Saturday, 7 March 2015

Lost Manchester pubs .......... no 2 the Victoria Hotel Rochdale Road

Now I don’t venture up on to Rochdale Road very often but even on the few occasions I have I never clocked this building as a pub.

Well I say pub, I should of course say lost pub because this was the Victoria Hotel and the name I guess will give a clue to its date.

Or so you would think, after all with a name like Victoria it must have been opened sometime between 1837 and 1901, but not so because in 1911 on this site was a pawnbrokers.

And that at present is as far as I can go.

At which point I usually speculate that someone will have drunk in there and have a pretty good idea about its history, but I suspect not.

So in the fullness of time it will be down to Central Ref to wander over the directories for this bit of Rochdale Road looking for the first entry.

On the other hand I might just mark it down as one of our lost pubs.

Of course there is just an outside possibility that Andy who took the modern picture might have drunk in there, after all whenever we discuss the pubs of the area he has invariably been in them, knew someone who did or better still both and it was Andy who located L Kaye’s 1958 photograph.

All of which points to  a man with a keen interest in history.

Who I might add pointed out that despite the Victoria having long ago offered up its last pint, as the Shop it still provides beer for anyone wanting a carry out.

Pictures; the Victoria Hotel, Rochdale Road, 2015 and back in 1958, by L Kaye, m50724, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

2 comments:

  1. My aunt and uncle ran this pub late 70s early 80s it was also called mammas

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  2. My father and his friends who all worked in Smithfield Fruit and Veg market drank in there in the late 60s early 70s, it was known as Mamas

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