The Prince Albert …….. one of the lost Didsbury pubs

The discovery of the Prince Albert was and remains a big surprise.  

Prince Albert, 2020

It stood on the northern side of Wilmslow Road, facing that modern block of flats located between Millgate and Kingston Road, and seems to have had a short life.

Like many beer shops it may have been a response to a period of unemployment or hardship or was run as a sideline to another business.

In the late 1840s and into the next decade, the Prince Albert was managed by a John Arnold who was a blacksmith and worked the smithy alongside the beer shop.

In the great pecking order of alcoholic establishments, the Prince Albert was pretty low down.  Its ratable value in the 1850s, was just £14 compared to the Didsbury Hotel and Old Cock which were both rated at £73.

It will have in all probability been just a room, and the beer may have been dispensed from the kitchen through a hatch.

For those who remember the Collier’s Arms by Hartshead Pike on the Ashton and Oldham border, just such a practice was how the landlady offered up her beer.*

Didsbury, 1853

Given its size and location I suspect it will have been frequented by agricultural labourers and passing itinerant traders, for who the Didsbury and Old Cock were too grand.

And, for perhaps a decade it was for those in the know, the first drinking place along the main road from Parrs Wood into the village.

Location; Wilmslow Road

Picture; Prince Albert…. That other Albert, in Albert Square, 2020, from the collection of Andrew Simpson,  Didsbury , 1853, from the OS for Lancashire, 1841-53, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

*The Colliers Arms, https://ashton-under-lyne.blogspot.com/2008/01/colliers-arms.html

The Fletcher Moss ……… once the Albert and once a railway pub

The beer house which became the Albert and then the Fletcher Moss and had been owned by a railway company.

The Albert, 1970

The Fletcher Moss was not always thus named, and many will remember it as the Albert when it was a more modest pub, still divided into small intimate rooms.

It appears to date from 1869, when a William Armett who had a number of properties on William Street took a chance on the 59 years old Joshia Bethell to run a new beer shop in one of his houses.

And that was the start of the Albert Inn which took its name from the nearby street, and later became the Fletcher Moss, as a reminder of that interesting character who gifted his home as a museum to the people of Didsbury.

But there has been much written on Fletcher Moss, and so instead I shall stick with Joshia Bethell who was born in 1811 when Didsbury was still a small rural community. He will have been old enough to have remembered the rejoicing at the news of Waterloo, celebrated the coronation of the old Queen in 1837, and watched as the first railway train arrived in the township in 1880.

And his early life reflects that old rural Didsbury.  In 1841 he gave his occupation as “joiner”, a decade later as “coachman” and in 1861 as a “gardener”.  But with an eye to the future and his advancing age in 1869 he took up the job as beer keeper at the new Albert Inn.  That said, either because the beer shop was not yet paying its way, or because he was a cautious man, he chose to describe himself on the 1871 census as “Gardener and beerkeeper”.

The Albert, 1959

A decade later all seemed well and he was officially recorded as “a publican”, by which time his landlord status had changed and from 1879 if not a little earlier he was a tenant of the Midland Railway Company who had bought up the land on either side of the proposed new railway track.

In that portfolio of purchases came William Street, and no doubt Mr. Bethell reflected with his customers on the changes the new railway would bring to Didsbury, offering those who could afford it a swift route into the heart of the city, or out to the Peak District and the south.

As exciting as that might have been, the downside was a rise in the estimated annual rent and rates bill  due on the Albert, which rose by an extra 5/- in rent and 2/6d in the rates levied on the property.

The Fletcher Moss, 2013

Of course, we will never know just what Joshia Bethell made of that rise, the coming of the railway, or what he might have said about the Albert becoming the Fletcher Moss. But I think we can be certain Joshia knew of Fletcher Moss and may even have met him.  Afterall the family had moved back to Didsbury from Cheetham Hill and later moved into the Old Parsonage which along with the gardens and recreation ground were donated to the city in 1919.

It was a generous gift and I like the idea that countless customers might reflect on the history that the pub has to offer up.

And if you want to read more about Didsbury’s historic and much loved pubs, then there is no better book than our recently published, Manchester Pubs The Stories Behind the Doors Didsbury, Peter Topping & Andrew Simpson, 2019.  Available from www.pubbooks.co.uk and local bookshops.

Location; Didsbury

Pictures; The Albert, 1970, A. Dawson, m49142 and 1959, J.F Harris, m50611, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and the Fletcher Moss, 2013, © Peter Topping

The one you can’t visit …………….. today in Didsbury …… no. 2 CAU

This was the Wellington which has a long history dating back into the early 19th century if not earlier.

Depending on your age, you may well remember this pub as the Wellington or the Cavalcade, while if you grew up in the age of the Teletubbies, and the four Turtles, the site will have a succession of names of which include FUGU, Zizzi and more recently CAU.

Further back in time it was the Grey Horse but like its neighbor directly opposite it will have acceded to the rise of patriotic feeling after the defeat and be named after one of the two great military heroes of the day.

So, while its smaller rival became the Nelson, ours morphed into the Wellington, but it hasn’t always been the large impressive pile it became.

Back in the 19th century it was one of several more humble cottages which were there by 1818 and may stretch back into the 1780s.

Location; Wilmlsow Road

Pictures; CAU, 2020, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and the Wellington in the early 20th century