That iconic Hulme pub ……. The Junction

 It began as a picture.

Faded glory, 2023

And for anyone who knows Hulme, it is that iconic building which is the Junction Hotel.

Today it is a sad looking place on the corner of Rolls Crescent and Old Birley Street.

But for those who remember the area before Hulme’s first redevelopment in the 1970s, the location was 141 Warde Street at the point where it joined Upper Jackson Street and Preston Street.

I can track it back to 1885 when the licensee was a  Jane Grange using the directories and may get an earlier date by visiting the licensing records.  As it is the Manchester Guardian carried reports of various properties in Warde Street being granted a license in 1880 and 1881.

So lots more still to do.

In happier times, possibly 1924

I do know that from 1895 till 1901 it was run by an Edwin Grange, who I am guessing was related to Jane Grange.  A decade later it was in the hands of a Mr. and Mrs. Mager who may have had family links with the Grange family.

Looking at all the records this was a big pub.  The Rate Books record that it had an estimated annual rental value of £300 and paid £250 in rates.

According to the 1911 census the building had 13 rooms and along with Walter and Florence Mager there were five living in staff, four of whom were barmaids and the fifth who was the cook.  

Ten years earlier the number of staff was ten and included a young Walter and Florence who were described as “Hotel Managers” under the direction of Edwin Grange.

The pub must have remained popular as in 1921 along with the licensee and his wife the business employed six staff.

I must confess I never went in, but plenty of my friends and colleagues did, with Ann Portus reflecting that she had “great memories"  of nights in the place.

Waiting for something to happen, 2023

It closed in 2016, although What pub still has a listing for it, with the entry that it is “Owned by Hydes brewery, this is the last traditional pub in an area that used to be a bustling hive of activity with a pub on every corner. 

Now the Junction's distinctive triangular shape stands isolated in an undeveloped area surrounded by a mixture of new build developments and historic buildings like the old Hulme Picturedrome which stands just across the way. 

Rumour has it there was once an underground tunnel between the two so that performers staying at The Junction (there was once accommodation on the long ago removed third floor) could get direct access to the theatre.

Entering via the small lobby at the point of the triangle, there is a short bar directly opposite you. The back room to the left of the bar has a pool table while a door on the left hand side leads to a fenced off paved beer garden”.*

Alas no more and despite a report in the Manchester Evening News in 2020 that “Historic pub set to be 'revitalised' into huge space boasting flats, events room and a ‘natural oasis in the heart of the city', as yet the grand plan hasn’t materilaised."**

Indeed the only planning application was for the “Erection of a canopy at rear of Public House including elevational alterations and erection of a 2 metre high mesh security fencing", but it was rejected***

A grand place, 1924

And that at present is that.

Other than to recommend that excellent book by Bob Potts, “The Old Pubs of Hulme and Chorlton on Medlock."*****

Location; Hulme

Pictures; Faded glory and waiting for something to happen, 2023 from the collection of Andrew Simpson, In Happier times courtesy of Tony Flynn, and A grand place, courtesy of Bob Potts

*What ?ub, https://whatpub.com/pubs/TRA/3787/junction-hulme

**Historic pub set to be 'revitalised' into huge space boasting flats, events room and a ‘natural oasis in the heart of the city', Adam Maidmen, March 12th, 2023, https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/hulme-junction-development-community-space-17909968

***Manchester City Council Planning Portal, Erection of a canopy at rear of Public House including elevational alterations and erection of a 2 metre high mesh security fencing, 083702/FO/2007/S1, https://pa.manchester.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=documents&keyVal=JKCE9XBC30000

***** Bob Potts, “The Old Pubs of Hulme and Chorlton on Medlock, 1997, and his earlier version “The Old Pubs of Hulme, Manchester, 1983, Neil Richardson

Back with Mr Pooley’s fine Buildings, just short of their 200th birthday

Now I am back with Pooley’s Buildings, which sit on Princess Street, off Chester Road.*

They date from 1820 and still have an elegance about them which is nothing to how they would have appeared when new.

And Andy Robertson ventured back  to photograph the rear of the building and in doing so captured something of just how grand they were and indeed still are.

In the 1820s the houses looked out on a large open area boarded by trees, and were set in two large gardens which ran down to the Corn Brook with Corn Brook Park situated directly behind.

This is the fourth of the stories on the properties, which have wandered over Mr Pooley’s business interests, including his portfolio of properties, his factories and his bankruptcy and looked at the history of the property which at one stage belonged to the army and is now back in residential use.

The romantic in me would love to think that at one stage he walked the gardens, but I am realistic to know they may have looked very different.

In fact the OS map for the 1850s shows that they had lots of trees, with decorative borders and other features.

And that just leaves me with the water pump, which may date from Mr Pooley’s time or was added later.

Location; Hulme













Pictures; Pooley's Buildings, 2018, from the collection of Andy Robertson


 *Pooley's Buildings, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Pooley%27s%20Buildings

Hulme shapes ……..

There will be many who do not know the old Hulmes.

And I say the old Hulmes, because over thirty years ago Hulme was the place of the deck access properties with their idea of homes between the stars, all of which went horribly wrong.

Before that Hulme, there were the densely packed streets of terraced housing mostly built in the 19th century, which had obliterated a rural area which could boast on old manor house, at least one farm and what some accounts describe as a pleasant place to stroll.

But the Duke’s Canal cut in the 1760s into the heart of the city, offered opportunities for  entrepreneurs looking to use the waterway as a means of transporting raw materials and manufactured goods from textile mills, dye works, saw works, and timber yards.

So that by the late 1840s,the area south of Chester Road was already full of industrial and residential properties, stretching from Cornbrook across to Chorlton-on-Medlock and out, down to the more upmarket villas with their large gardens.

And with the redevelopment of the area during the 1990s Hulme has in the words of one source becoming a “popular and desirable” place to live”.*

Location; Hulme

Pictures Hulme shapes, 2020, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Hulme, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulme

Rural Hulme ……..

We all have our own vision of Hulme in Manchester.

For many it will be of those rows of terraced houses many of which were already getting on a bit when Queen Victoria celebrated her jubilee in 1887.

Or the blocks of deck access properties which replaced them in the 1970s, only to be torn down again for a new development two decades later.

But walk a little off Old Birley Street just past George Parr Road and there is a little haven of wilderness which gives out on to the lawns of the Brooks Building.

It may not seem much to anyone who lives in the countryside, but it is still a space of wild unkempt bushes and trees.

And long may it remain so.

Location; Hulme

Pictures; Rural Hulme and the Brooks Building, Bonsall Street, 2023, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

No more the Church Inn ........... on Cambridge Street

Farewell the Church Inn

Happier Times, 2015

You were a pub I never visited, 

But friends spoke highly of you

And of that long tradition of dispensing beer

Which stretched back to 1852.

My sources  tell me that  long before you sold beer and cheer*

You were one or two residential dwellings, 

And had celebrated your fifteenth birthday

Before the old Queen came to the throne in 1837.

And now you have gone …… closed in 2016, and demolished in 2021

In your place will rise “62 units and associated landscape

2015

And highway works”**

It wasn’t easy I understand

And the proposed plans were turned down twice, before final acceptance.

No more will shouts of last orders drift across Cambridge Street

And in their place will be heard the sounds of earnest and not so earnest students

Unhappy times, 2019

My old friend Andy recorded you in happier times, 

And may even have ordered up a pint of J W Lees

But his last visit was to view a hole in the ground

A sad end to the Church Inn

Location; Hulme

Pictures; The Church Inn, 2015-2019, from the collection of Andy Robertson 

Hole in the ground, 2021

*The Church Inn Hulme, Manchester, Heritage Appraisal, Stephen Levrant,  Stephen Levrant Heritage Architecture Ltd, https://www.heritagearchitecture.co.uk/

**Planning application 125654/FO/2019 | Erection of a nine-storey purpose built student accommodation building comprising 62 units and associated landscape and highway works, following demolition of existing structures | Former Church Inn 84 Cambridge Street Manchester M15 6BP, Manchester City Council Planning Portal, https://pa.manchester.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=documents&keyVal=Q23IPBBC03O00

Wilmott Street …… just waiting for something to happen

Walk along Wilmott Street today and you know it is waiting for something to happen.

Walking the street, 2021

The stretch from the old gas works down to the Mancunian Way is pretty much just open space on either side.

But great chunks of it are already blocked off with builder’s boards offering up artists impressions of the new developments which will arise from the waste ground.

And when these have finally come to be I suspect Wilmott Street will once again reach a density of living which it did back in 1849, when it and the streets off were full of back to back properties, some of which were situated in closed courts.

From car parks to high rise, 2021

So, for those living in Jones’s Court, access was off Wilmott Street by a narrow passage which ran along side a coal yard, while to reach Pomona Square, you had to make your way along an even narrower path.

It could hardly be described “as a place with a view”, added to which there was the  noise and smells during the day from the gas works, and the nearby textile mills.

Fifty or so years later, while the closed courts had vanished, we could add a rubber works and foundry to the industrial landscape, making it no less a desirable place to pass your days.

1913

But by the middle of the last century much of the housing had gone, either by council clearance programmes or German bombs.  

I suspect it was the Council, given that the rubber factory and assorted engineering metal and prints works were still there.

That said some at least of the housing appear to have gone before the Great War.

Later I will pick a section of the street and trawl the census returns and rate books to bring out of the shadows some of the people who lived and worked here.

The future, 2021

But for now I will leave you with Andy’s pictures, taken on a day when he slid out of the cultural hub of First Street and wandered down on to Wilmott Street, to ponder on how already the street is dominated by those new developments.

Location; Wilmott Street

Pictures; urban wasteland with the promise to come, Wilmott Street, 2021, from the collection of Andy Robertson, and George Street, Wilmott Street, Irving Street and Newcastle Street, 1913, J Jackson, m26069, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Plants…….christmas trees and a cat …… Hulme Community Garden Centre……..

 I have to confess that I have no idea when Hulme Community Garden Centre was set up, but someone will and get back to me.*

Added to this confession, is the even more shocking one, that despite passing it for decades on the bus, this weekend was the first time we have visited the place.

And at 11 am on a Saturday the place was quite full, mainly with people buying Christmas trees, which left us the odd ones out, because we were on the look out for flowerpots and some house plants.

Perhaps not the obvious choice of things to buy from a garden centre in the run up to Christmas, but then this year we will be doing the whole festive season very differently.

Like so many places, the centre has had to cope with the virus, and of course December limits what there was to see.

That said we enjoyed the trip, and came away with some interesting plants, leaving me just to reflect on the cat which sat on an orange armchair, totally oblivious to the procession of people, and the cleverly designed little landscaped spots dotted across the 2 acres.

I could say more, but instead will close with a description of the centre taken from their won site.“Hulme Community Garden Centre offers a unique and inspirational space within an urban area, providing great opportunities for learning. 

Our education team have the experience and skillset to deliver a flexible learning approach which meets the requirements of the current curriculum. 

Our aim is to take the pressure off you by providing a community based green space which allows children of any age to engage with and develop an awareness of the environment around them.

On our extensive 2 acre site includes a variety of spaces for learning -  and unique spaces to be motivated and inspired by, strawbale built classroom with a  green roof, garden polytunnel housing impressive banana plants, community gardens to explore with secluded seating, wildlife pond and  raised bed pathways,  small woodland  walk and  outdoor cooking areas  including clay pizza oven”.  *

Location; Hulme

Pictures, a cat, an interesting seating area, and a Christmas Tree, 2020, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Hulme Garden Centre; https://hulmegardencentre.org.uk/

Walks across Pomona ….. no. 2 wild flowers by the underpass

Now when Andy set off with his daughter to walk across Pomona he took some fine pictures.

So …. this is the new series ….. short on words ….. just letting the photograph say it all.*

Leaving you to do the rest.

Location; wildflowers near roundabout/underpass Hulme, 2020, from the collection of Andy Robertson

*Walks across Pomona, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2020/12/walks-across-pomona-no-1-looking-into.html

Back on Hulme Hall Road ............... five years on

Now, it has been five years since Andy wandered down Hulme Hall Road, and began recording the sad fate of the warehouse which had been damaged by fire, and was eventually demolished.

And Andy being Andy, then began regularly revisiting the site, photographing first the demolition, then the moment the builders broke ground on the new development, and the slow rise of the new building.

Yesterday he was back on what might be one of his last visits.  The building seems complete and with a nod to the history of the site the developers have included a little bit of its history a on a plaque.

But not content with taking pictures of the property Andy also took a few of the Duke’s Canal which I rather liked.

Location; Hulme Hall Road







Pictures; Hulme Hall Excelsior Works, 2020, from the collection of Andy Robertson

Up the Junction with those brooding Owen Street Towers

Now yesterday Andy took himself off to photograph the Grand Junction which has always caught my interest but a pub I never visited.

Those two towers

There was no reason for my failure to call in other than that I lived in Chorlton and never quite got round to breaking my journey and getting off the bus that was taking me to town.

Recently I decided I should give the place a go only to find it had closed.

But more on the Junction later, for now it’s those two tower blocks on Owen Street that have got into the story.

2015

After all you can’t miss them, and even more than the Beetham Tower they seem to be the buildings you can see from so many different parts of south Manchester.

All of which is how they got here, but now that is dealt with, on to the Grand Junction which my copy of The Old Pubs of Hulme Manchester, informs me was first licensed in 1846, although it was intended as a pub the year before.*

In 1969 it lost its third floor and is now closed.

2018

Location; Hulme




Pictures; the Grand Junction 2015 and 2018, and those towers, 2018 from the collection of Andy Robertson

* Potts Bob, The Old Pubs of Hulme Manchester, 1983

Pictures that capture the moment........

A short series from the camera of Andrew Robertson, which record the surge of new developments across the city.

Of course similar projects are altering the skyline of cities from Salford,  Leeds, and Cardiff, along with Glasgow and Belfast, but this is one from our city.

Location; Manchester

Picture; the Excelsior development, down by the Duke’s Canal, 2018 from the collection of Andy Robertson

City Road School ........... the one I knew nothing about.

Now, I only attended three schools and then worked at one other during forty-five five years and in all that time just one changed its name.

So I am always fascinated by schools that have had multiple name changes and have adapted to different educational needs.

And one of these was City Road School in Hulme.

It “opened on August 15, 1910 with boys from the recently closed St. Stephen's School, Hulme, Lloyd Street Infants Department and St. Mark's School, Hulme. 
Girls were transferred from Duke Street School. 

The Infants Department closed for admissions and the school became City Road Senior School on August 26th 1935. 

From the 1920s until the 1950s there were two Handicraft Centres on the site. 

The school was renamed North Hulme Secondary School 23rd July 1953. 

On December 19th 1962 the girls were transferred to South Hulme Secondary School for Girls and on January 7th 1963, the school re-opened as North Hulme Secondary School for Boys, also taking boys from South Hulme Secondary School. It closed July 20 1967 and all the boys were transferred to the new South Hulme High School”.*

I know that back in 1911Mr H Salt was the master, Miss E Fairbrother, the mistress, and Miss M Thornton was the infant’s mistress.

And that is as they say all I do know.

Andy, who took the picture, commented "that as a school building it is nothing special apart from the fact it is in Hulme. It is now flats and I am not sure what it was called. 

It was on the corner of City Road, and Bradshaw Street and once our two friends get their caps they might well pay a visit”.

Now that is a challenge I can’t resist and I have to disagree with his about the building.  I have always thought there was something very special about the municipal schools and the Board schools that predated them.
They were built, and have stood the test of time, being warm in winter and cool in summer.

Location; Hulme

Pictures; City School, 2018, from the collection of Andy Robertson

*Manchester Schools, Manchester Central Library

More fascinating pictures of the lost Leaf Street Baths.

Just when you think that is the end of a story up pops something new.

And just about an hour ago Andy Robertson sent over some fine pictures of the site.

With his usual modesty he made little comment, but they reveal so much of the old baths and make me want to go down there and explore the site.

But Andy has done an excellent job so here are some of what was lost under back fill and is now again open to the sunlight.

The baths had been in by 1860 the Manchester & Salford Baths and Laundries Company which  had been formed in 1855, and built baths in Salford, Mayfield at Ardwick and Victoria Park.*

Its assets were bought by Manchester Corporation in 1877.

The company had added a Turkish bath in 1860 which was the first in a public baths in Manchester.

The Leaf Street Baths were demolished in the clearances of the 1970s and today the site is open ground.

When I first posted the story I pondered on who remembered them and the response has been impressive.

There are those who wrote to me describing their first swimming lessons and those who still have their certificate proudly proclaiming their achievement at swimming a length, and memories from Tom who supervised children from nearby Royce School when they attended in the early 1970s.

Nor were the baths just a place for recreation, most also had a washhouse and facilities for families and individuals to take a bath, and in the case of Leaf Street it's own Turkish Baths.**

Location; Leaf Street, Hulme










Pictures; remains of Leaf Street Baths, 2016, from  the collection of Andy Robertson

*Leaf Street Swimming Baths, the first of a set of stories,http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/leaf-street-swimming-baths-first-of-set.html

**Manchester and Salford's Public Baths, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Manchester%20and%20Salford%27s%20Public%20Baths

Leaf Street Baths in Hulme .............what was lost has been found ............ if just for a short time

Open to the sunlight again .............. the pool, 2016

I am always fascinated when a bit of our collective history is found.

In this case it is the pool of the Leaf Street Baths in Hulme which vanished during the clearance programmes of the 1970s.

It is place I have written about before *and features in the series on our Public Baths.**

To be honest my path to Leaf Street Baths had been via the old workhouse which had been established by the Chorlton Union in the 1830s and which within two decades had been replaced by the bigger and more impressive workhouse in Withington.

Leaf Street Baths, 1920

So in the course of the research I came across  the Manchester & Salford Baths and Laundries Company which opened Leaf Street in 1860.

This  was their third public bath house since the company had been formed in 1855, and it built baths in Salford, Mayfield at Ardwick and Victoria Park.  Its assets were bought by Manchester Corporation in 1877.  The company had added a Turkish bath in 1860 which was the first in a public baths in Manchester.

The Leaf Street Baths were demolished in the clearances of the 1970s and today the site is open ground.

Tiles unseen for nearly half a century

Well it is open ground but not for long because there are plans to build here and that takes me to these two pictures of the uncovered baths which were taken by Ian Wilson.

I had no idea that just below the surface bits of those baths were still there or that they would be uncovered.
When Ian posted the pictures on facebook they brought forth quite a few memories from people who had learned to swim there and I suppose for them as much as for me seeing the pool open to the sunlight again is quite wonderful.

Entrance, 1920

All of which just leaves me to suggest you take a visit down there before they vanish again.***

Location; Leaf Street, Hulme





Pictures; Leaf Street Baths, 2016, from the collection of Ian Wilson, and Leaf Street Public Baths, 1920, m57327 and entrance m57328, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*Leaf Street Swimming Baths, the first of a set of stories, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/leaf-street-swimming-baths-first-of-set.html

**Manchester and Salford's Public Baths, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Manchester%20and%20Salford%27s%20Public%20Baths 

***170 new homes expected to be built in Hulme, Bell, Alex MEN, August 3 2015, http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/business/170-new-homes-expected-built-9780001

St Mary's in Hulme

Now I know St Mary’s in Hulme, not that I ever went inside, but passed it countless times on the bus.

That said here is a view of the church I am less familiar with and one that I rather like.
Andy tells me it was taken just before a trip to the local supermarket.

It was opened in 1858 and closed in 1981 and has the tallest spire in Manchester.

Picture; St Mary’s Hulme, from the collection of Andy Robertson

Another of those Hulme pubs ............ the Junction

Now I guess if you have ever lived in Hulme, or worked there or even just passed through on the bus you will know the Junction.

During the last  four and bit decades it has undergone different paint jobs and faced uncertain times, first as the traditional housing was swept away and then again as the Decks were demolished but has come through.

But I have to own up to never having been in.

There was no particular reason for that and looking back I wish I had.

That said there will be plenty who did and I rather hope some of their memories and stories can be shared with those of us who never did.

Andy tells me that once upon a time there was another floor and as gone off looking in the digital archive to find a picture.

I am guessing it may have been lopped of earlier last century.

Of course there may well be someone out there who has just such a picture or failing that one from when the colour scheme was brown.

But until then I shall leave you with these two and wonder where Andy will go with his camera next.

Pictures; the Junction 2015 from the collection of Andy Robertson