When they stole the name of Little Stable Street

History has not been kind to Little Stable Street.

Looking down Salmon Street, 2023

First it stole its name some time in the 1870s and then relegated it to just a street which goes nowhere, and has had the added indignity heaped upon it of being left with only the backs of properties.

It was cut sometime between 1772 and 1793 and by the 1850s its eastern side was entirely taken up with commercial and industrial properties as was most of its western side.

Little Stables Street, 1850

Just one small stretch of the western side was occupied by some back-to-back houses and a passage way which gave access to a series of closed courts.

All of these were swept away in the 1870s to make way for the new Wholesale Fish Market, and it will have been around then that Little Stable Street became Salmon Street an act of rebranding which ranks as one of the least imaginative examples of town planning.

But long before then it had pretty much been ignored by the street directories who saw no merit in listing any of its occupants.

More recently Google Maps have invested time and a camera in recording the street.  The first visit was back in September 2012 which captured the name of George Makin and Sons Ltd at the far end of the street.

Spice Lounge, 2023

Two years later this had become the rear of Spice Lounge whose front faces out on to Shudehill at no.60. 

I can’t be sure just exactly when the restaurant opened but in the August of 2012 a sign announced its imminent opening replacing a branch of Costcutter.

In time I will go looking for George Makin and Sons Ltd and try to locate the residents of Little Stable Street in the middle decades of the 19th century, leaving me just with the red door and the mystery of what is behind it.

Back in 2012  it was the “New Union DVD and Video Shop” specializing amongst other things in  “Fantasy Adult Gifts”

Behind the red door, 2023

And now it is a red door and a mystery.

Location, Salmon Street, off Thomas Street

Pictures; Salmon Street, 2023, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and Little Stable Street, 1850, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/