Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester nu 30 ............... Butter Lane, Pork Lane & New Shambles

Butter Lane, 2016

Now you won’t find New Shambles or Pork Lane, they disappeared along with the meat markets which ran from Deansgate back to Butter Lane during the 19th century.

They were the Bridge Street Market which fronted Deansgate down to New Shambles and then the delightfully named, Pork and Carcase Market which stretched from New Shambles to Butter Lane.

And even before the markets vanished Pork Lane had became Pork Street.

But with redevelopment the street vanished for ever under a series of buildings and befitting the areas new character New Shambles became a continuation of Southgate.

Those with an eye for geography will be quick to spot that these are two very different streets, and don’t even align. The original part of Southgate is wider and even today a tad more up market boasting as it does the back of the House of Fraser.

New Shambles & Butter Lane, 1849

Still, Butter Lane  has survived and offers up a Korean restaurant at one end and a  curry house at the other.

But he real fascination for me of plunging down Butter Lane is that it comes out on to Back Bridge Street which is even narrower and by degree leads up to the Wagon and Horses on the corner of Southgate and opens up on to Motor Street Square which technically is not a square and as far as I know has no official name.

New Bridge Street, 2016

Once this was just a collection of properties bounded by Albert Place to the east, Back Bridge Street to the south and Albert Street and Lower King Street to the north and dominated by the Manchester Gas Works.

All of which might make those of a sensitive disposition in 1849 order up a shed load of perfume, or just move.

Of course none of any of that remains, although we do still have a few items of furniture from when that Korean restaurant was an antique market but that would take me back to 1972, and anyway is another story.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; Butter Lane, and Back Bridge Street, 2016 from the collection of Andrew Simpson and the Shambles in 1849 from the OS for Manchester & Salford, 1849, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/