Now this is Town Hall Lane and looking at it you half expect that it would once have gone somewhere but was long ago doomed to become a dead end by the grand plan of a developer.
But not so as early as the 1790s it led off from Cross Street and finished at the back of a building.
That said in 1793 you could have walked along its length stepping off into a side alley on the northern side and by degree squeezing down a very narrow alley onto Tib Lane.
But by the 19th century our lane just ran beside Town Hall buildings and so hence the name.
Not that any of the maps bothered to record a name, although Goad's Fire Insurance map did refer to it as Town Hall Buildings.
But by then the Town Hall had gone, replaced by the more majestic one in Albert Square.
I have Antony to thank for alerting me to this one. I have to confess that in all of my 40 odd years in the city I had not once given it a thought.
Location; Manchester
Pictures;Town Hall Lane, 2016, from the collection of Andrew Simpson
That said in 1793 you could have walked along its length stepping off into a side alley on the northern side and by degree squeezing down a very narrow alley onto Tib Lane.
But by the 19th century our lane just ran beside Town Hall buildings and so hence the name.
Not that any of the maps bothered to record a name, although Goad's Fire Insurance map did refer to it as Town Hall Buildings.
But by then the Town Hall had gone, replaced by the more majestic one in Albert Square.
I have Antony to thank for alerting me to this one. I have to confess that in all of my 40 odd years in the city I had not once given it a thought.
Location; Manchester
Pictures;Town Hall Lane, 2016, from the collection of Andrew Simpson
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