Lost on Thomas Street with the ghosts

Now I don’t pretend this is the best picture of a window, but gaze on it with interest, because soon it will be gone and with it the history, stories and ghosts of all the people who have lived and worked here back into the early decades of the 19th century.

We are on Thomas Street between John Street and Kelvin Street in a row of properties of which only the popular Al-Faisel still trades.

But soon they will move out for another site on Thomas Street, because the remaining buildings are unsafe.

A recent City Council survey showed that numbers 56 down to Kelvin Street were damaged in recent storms and some interior walls were bowed.

Not that this should surprise anyone given that for over a decade and maybe more, they have been unoccupied, with the their fading shop signs announcing that one business had been “Established in 1861”, another had traded “Cash and Carry” and the last carried the sign "Wearhouse" hinting at its final activity.

Occasionally the fronts are hijacked by posters advertising events in the Northern Quarter, or for businesses which are thriving.

Go back to 1911 and Al-Faisel’s was Lord’s Restaurant with the remaining strip occupied by Tap & Co “ticket writers”, Mr William Freeman, hairdresser and George Clegg, stationers.

Sixty years earlier and they were home to a baker, glass merchant, a blacksmith and an umbrella manufacturer, and with a bit of further research we should be able to push back to the date they were built.

This will involve a trawl of the maps, census returns and rate books which will fasten that date and give us a comprehensive record of those who worked in this block and called it home for two centuries.

But for now I will finish with Peter’s painting of Al-Faisel, made in 2014, which will soon, like that window become a piece of our history.

Well I had but then I came across Steven Marland's excellent blog on the Al-Faisal and the history of Thomas Street which added more than a few puzzels I had been too lazy to go looking for.*

And so I commend Al Faisal – Thomas Street Manchester from Mooch.*

*Al Faisal – Thomas Street Manchester from Mooch, https://modernmooch.com/2018/10/03/al-faisal-thomas-street-manchester/


Location; Thomas Street, the Northern Quarter

Picture; 56 7 58 Thomas Street, 2018, and 2014 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Painting;  Al-Faisel ©2014 Peter Topping Paintings from Pictures
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