The George & Dragon moves down Ardwick Green

Now I am never surprised at how a story takes you off down a research path which ends up somewhere totally different to where you expected.

2021

So it is with the former George and Dragon on Ardwick Green South which is one of those big “Workers Palaces” ..... all glass, brass fittings and of course gallons of beer.

Andy was wandering Ardwick last week and photographed the building, and then helpfully went back and found its mirror image from 1973.

Many of us will remember such pubs, which were full of small rooms and waiter service, allowing for romantic and clandestine meetings, away from prying eyes.

And in the network of surrounding terraced houses this was a major consideration if you wanted your first date to be kept relatively secret from family and friends.

1973

Today the former pub is still faced on one side by Ardwick Green, but those rows of houses which stretched back from the pub have gone, and have been replaced by new apartment blocks, turning Cresswell Street which ran beside the George and Dragon into a short cul-de-sac.

Just what that former Cresswell Street and surrounding area was like can be gleamed from another picture from the Local Image Collection dated 1963.

It offers up a memory of a Manchester which has pretty much vanished, and lives only in scenes from early editions of the TV soap Coronation Street and photographs of the  City and Salford pre clearance days.

1963

This was pretty much what I expected, but not the mystery that the pub had moved.

Looking back into the archives in the mid 19th century it was located a little further down Cresswell Street, and according to that excellent source for pub history,  “was a low, white-washed hostel standing well back from the road and built in 1758 it stood for 113 years before being demolished in 1871”. *

And that was confirmed by a search of the directories and rate books.  In 1851 the tenant was a John Dawson and the establishment was listed as a “Public House and Brewery”, with a rateable value of £63 which was on a parr with the surrounding buildings.

But it would appear the place didn’t command a high reputation because in the early 1870s there were objections to its replacement with a new establishment.*

1849

All of which means we are just at the beginning of the story, which I suspect will take the search for more on John Dawson, and then  to track the history of the old pub using the rate books back from its demolition in 1871, to its opening in 1758.

Along the way that will offer up the names of other publicans, and more stories. 

One of which I am sure will be the reconcilation of the puzzel over the size of the pub.

In 1911 it was occupied by Joseph Roffo, his wife Annie, and his brother and two servants , by according to the cenus recorded that the pub consisted of just five rooms which belies its size.

As for the end of the George and Dragon I will just point you to the link back to Pubs of Manchester, because as I always argue  other people’s research should always be read in the original.

Location; Ardwick Green

Pictures; the former George and Dragon, 2021, from the collection of Andy Robertson, and the George and Dragon, 1973, m49653, and in 1963, m49650, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and the former site of the pub in 1849, from the OS map of Manchester and Salford, 1844-49, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, https://digitalarchives.co.uk/

*Pubs of Manchester, http://pubs-of-manchester.blogspot.com/search?q=george+and+dragon