The discovery of the Prince Albert was and remains a big surprise.
It stood on the northern side of Wilmslow Road, facing that modern block of flats located between Millgate and Kingston Road, and seems to have had a short life.
Like many beer shops it may have been a response to a period of unemployment or hardship or was run as a sideline to another business.
In the late 1840s and into the next decade, the Prince Albert was managed by a John Arnold who was a blacksmith and worked the smithy alongside the beer shop.
In the great pecking order of alcoholic establishments, the Prince Albert was pretty low down. Its ratable value in the 1850s, was just £14 compared to the Didsbury Hotel and Old Cock which were both rated at £73.
It will have in all probability been just a room, and the beer may have been dispensed from the kitchen through a hatch.
For those who remember the Collier’s Arms by Hartshead Pike on the Ashton and Oldham border, just such a practice was how the landlady offered up her beer.*
Given its size and location I suspect it will have been frequented by agricultural labourers and passing itinerant traders, for who the Didsbury and Old Cock were too grand.
And, for perhaps a decade it was for those in the know, the first drinking place along the main road from Parrs Wood into the village.
Location; Wilmslow Road
Picture; Prince Albert…. That other Albert, in Albert Square, 2020, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, Didsbury , 1853, from the OS for Lancashire, 1841-53, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/
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| Prince Albert, 2020 |
Like many beer shops it may have been a response to a period of unemployment or hardship or was run as a sideline to another business.
In the late 1840s and into the next decade, the Prince Albert was managed by a John Arnold who was a blacksmith and worked the smithy alongside the beer shop.
In the great pecking order of alcoholic establishments, the Prince Albert was pretty low down. Its ratable value in the 1850s, was just £14 compared to the Didsbury Hotel and Old Cock which were both rated at £73.
It will have in all probability been just a room, and the beer may have been dispensed from the kitchen through a hatch.
For those who remember the Collier’s Arms by Hartshead Pike on the Ashton and Oldham border, just such a practice was how the landlady offered up her beer.*
 |
| Didsbury, 1853 |
And, for perhaps a decade it was for those in the know, the first drinking place along the main road from Parrs Wood into the village.
Location; Wilmslow Road
Picture; Prince Albert…. That other Albert, in Albert Square, 2020, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, Didsbury , 1853, from the OS for Lancashire, 1841-53, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/
*The Colliers Arms, https://ashton-under-lyne.blogspot.com/2008/01/colliers-arms.html
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