Andrew Simpson: The drab street ......the museum ...... and ....... the mural

Thursday 13 April 2023

The drab street ......the museum ...... and ....... the mural

There are some parts of the city that even a bright sunlit day in the middle of a perfect summer will always be drab and uninviting.

And so it is with Grosvenor Street which cuts its way across Upper Brook Street to end at Oxford Road.

There is of course the former Grosvenor Picture Palace, along with The Deaf and Dumb Institute Building, that pub with an interesting alternative past, and the former Oddfellows Hall.

As for the rest, the buildings are mix of 19th and 20th century properties, some of which hide themselves under rather ugly signage, and a carpark of sorts.

When Andy took a stroll down, there wasn’t even a ray of bright sunlight, instead on a grey wet day in February the place did little to sell itself.

But there are always things to clock and wonder at, and so it was with the Oddfellows Hall, whose history can be discovered on line at Historic England.*

And also, at the University of Manchester’s site, Manchester 1824, “The ‘Oddie’ history of MECD’s Oddfellows Hall”.**

Now I have no intention of lifting the information from these two sites, so you will have to follow the links, but together they reminded me that once a long time ago the Oddfellows building was the temporary home of the Manchester Museum of Science and Technology, and I remember walking around the machines on a few occasions in the 1970s.

At the time what fascinated me more was the mural outside on the gable wall, which lingered on after the museum moved out in 1983, beginning to fade and peel, until it was finally painted over.