Tuesday 12 January 2021

Down on Rochdale Road ……. with the Embassy Club

This is Peter Topping’s painting of the Embassy Club on Rochdale Road.


For many it will of course be one of the venues across the City where you could still watch live entertainment.

But for me who collects Temperance  Billiard Halls, this is another one for the collection.

The Temperance Billiard Halls were an important aspect of the Temperance Movement and  many in the were built by The Temperance Billiard Hall Co Ltd, which had been founded in 1906 and was based at 3 Ford Lane in Pendleton.

In 1911 the temperance empire, included sites on Moss Lane East, Stockport Road, Ashton Old Road, Bury New Road, Broad Street, Eccles New Road, Liverpool Road, Station Road, Altrincham, Cross Street Sale, Manchester Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Wilmlsow Road, Rusholme, Hyde Road in Gorton, Stretford Road, Old Trafford, Cheetham Hill Road, as well as this one on Rochdale Road.

I can’t as yet be sure when it was built, but it will be sometime between 1903 and 1909.  Nor can I be quite sure when it closed, but I do know that in 1958 it became Bernard Manning’s Embassy Club.

And along with places like the Golden Garter in Wythenshawe, the Princess Club and the Mersey Hotel, it was a place to enjoy live entertainment at a time when many people were opting to stay at home in front of the television.

In the case of the Embassy Club the big attraction was Mr. Manning himself, and here there is a great divide between those that found him funny and those that thought much of his act was at best questionable and at worst offensive.

Personally, I didn’t find him funny, but then nor did I like most of the “alternative comedy” which in the 1980s came to dominate both television and a lot of the cubs.

All of which I suspect flows from the fact that I was brought up with the Goons, ITMA, and the Glums, and pretty much stopped laughing after Beyond the Fringe and That Was The Week that Was.

Location; Harpurhey

Painting; The Embassy Club © 2012 Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures. www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk


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