A forgotten bit of the city ….. on a sunny April day

Now I like the way Manchester continues to develop exciting new buildings and rejuvenated areas which offer up a lot in the way of urban living.

That said I remain uncomfortable at the sheer scale of some of the tower blocks which have lost that idea of scale and human proportion as they reach ever higher to scrape the clouds.

But during all these new and shinny enterprises there are the grimy bits of the city waiting for something to happen.

True there are fewer of them than before, and in some cases it is less an area and more a bit of a building.

And that brings me to the corner of Oxford Road and Charles Street and a bit of Oxford Place, which once upon a time was the Imperial Building.

At street level it is occupied by a Costa Coffee, a restaurant which was the Portland Book shop, some assorted small retail outlets and what was once a branch of the HSBC.

In its time the bank was perfectly sited for the BBC Building and a host of businesses along this stretch of Oxford Road.

It still had a feel of the 1950s with its polished wooden doors and counters which harped back to a time before “slick corporate identity” and even longer before internet banking.

It closed a long time ago, and so far has not attracted any new tenants, which has led to its becoming a very sorry looking place.

But with the new development on the site of the old BBC I have every confidence things will change, and these sorry and sad images of it will be banished.

All of which reminded me of that time when people flocked to Mrs. Gaskell’s Baths which during the 1930s into the 50s were the must to place to visit for “Wax Baths, Wax Facials and Beauty Treatments” along with a hairdressing saloon and swimming lessons in its warm pool.

My old friend Sally came across Mrs. Gaskell and wrote an excellent story which first appeared on the blog back in 2014 and which I always return to.*

Leaving me just to include that other interesting place which is Wakefield Street and leads to the Salisbury pub and the steps up to Oxford Road Station.

Location; Oxford Road

Pictures; grimy pictures and a murial, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson 

*Mrs Gaskell's Baths, under the Imperial Buildings on Oxford Road, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2017/09/mrs-gaskells-baths-under-imperial.html