Walking New Islington ……. and thinking about the Northern Quarter and other places

 New Islington is that area bordered by Great Ancoats Street and sandwiched between the Rochdale and Ashton Canals, and it is a place I keep going back to.

New Islington, 2023

To the casual visitor it looks an impressive place dominated by the marina and a mix of residential properties which are constantly being added to.

So much so that there seems to be a permanent workforce in their hard hats and high vis jackets busying themselves, while the locals walk their dogs, take coffee in the bars and watch the regular tour parties soaking up the history of the area.

It drew me in and I have been writing about it ever since, walking the streets of the area back in the mid-19th century and crawling over the lives of those that worked and lived there.*

Before my first trip I did get sniffy about the name, thinking it was one of those made up developers names for an area which for centuries had an older name.

Relic of a warehouse window, 2023

But not so because the name New Islington appears on Johnson’s map of Manchester for 1819 and was later signed off by being given the name of a street which was cut before 1844 and ran from Union Street to Woodward Street.** 

All life flocks to New Islington, 2023

And I did go back and check because of an on going discussion on the Northern Quarter, which is I accept a made up name, coined in the 1990s during the regeneration of the area bounded by Victoria and Piccadilly Railways Stations,  and the streets around Oldham Street.

The discussion if that was what it was began with an anonymous comment that the Northern Quarter didn’t exist, didn’t appear on  maps and furthermore the landlady of the Millstone pub on Thomas Street had never heard of the name.

And despite gentle reference to when the name was adopted, and the fact that it is there on finger posts and literature, my anonymous commentator would have nothing of it and repeated and repeated his denial of the existence of the Northern Quarter.

Looking out from New Islington metro stop, 2023

At which point I heeded the advice of the 18th century radical Tom Paine and judged that further discussion would be like giving medicine to a dead man or continuing to rebut the idea that Elvis is not dead and the World is flat. 

Place names change or evolve.  Some last the course and others disappear like snow in the winter sun.  

Old and new, 2023

Those that survive are often not the product of the City Planner or an enterprising developer but arising out of popular usage.  

So in Chorlton for 30 or so years the junction of Barlow Moor Road and Wilbraham Road has been known as “The Four Banks” as there was indeed a bank on each corner.  While the official name Chorlton Cross never caught on.

It will be interesting to see with the disappearance of three of the 4 banks how long the name will linger on.

And in the same way one corner of “The “Four Banks” had been known as "Kemp’s Corner" because of the presence of Harry Kemp's’ chemist shop with its giant clock, which was the preferred meeting place in a pre-mobile age.

So I await for my anonymous commentator to return with more tales of the Northern Quarter.

And I was not disappointed because anonymous bounded in with a comment on the absence of any reference in the maps to New Islington.

Clearly anonymous didn't read the reference to the name appearing on Johnson's map dated 1819.

So rather than let anonymous claim it is all just fake names, and fake locations  I have now  included a detail showing New Islington.  

Johnson recognises New Islington, 1819

His comments are displayed below and it is worth saying that his assertion that the name is made up by the Town Hall can be checked out from what I said in an earlier story and other articles on the net.  

Leaving me to reflect that I have attempted to give medicine when I said that was daft and challenged Flat Earthers … so to quote the Roman poet Catullus "no more, hard against the wall".

Pictures; walking the Northern Quarter on a March day, 2023, from the collection of Andrew Simpson and detail from Johnson's map of Manchester, 1819, by kind permission of Digital Archives, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

*New Islington, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/New%20Islington

**Never let prejudice get in the way of history ….. walking New Islington, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2022/07/never-let-prejudice-get-in-way-of.html