This is the Station which was opened in 1879 by Mr. James Edward Smallpage, who was confident that his new beer shop on the corner of Wilmslow Road and North Street would be a success.
He began his business just one year before the new railway station opened in the January of 1880
And by 1881 it was trading as the Station Hotel, which rather cornered the market in railway names, given that his two nearest rivals were the Wellington and the Dog and Partridge.
He might even have adopted the name earlier, but sadly the rate books for the years 1880-81 for Wilmslow Road are missing.
Before his entry into the world of beer, he was variously a cashier, and clerk and later reverted to this occupation, having given up the Station Hotel in 1885.
Thereafter the Station Hotel had a series of owners and managers and in 1911 the man pulling the pints was a William Wrightman who was 45 years old and a widow, who shared the pub with an Annie Elizabeth Robinson who described herself as “housekeeper”.
Now this maybe the same William Wrightman who is listed as a cab driver at 40 Wilmlslow Road, which was just a few doors down the road in the row beside Saints and Scholars and is now the small open piece of land adjoining the library.
The romantic in me has often speculated on the relationship between Mr. Wrightman and Ms. Robinson. Both were from Lincolnshire and she was working as a cook in one of the big houses on Wolseley Place, a decade earlier, so their paths could have crossed many times.
She may even have encountered him in the cab office which stood directly opposite the railway station and the Station Hotel.
But for the rest of this story and the Station's connection with Bob Dylan you will have read our new book on Didsbury's pubs.
Location; Didsbury
Pictures; the Station, 1959, m42646, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass
He began his business just one year before the new railway station opened in the January of 1880
He might even have adopted the name earlier, but sadly the rate books for the years 1880-81 for Wilmslow Road are missing.
Before his entry into the world of beer, he was variously a cashier, and clerk and later reverted to this occupation, having given up the Station Hotel in 1885.
Thereafter the Station Hotel had a series of owners and managers and in 1911 the man pulling the pints was a William Wrightman who was 45 years old and a widow, who shared the pub with an Annie Elizabeth Robinson who described herself as “housekeeper”.
The romantic in me has often speculated on the relationship between Mr. Wrightman and Ms. Robinson. Both were from Lincolnshire and she was working as a cook in one of the big houses on Wolseley Place, a decade earlier, so their paths could have crossed many times.
She may even have encountered him in the cab office which stood directly opposite the railway station and the Station Hotel.
But for the rest of this story and the Station's connection with Bob Dylan you will have read our new book on Didsbury's pubs.
Location; Didsbury
Pictures; the Station, 1959, m42646, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass
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