One milkmaid ….. 14 telephone boxes …. heaps of pigeons .... and some flower beds ……… Piccadilly Gardens

 Everyone will have their bit of Piccadilly.

Deckchairs, and flower beds in the sun, circa 1955

For most it will be the sunken gardens with the rows of wooden benches, stunning floral beds and of course the pigeons.

To which you could add afternoom musical performances, the lunchtime invasion of office workers and the banks of telephone kiosks which stood guard on three of the fours sides of the Gardens.

Mine is sitting in the Milk Maid looking out onto the bus station with the gardens beyond.

It specialized in milk shakes, along with frothy coffee and sweet things.

The bar was light, spacious and had a figure of a milk maid picked out on the tiled side wall.

A Milk Maid, 1906

I doubt many others will remember the place.

Or so I thought but over the last few days people have messaged me with their own fond memories.  “Pancakes”, “frothy coffee” and “wonderful ice creams”, seem to be uppermost in what many remember, along with calling in after shopping or waiting to get the bus home. 

And for one it was “tomato soup with a swirl of cream followed by a cake” which characterized the place.

We frequented it in the early 1970s, usually after a day at the College of Knowledge on Aytoun Street.  What we had is lost in time, but I guess it would have been during my frothy coffee period.

Piccadilly Gardens, 1963

I do remember the tiled figure of a giant milk maid on one of the walls.

Just when it opened and when it closed I have yet to discover and I still travel in hopes that someone will have a picture.

And that image will form part of the chapter on our next book in the series, "The History of Greater Manchester By Tram” which tells the story of our city region, using the 99 stop along the eight routes of the Metro tram network.*

Books one and two began in the suburbs of south Manchester, rolled into the heart of the city and finished at Exchange Square.  Book three picked up the stories and explored the route from Market Street via Shudehill to Victoria Railway Station.

The next crosses the city out from Piccadilly Gardens to Piccadilly Railway Station, New Islington, and Holt Town finishing at the Etihad Stadium.

And this is  the one I am currently engaged in, which will also feature Piccadilly Radio, the wartime allotments, the YMCA building along with the library, and the grand plans which were floated to use the site after the hospital had been demolished.

Piccadilly, 2024

Not forgetting the bus station, Lewis’s, and the destruction brought by the Manchester Blitz, which in turn left the area full of car parks till the arrival Piccadilly Plaza.

All of which will just be in that first chapter, leaving plenty of history to uncover about the railway station, Ancoats, Holt Town and that area which is now home to a football team but which for a year was where we lived, surrounded by the remains of Bradford Colliery, Clyton Aniline and assorted workshops.

But for today it is the Milk Maid, and another request for memories, pictures and perhaps even a souvenir menu, taken and saved in a cupboard.

Location; Piccadilly

Pictures; Piccadilly on a sunny day in the 1950s, from the cpllection of Suzanne Morehead, The Milk Maid, from a 1906 picture opostcard from Tuck and Son, courtesy of Tuckdb, http://tuckdb.org/about  Piccadilly Gardens from Leisure and Pleasure in the Open Air, Parks Committee, Manchester Corporation 1963, Piccadilly, 2025, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

**A new book on the History Of Greater Manchester By Tram, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/A%20new%20book%20on%20the%20History%20of%20Greater%20Manchester%20by%20Tram