Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester nu 27 ............ Royal Exchange arcade

Now I doubt that anyone using the arcade as a short cut from St Ann’s Square would agree that its either lost of forgotten, nor for that matter the shop keepers.

But for any one of my generation the arcade was always one of those ways you got to the underground shopping precinct which offered up a fascinating range of out lets, from a coffee emporium to the small but magic shop selling old model railway locomotives, and carriages.

And of course before that it was Boots the Chemist which you entered at street level and descended to the floors below.

I can’t remember when Boots gave way to the shopping precinct or for that matter when the precinct closed, although I know it in the case of the precinct it seemed a death by a thousand closures with businesses shutting down and nothing replacing them.

Since then I get a feeling that something is about to happen but never does.

So it's less a forgotten street and more a lost precinct.

Location; St Ann’s Square

Picture; Royal Exchange arcade, 2016, from the collection of Andrew Simpson