Thursday 26 April 2018

On Blackfriars Street sometime before now

Now there will be a lot of people with fond memories of the Crown on Blackfriars Street.

Blackfriars Street circa 1980
It was a pub I have always been meaning to go in and finally when I had the time and was in the right place I discovered it had closed.

And before anyone points out that it has been closed a long time, I shall just say “I knew that.”

More recently it was Cillians’s specialising in “Nails, Hair and Beauty.”

All of which makes this picture by John Casey a bit of history.

I think John took the photograph sometime in the 1980s and it comes from a collection he has kindly given me permission to use.

Comparing the scene with today I have to say it is an example of how things can only get better.

Blackfriars Street, 2016
The rather ugly modern exterior of the property two doors up has had a makeover which I guess happened when it became The Gentry Grooming Co.

Likewise the two shops in between which sold LPs and wall paper looks a little more elegant as an Interior business but I bet the record shop was fun to visit.

And that is what makes John’s picture so important because we don’t do very recent history well.

A street scene from just twenty or thirty years ago hardly causes a stir and yet some of the most dramatic changes to our urban landscapes have happened very recently.

So I thank John for sharing his collection I will dip into them again and again.

Location; Blackfriars Road, circa 1980s

Picture; Blackfriars Street, circa 1980s from the collection of John Casey

3 comments:

  1. Why do you keep calling it Blackfriars Road, when it's clearly Blackfriars Street & is identified as such on the photos?

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  2. Apologies Salford for confusing a road with a street, all changed, but facebook won't recognise the corrected title. So best read it on the blog first. Ah well, thanks to Sid for telling me. Must update my AtoZ

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  3. I was a regular in The Crown and Robinsons Records next door.

    ReplyDelete