Of adventures and pub visits .............. the Millstone on Thomas Street

Now adventures should never be confined to anyone under the age of ten. 

Thinking about it they are best kept for those in receipt of a free travel bus, and pension who can remember listening to the Goon’s on the wireless and know that Wagon Wheels were bigger back in their youth.

All of which carries the added bonus that you aren’t going to be asked to show ID to prove that you are entitled to walk into a pub.

And with those qualifications out of the way Peter and I were set to wander the streets of Manchester in search of a shed load of historic pubs.

It was day two of the hands on side of researching the history of 79 ”hero” pubs stretching from the University up through the city centre and on out to the Northern Quarter which for those of us old enough to remember included places like New Cross, a street full of pet shops and the wholesale food markets.

Now as research goes it ticked lots of boxes, of which the most important was that we got to meet the landlord or manager, uncovered some fascinating stories about each place and spoke to the customers.

But at the Millstone on Thomas Street we got just that bit more.  The landlord Ged who over the years has run successful pubs across the city and into Salford was made up that we were interested in his place.  So much so that we ended up having our picture taken together, and we shared some of the history of his pub

By the mid 1790s Thomas Street was busy and open for business, and just sixty year later it offered the discerning resident a choice between the Millstone, then spelt Mill Stone and the White Lion at number 15, the Bay Horse at number 35 and the Wagon Horses across the road at number 16.

And he was keen to join us on the next trip, .......... not bad for one days adventure.

The book can be ordered from  www.pubbooks.co.uk

Picture; Ged and me, in the Millstone, 2016 from the collection of Peter Topping

Painting, the Millstone  © 2014, Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures,

Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

Inside a Manchester pub ......... the Castle

Now it remains one of those simple observations that there are not that many pictures of the insides of pubs.

It is easy enough to see why.

In the past cameras and processing photographs was expensive and limited to professionals and a few amateurs.

So in the case of the professional who often sold photographs on to commercial postcard companies, the insides of pubs were of little appeal.

Pubs were after all just somewhere you went on a regular basis and few needed reminding of what the inside of the Duck and Dragon looked like.

As for the amateur the subject of a bar and a pint pot must have seemed less than seemly.

And even those engaged in recording social history do not appear to have wasted film on the interiors of pubs.

Which just leaves those who regularly called their local their second home, and most of these had little spare cash to spend on a camera.

So I am more than grateful to Richard for sharing this picture of the Castle on Oldham Street.

Now you don’t have to rifle through the history books to spot that the Castle has a past it just looks the past.
The stories have it that it dates back to the 1780s and there was a building on the site by 1793 and underwent a variety of names including the Crown and Sceptre, the Crown & Anchor and the Clock Face only becoming the Castle in 1936.

Although when our old friend Mr Adshead wandered down Oldham Street in 1850 in the process of compiling his map the place was called the Crown and Anchor Vaults run by James Preston.

And in many ways I don’t suppose it was that different from when I regularly went in during the early 1970s.

There were three rooms on offer for the punters, consisting of the main room at the front and two smaller ones at the back along a narrow corridor.  It wasn’t my regular haunt but it was the meeting place of a small political party of the left which I briefly flirted with.  We were a varied bunch.

There were a few students, a lecturer from Manchester Polytechnic, and a retired factory worker.

Conversations were earnest and shrouded in a terminology which was off putting and seemed familiar to just a few in the room but then I was just 19 and the counter attractions of the College bar on Aytoun Street proved too strong.

Back then I can’t say I took much notice of Oldham Street which had once been a thriving place but was beginning to lose it appeal.  By the end of that decade C & A had moved off into the Arndale prompting Marion Bowan of the Guardian to reflect that the “metropolitan glamour of the Arndale Centre had left Oldham Street a bit down at heel.” *

All very different from when the serious shopper could leave C & A’s and wander up past the British Home Stores, dipping into a variety of shoe shops and furniture shops, put a bet on at the bookmaker, and choose from several pubs and a clutch of Yate’s Wine Lodges.

All of which offers up one of those silly games which involves the 1969 street directory which lists all the businesses on both sides of Oldham Street from Piccadilly up to Great Ancoats Street and the challenge of checking out what has survived and what has gone.

And if you only take the stretch from the Castle at 66 Oldham Street to Gulliver’s at 109 the result might prove the basis for a discussion on retail history, 1969-2016 and prompt your companion to forgo buying their round to devise the board game.

That said you might instead be waiting for the publication of Manchester Pubs The Stories Behind the Doors.**

Peter long ago completed all the paintings of the pubs and I am deep in telling their stories.

And unlike other pub books we want to tell the stories of the people, the building and the area they are situated in.

We are just waiting for the book to be delivered from the printers and are taking pre-orders now at www.pubbooks.co.uk 

Picture; interior of the Castle, 2016, from the collection of  Richrad Hopkin-Jones

Painting; The Castle © 2014 Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures,Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

*The high street that dropped out, Bowman Marion, The Guardian, December 12 1980


**A new book on Manchester Pubs, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/A%20new%20book%20on%20Manchester%20Pubs

On a sunny afternoon at the Opera House, remembering Waterloo Sunset and of things to come

Now the painting of the Opera House Peter told me was “inspired by the billboard that said Sunny Afternoon and the fact that it was pouring down.........” which of course is always a good start to a story.

The Kinks have always been one of my favourite groups not least because like Terry and Julie I regularly met Kay “under the clock every Friday night” in Waterloo Station. So the idea of going to see the musical Sunny Afternoon appealed, added to which I have always had a fond spot for the Opera House.

It opened as the New Theatre in 1912, was renamed the New Queen’s Theatre in 1915 and finally the Opera House in 1920.

It closed in 1979 and for five years was a bingo hall but five years later was acquired by the Palace Trust and in 1990 by Apollo Leisure and has become a venue for large-scale musicals.

I remember going once and sitting fairly high up and looking down at the stage which seemed miles away.

More often today we end up in one of the restaurants facing Hardman Square that bit of open space which is dominated by the tall buildings of the Spinneyfields developments.

And for those with a keen sense of history Peter’s painting has also captured the new build on the corner of Byrom Street and Quay Street.

Location; Manchester

Painting; the Opera House Manchester, © 2016 Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures, Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk