Dodging the cars on Market Street ............. 1969

Now as much as I like those old photographs of the city which date from the turn of the last century, I am more a fan of those which were taken more recently.

This is Market Street in 1969, before the Arndale and before the introduction of pedestrianization.

I should remember the scene, but I have to say I don’t.

And that is the thing.

With very old photographs, it is usually very obvious how a place has changed, but with those which are just fifty or sixty years ago, it can be less easy to see the differences, leaving you with just the odd change of shop, the outlandish looking clothes and the equally funny looking cars.

All of which means that more recent pictures of a place date more easily, because unlike a photograph from 1900, the scene looks almost like now but just note quite.

So, here we are on Market Street, just down from Fountain Street and heading towards Sickle Street.

Most of the buildings are the same, although the shop fronts are radically different along with the businesses which operated from them.

For many of us Henty White Jeweller, Norweb Electricity, and Times Furnishings will be strike a chord.

I can still remember standing outside those two fashion shops, waiting to be summoned in to approve a dress, pair of shoes or skirt.

And I still have a fondness for the old Bus signs.

Location; Market Street, 1969

Pictures, Market Street, 1969, 1175, 1174, "Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection", https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR0t6qAJ0-XOmfUDDqk9DJlgkcNbMlxN38CZUlHeYY4Uc45EsSMmy9C1YCk 

On the streets of Manchester, polishing shoes, selling food and offering up fun balloons

It is one of those things about city life that there is always someone who will sell you almost anything.

Just over a hundred years ago down by the Cathedral walls, the artist H.Tidmarsh recorded the old man selling newspapers, a woman selling potatoes and a boy polishing shoes, while up by the Infirmary at the top of Market Street he painted another street vendor selling food.

Not far away by Hunts Bank late at night young children plied the streets selling newspapers in the early hours of the morning.

And a century and a bit later, out on Market Street the crowd surged past the burger van, negotiated the balloon man, and stopped to buy a political paper.

Pictures; Manchester street sellers by H.E. Tidmarsh from Manchester Old and New, William Arthur Shaw, 1894 and from the collection of Andrew Simpson, June 2013

And over the next few weeks I shall focus on more of the street vendors who plied the streets of Manchester  in the late 19th century and their counterparts who still do the same business today.

Shopping on Market Street sometime in the 1920s

This is Market Street sometime between the two world wars. 

We are looking down towards St Mary’s Gate and away in the distance on our left is the Royal Exchange.

Now I can’t be sure of the date but it will be after 1911.

In that year Lockhart’s cocoa rooms were trading from number 70a Market Street while at number 72a was Linscott the jewellers, but by the time our fashionable shoppers were idling up Market Street the jewellers had gone to be replaced by the Ladies Shopping Mart.

Now I fully aware that this is a tad lazy and were I serious about dating our picture I would be trawling the directories from 1911 through to 1939, but as most know the Local History Library will close soon till February to manage the move back into Central Ref and there are other calls on the time left.

So I shall return to the photograph and reflect on how much has changed on Market Street some of which was the product of enemy action in the last war but most by the developers of the late 1960s and 70s.

The buildings on the corner of New Brown Street were destroyed along with some of Market Place during the bombing, but  that great swathe of properties on our right stretching down towards Corporation Street went so that we can now wander in the enclosed world of the Arndale.

And they went within living memory, although I have to say most of us will be hard pressed to remember this stretch of Market Street when traffic flowed freely from Piccadilly down to St Mary’s Gate.

I have to say I am fond of this picture which comes from the collection of Sandra Hapgood because it captures perfectly a little of that world we have now lost.

Picture; from the collection of Sandra Hapgood

What did you do on Market Street .... on the Saturday before New Year?

Now when you have been told to park yourself on a bench during a shopping expedition there are a few things you can do.

Corridors of clothes, 2023

One is to join in and offer advice knowing that it is as useful and relevant as looking for snow in the Sahara.

Retail shapes, 2023

Alternatively gaze across at the constant parade of shoppers, pondering on their stories and their shopping bargains, or just take pictures.

Till time, 2023

And I took pictures.

At which point I should launch into a story on shopping on Market Street a century ago, but I won't

Location, Uniqlo, Market Street, Manchester

Pictures, doing Uniqlo, Manchester, 2023, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

A day in the shops ...

 Saturday December 30th waiting for the shopping to end.

Corridors of clothes, 2023

Retail shapes, 2023

Till time, Uniqlo, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Through a glass darkly* …… things people do in Manchester on a Saturday

Location; Market Street

Pictures;  Through a glass darkly, 2023, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*1 Corinthians 13

Things people do in Manchester on a Saturday ……….

He is quite a showstopper and is as much a landmark on Market Street as the person selling hats, scarves, and silly plastic things  as are the fast-food vans and the sloganizing paper selling activists, with a petition in one hand and a leaflet in the other.

He always draws a crowd who are fascinated by his ability to remain motionless, even when provoked, but on receipt of a donation will drop his briefcase, as a recognition of the gift.

And then pick it up this time in the other hand before becoming a statue once again.

I like watching the crowd who respond with a mixture of bewilderment, smiles and of course a picture from their phone.

To this some will add a comment to their companions, and more than one having photographed the man proceeded to phone a friend.

Now I know there are heaps of these artists in every big city, ranging from Egyptian mummies to pale faced clowns.

But I like our office worker with swept back tie and coat tails.

So that is it, except for the collection of pictures, of people taking pictures.

Location; Market Street

Pictures, Things people do in Manchester on a Saturday, 2023, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Dodging the traffic on Market Street

We are on St Mary’s Gate, looking up towards Market Street.

And depending when you were born, you will remember the old Marks and Spencer with its distinctive curly wurly canopy, and the underground Boots the Chemist, which occupied the space below the Royal Exchange.

But you will have to be older to have bought a shirt or suit in the Burtons store, opposite the M&S or walked up Market Street with its assortment of shops stretching up to Pauldens.

And the rest is encompassed by those words, IRA Bomb and the Arndale.

Location; St Mary’s Gate







Picture; St Mary’s Gate, 1963, Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection,
https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR35NR9v6lzJfkiSsHgHdQyL2CCuQUHuCuVr8xnd403q534MNgY5g1nAZfY

Just what can you buy on Market Street? …….

Now for me the fun of Market Street is less the big shops and more the pop-up salesmen.

And in that respect, it is no different than it was in the 19th century when match sellers, shoe shine boys, newspaper vendors and hot food salesmen worked their pitch.

Location; Market Street

Picture; Just what can you buy on Market Street, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and Manchester street sellers by H.E.Tidmarsh, from Manchester Old and New William Arthur Shaw, 1894  

A pair ………

Together on Market Street

Location; Manchester

Pictures; a pair, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson 

When busking just got more interesting ….. Market Street

Now I applaud the busker on Market Street on Thursday for cheering up the shoppers on a wet grey day.

Novelty comes to mind, and I didn’t really listen to the music, but he made everyone just that bit happier.

Someone has suggested that he was perhaps playing "heavy metal" which made me smile.

And I can reveal that his name is "THE JUNKOACONE WASTEMAN".  None of my pictures captured the board with his intriguing title, but it does so happen I know the real identity of the chap in junk.

Not that I will reveal his name, but in the interests of authenticity he may will come forward and make a comment.

We shall see.

Historically buskers will have played Market Street for centuries, and playing the instruments and music may have changed the purpose remains the same.

In the case of a our chap, even the collecting bucket was metal.

Location; Manchester

Picture; The Junkoacane Wasteman, busking on Market Street, 2021, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Ten minutes in the story of one bench on Market Street …… Saturday June 23rd

The sun was out and as you do, I was waiting on the opposite seat watching the Saturday shoppers process down Market Street.

The pictures are not the best quality, and I am sure I could have played with the lighting and the composition, but as they say they are a moment in time on one of the busiest streets in the city.

With the passage of time they may become part of that bigger collection of images that record Manchester & Salford's street life over two centuries.

Or they may just be judged a silly bit of picture taking on a sunny day when I should have been doing somethings else.

Like buying a new pair of flip flops, and summer shirts, which I didn't.

Instead I sat on that bench taking in the scene and having an interesting conversation with a women from Sheffield who was here for the day accompanying her daughter who was checking out the University.

Location; Manchester












Pictures; Market Street, 2019, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Almost all you want to buy on Market Street …….. one Saturday in June

Now Market Street has always been one of those places where you can pretty much buy anything.

It wasn’t always the pedestrian haven it is today, and until the 1970s it remained a street where buses, cars, and lorries trundled down from Piccadilly past all manner of shops.

Go back to 1820 and all that traffic was compounded by a thoroughfare which was much narrower and decidedly lower than today.

The first serious road widening scheme a decade later, also altered the level of the street, so that “Market Street had been raised at the lower end and lowered at the middle part.  

Consequently the floor of Newall’s shop was lower than the level of the street, and to enter it you had to descend by a step”, while at another point the street had dropped sufficiently low that “the footpath on one side was on a sort of bank, which separated the carriageway from the path.”*

For those with a fascination of the early 19th century, the street was full of a variety of shops, inns and hotels, and because there was still “a heavy duty on all kinds of glass….. not a single shop window contained any plate glass, but shop windows were composed of shall squares of ordinary crown glass” which resulted in many customers demanding that they inspect goods in the street where the light was better.**

All of which is a far cry from the acres of glass that make up the Market Street of today.

But then as now, there will have been the street sellers, whose goods might have changed over the last two centuries, but whose presence either on static sights or wandering up and down have always been a feature of the street.

Amongst the 19th century vendors would have flower sellers, brush makers and a host of street food stalls.

The latter were particularly popular given that many living and working in the city, had no access to a kitchen at home and bought breakfast, lunch, and their evening meal on the way to or from work.

The pie seller and the bread man pop up in the novels of Charles Dickens and in the pages of Mayhew's book on London in the 1850s.***

Which of course is an introduction to the these four images of street selling, on Market Street.

They were taken in the space of ten minutes on a June day, when the sun shone, and people were happy.

Location; Market Street, Manchester









Pictures; selling something on Market Street, 2019, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Slugg, J.T. Reminiscences of Manchester Fifty Years Ago, 1881, pages 3-5

**ibid Slugg, page 6


***Mayhew, Henry, London Labour & the London Poor 1851

Sunday on Market Street ……… no 3 taking the escalator

The escalator that takes you to the Food Store.






Location; Market Street

Picture; Market Street, 2019, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Sunday on Market Street ……….. no 5 …... reflections

Yep.... just another image of a reflection.

Location; Market Street

Pictures; Market Street, 2019, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Sunday at the shops ……… with an eye on the future

An occasional series, following the family across the city centre in pursuit of two tops and a pair of boots.

Uniqlo, Market Street, 2019

French Connection, St Ann's Square, 2019

We began on Market Street, and proceeded by degree into the Arndale, and out again into St Ann’s Square.

And as you do, I reflected on the swift changes  in retail fortunes, which offered up a few new shops, the loss of some favourites and those that never seem to disappear from the streets.

At which point I could claim that this was part of that big project to record the shops
in town over five decades, and with that in mind, I should dig out my old pictures, of Chelsea Girl, Lewis’s and On the Eighth Day, but they are all lost deep in the recesses of the collection.

Moss Bros, St Ann's Square, 2019

Which I suppose is another way of saying I can be as careless with our recent past as anyone.

In my case I wish I had been more active with recording Oldham Street and what is now the Northern Quarter during the 1970s and 80s, and also persevered with the photo sessions around St Ann’s Square and King Street before they became pedestrianized.

But I didn’t, so instead I shall just leave it at the three.


Location; Market Street, and St Ann’s Square

Pictures; Uniqlo, Market Street, French Connection & Moss Bros,  2019, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Sunday on Market Street ……….. no 4 ….. faces

The benches along Market Street are constantly taken by a succession of shoppers


Location; Market Street










Pictures; Market Street, 2019, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Sunday on Market Street ……….. no 2 ………. street food

We tend to think that street food is a feature of the last half century, be it the hot potato stall or burger van, but not so.

Charles Dickens recorded the pie stalls which were a feature of the streets of London and other cities and towns, when many working-class homes had only the most limited cooking facilities.

And six decades ago, Uncle George would often treat us to a bag of hot chestnuts as part of visiting the Christmas lights.

Location; Market Street

Pictures; street food, 2019, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Market Street & J Lyons sometime around 1914

This is another one of those Judge postcards from sometime after 1911.

Now I can be fairly sure that Fred Judge took this shot after 1911 and very likely around 1914 because it is one of a series which record scenes across the city from Piccadilly to Albert Square, the Cathedral and the University.

We are on Market Street just where Cross Street and Corporation Street join it. Today the left hand side would be dominated by the Arndale Centre and our right by Boots the Chemist.

For Market Street this is an oddly quiet scene and while there are certainly lots of people out and about it doesn’t match the usual crowds that would swarm up and down.

And yet there is lots to see, but first the date.  It must be after 1910, possibly 1911, but more likely 1914.  The key is the J Lyons tea rooms at number 35.

Anyone of a certain generation will remember them, and in their time they were as popular and wide spread as any of the well known fast food outlets today.

“Always innovative and with an acute awareness of popular taste, Lyons brought a unique blend of showmanship, style and spectacle to its aim of combining high quality with value for money. This was achieved by maintaining control of all its manufacturing and servicing departments. 

The first Lyons teashop opened in 1894 at 213 Piccadilly. It was the forerunner of some 250 white and gold fronted teashops which occupied prominent positions in many of London's high streets and suburban towns and cities; corner sites with two entrances were preferred. 

At one time seven teashops operated in London's Oxford Street alone. Food and beverage charges were identical in each teashop, irrespective of locality, and the highest standards of hygiene were demanded by management. ”*

All of which fastens our picture to a time after 1911 and given that another in the series dates from after 1914 I think this must be the same.

As ever in these pictures it is the sheer number of horse drawn vehicles that impress me, ranging from the heavy covered wagon to the cabs and private carriages.

And then there are the bikes and hand carts competing with the pedestrians and usual paper seller.

*Lyons 1887-1998 http://www.kzwp.com/lyons/index.htm

** 35 and 74 Market Street, 44 Deansgate, 77 Piccadilly, 5 Princess Street and 74 Mosley Street, with its offices and steam bakeries at Jordan Street Knott Mill, Manchester, Salford & Suburban Directory, Part 2 1911

Picture; from the collections of G&V Harris