neild Street behind, 2014

I had just thought of showing Andy Robertson’s pictures of the pub which his son had suggested he should record as they were by Piccadilly Station.

As Andy said the area will soon be redeveloped with work on the Northern Hub and that of course led to looking up the story of the Star and Garter, and in turn exploring the directories, rate book and census returns along with maps of the area.

All of which revealed that this little bit of the city sandwiched between the two stations has undergone more change than most of us may have known.

Pictures; of the Star and Garter, 2014 from the collection of Andy Robertson and maps of the area from the 1842-44 OS for Manchester & Salford, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

*Down behind Piccadilly Station waiting for the Northern Hub ....... part 1 pubs, warehouses and rivers, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/down-behind-piccadilly-station-waiting.html

**The Star & Garter, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Star_and_Garter