Ordinary days in St Ann’s Square …..

It is often the ordinary picture you take and discard as boring that comes back and shows a place as it was a long time ago.

I was reminded of that almost banal observation when I came across a picture of St Ann’s Square from 1983, posted by the historian Brian Groom.*

It was taken by Anthony O'Neill and appeared in the Manchester Evening News as the Square was going through one of its makeovers.

It’s an untidy and messy scene and perfectly captured the place on a day when it was full of shoppers and piles of construction stuff. 

Now I can remember a time when the square was not a pedestrian haven, and crossing from the bookshop to the Lufthansa office meant picking your way through parked cars and watching for passing traffic.

Sadly, my collection of pictures from the late 1970s and 80s doesn’t include any of the place when the car was still king in the square, but I did find some from 1980 when it was on the cusp of change.

Or so I thought because amongst the images is one of a chap taking in the sun which might postdate 1980.

And that is pretty much it, other than to say it is hard to think that on a summer’s day in the 1980s, shoppers and seekers after the sun had to contend with “meter maids” busy taxis and vans dropping off.

Location; St Ann’s Square

Pictures; St Ann’s Square, 1980 and perhaps 1984, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Brian Groom, Northerners: A History, from the Ice Age to the Present Day HarperNorth, 2022

Made in Manchester: A people’s history of the city that shaped the modern world HarperNorth, 2024

Bold new plans for four Manchester Squares ………..

It’s just one of those age things that if you can remember cars in St Ann’s Square, you will have had plenty of birthdays.

Today, you can take your pick from a pleasant amble across the square, take in the market stalls which are a frequent feature, or just sit and watch everyone else going about their business.

Just over 40 years ago much of the square was given over to cars, lorries and coaches, and while the pavements were wide this was still a place where you had to be mindful of parked and passing traffic.

There had been moves to pedestrianize the square, and introduce open air cafes in 1962.

But the plans were shelved because of concerns that “congestion would be caused on Market Street and St Mary’s Gate if the square was closed to traffic”.* Four years later the Civic Trust of the North West which had advanced the original plan, tried again with a “New Plan for main squares”.

This proposed “new pedestrian area in four main squares in Manchester,  [suggesting] extra traffic restrictions, so that a new pedestrian route could wind through part of the central shopping area”.

The scheme would have involved changes in St Peter’s Square, Albert Square, St James Square and St Ann’s Square.

In St Peter’s Square, the Cenotaph and cross could be moved and re positioned directly in front of Central Ref, while in Albert Square, the Albert Memorial would “remain in its present place, but other statues would be moved slightly and the lavatories in the square would be removed”.

 A pedestrian route would run from Brazenose Street to connect with St Ann’s Square which would see the church “sit in a pedestrian area as it was originally intended and the whole atmosphere of the square would be changed by the removal of the clutter of cars and parked vehicles and the continuous discordant effect of the traffic slowly meandering through the Square”. 

 Leaving the pavements to be widened on St James Square and “parts of South King Street and King Street would be closed to normal traffic [and] opened only for part of the day for service traffic”.

 

All of which looked a bold plan, but would be a long time coming.

King Street was pedestrianized in1976, and St Ann’s Square in the early 1980s, leaving St Peter’s Square to be transformed in part by the coming of the Metro in the 1990s and fully transformed by the Second City Crossing, which resulted in an enlarged square, the loss of the Peace Garden and the removal of the Cenotaph to a spot outside the entrance to the Town Hall.

And for those wondering where St James Square can be found, it is the narrow street which connects John Dalton Street with South King Street.

With the passage of time it is difficult now to remember  that there was a time when you had to dodge cars.

 Location; Manchester

Picture; St Ann’s Square,2016, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and in 1960, 1960 – 3107.3, 3107.4, 3107.1, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

 *Manchester shelves plan for St Ann’s Square, Manchester Guardian, December 1962.

 **New Plan for main squares, Manchester Guardian, August 17^th, 1966.

 

A little bit of timeless history in St Ann’s Square ...... selling flowers

Now the historian in me knows I should go off and look for the first reference to a flower seller in the square by the church.

In 1979 I did the thing, and took a series of pictures of that flower stall.

At the time and for a long time since I thought there was nothing remarkable about the scene.

And then recently I came across a picture post postcard from 1904 showing a flower stall in the identical spot, added to which someone else came up with an earlier image from 1898.

So that rather begs the question of how long there has been a business on this location and for that matter just how many images there are of flower sellers in St Ann’s Square.

I suspect we shall find out.

And quick as a flash, Jennifer added a comment to the blog which deserved to be added in,
"Hello, hope this information my help your research.  From the late 60s to the mid 70s I worked for the Halifax BS on Deansgate. 

They had an account with the flower stall in St Ann's square. 

The couple who ran it then where brother and sister John & Sally. I think the name on the invoice was Fitzgerald. 

They told me the stall had been in their family for many years. I think the stall was taken over by John's son Roger? and then by his son. John and Sally were lovely 5. 

They advised which flowers were good for the displays and how to arrange them".

Location; Manchester

Pictures; St Ann’s Church, 1978-9 from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and from the series Manchester, marketed by Tuck & Sons, 1904, courtesy of Tuck DB, http://tuckdb.org/

In St Ann’s Square with the Rotary Photo Company …… sometime in the early 20th century

Now if you wanted proof that St Ann’s Square has always been a busy and fussy place, the evidence is here in this picture postcard.

I don’t have a date, but I am guessing we are sometime in the early 20th century, and a bit of detective work using the names of the shops and street directories will get close to when the picture was taken.

Everyone will pick up on some different bit of the picture, from the line of taxis and the cabby’s hut, to the throng of people parading through the square and that female cyclist.

And then there is another story around the company who published the picture postcard.

I had causally thought that Rotary Photo, EC were a Manchester firm, but not so.

According to that excellent site, Graces Guide to British Industrial History, they were a London business with offices at 23 Moorfields London, with works at West Drayton.

They were established in 1901, as The Rotary Photographic Co and “was a huge publisher of real photo postcards. 

One of their unique novelty postcards was a 1¾ inch x 5½ inch (4.4cm x 13.9cm) photo series of bookmark cards. Most seem to have been posted in the 1903-04 period".

Later in the century they amalgamated with other photographic companies and were still in business in 1947.

Location; St Ann’s Square

Picture; St Ann’s Square, date unknown, courtesy of Steve

*Graces Guide to British Industrial History, https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Rotary_Photographic_Co

Selling flowers ........ By St Ann’s Church sometime around 1904

Now I fell on this picture postcard of the flower seller by St Ann’s Square fully intending to write about a century of selling flowers at this spot.

The post card is from a series dated to 1902, so here we seemed to have over a hundred years of continuity.

But by one of those twists of historical research my facebook friend JBS came up with one for 1898 and in the way of these things I bet someone was selling flowers from this pitch even earlier in that century.

That said it is just possible that the painting is earlier than 1902 and might have been made in the last decade of the 19th century, but I would be guessing so I shall just leave you with the observation that it is a nice picture.

And that was the end of the story until John left a comment which just needed to be added to the story, more so because back in the late 1970s, I too took a series of pictures, which I think will include him.

"Lovely to see this picture. It depicts my family's flower stall. My great-great grandfather first started selling flowers on this spot in June 1895. 

It may have been earlier, but this is the first recorded payment of rent for the spot to the church. He sold flowers from boxes at first and the stall arrived a little later. 

The business passed down through my great-grandfather, my grandfather and great aunt, my father and finally myself. I ceased trading in 2008 to follow another path. The business was still viable but not what is t was in the city centre's busier decades from the 60's to the 00's.

I donated the stall to the church for their future rental and it was subsequently leased by others for a while. I'm not sure if it is currently occupied as I rarely visit the city centre nowadays. 

I hope it is, I've a lifetime of memories".

So there you are ...... the story continues.

Picture; St Ann’s Church  from the series Manchester, marketed by Tuck & Sons, 1904, courtesy of Tuck DB, http://tuckdb.org/, and The flower stall, 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Be Happy ………… Manchester ….. 1979

With the passage of over 40 years I have no memory of who or what this group of clowns was doing in St Ann’s Place.

I didn’t ask, and they never said but I can remember thinking it was fun and I had to take some pictures.

Today I might be a little more circumspect at snapping strangers, but I rather think the older me would be bolder and would engage them in conversation.

But I didn’t and that is my loss.

Still I do have the images and remember the expressions of puzzlement on the faces of the passers-by.

Today, such scenes are far more common place, although they do tend to happen on Market Street, which given the large numbers of people makes sense.

They may have been from Drama Department of the Poly, but I don't know, and it would idle speculation to try and determine where they were from.

That said someone might recognise themselves.

We shall see.

Location; St Ann’s Place

Pictures; Be Happy, circa 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Looking into Barton Street …………. 40 years ago

This is one of those pictures I usually just pass over, but today it deserves to come out into the light.

I was on St Ann’s Street, looking into Barton Street.

There, in the distance is the dome of the Barton Arcade, and the twisty nature of Barton Street is clear to see.

But the corner building to the left and the low rise one just beyond have been replaced and that has changed ever so slightly the configuration of this side street, which has also lost the interesting businesses on the right.

Pictures; Looking into Barton Street, circa 1978, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

The one we have all forgotten ...... in the Square in 1978

I say the one we have all forgotten, but for many it will be a scene they have never experienced.

We are in St Ann’s Square looking towards Exchange Street with St Mary’s Gate beyond on a warm sunny day in 1978.

Back then you negotiated your way around parked cars, and waiting taxis while in the distance was that parade of shops which stretched down from the old Marks and Spencer’s with its bending canopy.

Today that building has gone, as have the parked cars and taxis and from our vantage point there is a clear view across New Cathedral Street which was cut when the area was redeveloped after the bomb.

Location; St Ann’s Square

Picture; St Ann’s Square, 1978, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

In St Ann's Square with an ongoing debate and lots of people

Now if you are of certain age, let’s say old enough to have thought “She Loves You” was magic and yearned for a TV programme which was in colour then I guess St Ann’s Square full of cars will be familiar.

When my friend Sally posted the picture  last year it set a debate going on exactly when it was taken.

Much hung on the make of cars that were parked up, but I wonder if another clue might be the statue on the plinth.  Today on the plinth are two soldiers from the South African War.

But in our picture they are not there so it should be simple enough to research when the Victorian worthy was moved and replaced by the two men.

The war memorial was made in 1907, and was listed  grade II status in 1974.

And perhaps even start another debate on which Victorian worthy was staring down at us.

I think I know but I shall keep that to myself at present.

Of course the code MHR 9 at the bottom right hand corner is also worth following up.  I think it will refer to a reissue of the card.

That said there may be someone reading this who was there when the picture was taken which is a long shot I know but I am constantly surprised how things pop up.

Today of course St Ann’s Square remains one of our busiest open spaces and is one of the venues for those markets.

I actually prefer it without the markets, when it offers up a place to sit catch up with friends or just watch the ebb and flow of a day in the city.

And it was on a recent Tuesday while waiting during a shopping adventure that I recorded a few of those waiting like me for someone.

It was a dinner time and so along with those wandering trough the square there were plenty sitting on those long stone benches and more than a few propped on those large round stone orbs which are comfortable for a few minutes but which after a while force you to move on.

And what was what made me wander across the square.

So there you have it from a place teaming with cars and people to one just full of a pedestrians, some waiting, others intent on eating a sandwich and some just passing the time of day.

Pictures; St Ann’s Square before now, courtesy of Sally Dervan, the statue and people from the collection of Andrew Simpson, July 2014

When there were cars in St Ann's Square

I like this picture of St Ann’s Square sometime in the late 1950s or early 60s.

It is how I first remember it, all full of cars with grimy soot encrusted statues of the worthy with the memorial to the Boer War away in the distance.

And in its way it is now as dated as those images from the beginning of the last century.

Picture; St Ann’s Square, from the series Manchester, Lillywhite, issued by Tuck & Sons, courtesy of TuckDB http://tuckdb.org/history

St Ann's Square, Snaps of Manchester nu 6

I have to say that there often seems to be building work on the corner where Old Bank Street runs into St Ann’s Square.

And so it as when this snap was taken sometime I think in the 1930s.

Back then the Royal Exchange was an exchange trading in cotton and after the completion of its extension between 1914 and ’31 was the largest trading hall in the country.

Now I might be slightly out with the date, the cars suggest the 1920s and it all hangs on whether what we see is the finished exchange.

Happily someone will have an opinion and provide an answer.

Either way it is another of those wonderful snaps from the collection of Sandra Hapgood, and as I have said before they are a valuable record of what the city looked like.

For unlike the carefully posed professional images these were instant pictures, taken by someone who just liked what they saw.

And so often are ones that no one else has taken.

Picture; St Ann’s Square, date unknown courtesy of Sandra Hapgood

Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester nu 27 ............ Royal Exchange arcade

Now I doubt that anyone using the arcade as a short cut from St Ann’s Square would agree that its either lost of forgotten, nor for that matter the shop keepers.

But for any one of my generation the arcade was always one of those ways you got to the underground shopping precinct which offered up a fascinating range of out lets, from a coffee emporium to the small but magic shop selling old model railway locomotives, and carriages.

And of course before that it was Boots the Chemist which you entered at street level and descended to the floors below.

I can’t remember when Boots gave way to the shopping precinct or for that matter when the precinct closed, although I know it in the case of the precinct it seemed a death by a thousand closures with businesses shutting down and nothing replacing them.

Since then I get a feeling that something is about to happen but never does.

So it's less a forgotten street and more a lost precinct.

Location; St Ann’s Square

Picture; Royal Exchange arcade, 2016, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Be happy ........ Manchester 1979

Now the event is lost in time.

It was after all nearly forty years ago, and I have no recollection of coming across this group, but I did because I have the pictures which I took.

I know we were beside St Ann’s Church on that small open area just across from the Square.

I wish I had carefully recorded the event but the wallet holding the strip of negatives, just says "Manchester, 1979-80".

And that is it.

The performers look happy, and the bystanders a tad bemused, and with the passage of time I can’t even remember what I thought.

Still I like the pictures, of which there were about six, all shot in rapid succession.

There may be someone who remembers the performance, or better still was one of the group, who on that Saturday all those years ago, took to the streets of City offering up a bit of fun on the day.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; the performers, circa 1979-80 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

When cars still took pride of place in St Ann’s Square

Now, this I remember.

We are in St Ann’s Square in 1950, and despite the cars parked and the traffic passing through, I like this St Ann’s Square.

Of course, the present pedestrianized space is safer and offers up a better place for those who want to sit and just relax with friends on a warm summer’s day.

But for anyone interested in the past it is well worth a closer look.

First there are the cars, which are a wonderful mix of the stately and run of the mill and span the decades back into the prewar.

And then there are the buildings, and in particular, the shops, all of which I suspect long ago went out of business.

During the next week I will be trawling the directories to see which were in the Square at the beginning of the last century and how many of them survived into the late 1960s.

And because this is 1950, I wonder what was happening to the building at the far end. 

The front is missing and its neigbour which stands on the corner looks damaged and is missing the top floor.

I suppose they might be the result of bomb damage which will lead me off on a hunt of the bomb maps.

All of which just leaves me to pass that obvious comment about the soot darkened buildings most of which would have to wait a full twenty years before the clean up revealed just how magnificent they were.

Location; Manchester

Picture; St Ann’s Square, 1950, from a series of picture postcards by Tuck and Son, courtesy of Tuck DB, https://tuckdb.org/

Passing the time ............... dinner time in St Ann's Square

An occasional series of pictures of people and places.

Location; St Ann's Square, Manchester

Pictures; People & Places Manchester, 2014, from the collection of Andrew Simspson

Vintage Royal Exchange …….

Now I never learn and continue to be very careless with dating and recording where I took pictures.

Digital photography has made it heaps easier, but when I wander through the back catalogue I can be stumped.

So, these I know are the Royal Exchange, and were taken with my first digital camera which cost an arm and a leg.

And that puts them at the start of this century soon after I swapped smelly chemical photography for the future.

But the exact year had eluded me, until I noticed the posters for a production of Hedda Gabler, and a search showed that the Royal Exchange performed the play in October 2001, courtesy of a review in the Guardian.

The play scored four out of five, and while I was tempted to quote from the review I shall just leave you to follow the link. *

Looking at those two images from 21 years ago I am struck by how little the Royal Exchange has changed, and indeed looked much the same when I first started going in the 1970s.

Sadly I don't have any images of the theatre from the 1970s.

Nor did I keep any of the programmes from what was a few years of exciting theatre from the classics to a memorable night watching Robert Lindsay in Leaping Ginger.

And that is pretty much it.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; Vintage Royal Exchange Theatre, 2001, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Hedda Gabler, Lyn Gardiner, October 31st, 2001, Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2001/oct/31/theatre.artsfeatures1

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

Scary moments in St Ann’s Square …………. on a Sunday

Now I can’t quite remember when Halloween assumed a degree of importance in our family.

It certainly wasn’t there when I was growing up in South East London.

Back then and well into the 1960s, the big event was Bonfire Night, which began in the month before with kids collecting for fireworks money on street corners and outside shops.

The amount of effort that was involved, ranged from elaborate effigies of a Guy, usually sitting in an old pram, to a handful of kids with nothing more than a hastily made sign and a cheeky smile.

How much money ever went on fireworks is debatable, and given the amount that might be collected, I suspect the sweet shop made a better choice for the money.

And mother was always most emphatic that this was just a form of begging, which while it was harsh, pretty much deterred me from engaging in the practice ……….. that and the simple fact that on the odd occasion I did try it on with friends we made nothing.

The kids were still in evidence in the late 1970s, but pretty much seem to have died out by the end of the decade, and the passing of that tradition seems to coincide with the elevation of the visitation of trick or treat at the front door.

I have to say I absorbed mother’s approach and didn’t encourage our lads from knocking on, and by and large they didn’t do much of it, judging that they had more chance of eating the sweets I left out at the front door, than braving the cold and dark and uncertain response from the people behind the doors.

But that said we did go in for the pumpkins, and at one stage had four, all artistically altered with scary faces and candles, which for a while were done by the boys, but latterly fell to me.

Putting them outside was less successful, and more than one was stolen.

All of which I reflected on this weekend in town, when along with the Halloween signs, paper pumpkins, and vendors offering up plastic skeletons which glowed in the dark, we came across the ghostly procession and the “creepy trail across the city, [from] the Strolling Bones and the poisonous maze”.*

I chose to decline the poisonous maze in St Ann’s Square, but took plenty of pictures of the Strolling Bones, as it wound its way through the square.

The grumpy side of me continues to wonder about both these autumnal activities which if I am being fair brighten up cold and dark nights.

But Bonfire Night, remains a celebration of when a group of 17th century conspirators, plotted an act of terrorism, justified by the increasingly harsh persecution of Catholics by successive governments during the Tudor, and early Stuart period.

The event is made all the more questionable, given the arguments of some revisionist historians that the Gunpowder Plot may well have owed much to an unpopular Government seeking to turn a vague and outlandish plan by a group of known Catholic dissidents into an act of horrific terrorism which when discovered left the authorities looking very much like the “good guys”

As for Halloween, I have never taken to the idea of witches, dislike pumpkins, and can leave those Hollywood scary movies, which usually involve much loud noise, plenty of screams and the sacrifice of lots of innocent people.

But I concede that Halloween has a long tradition, going back beyond the Christian tradition to one rooted in folk customs and beliefs common  amongst Celtic people's.

And my own family still make much of the Day of The Dead, which is celebrated in Naples, and have over the years returned to the city of their birth to take part in the event.

Leaving me to make sure we have the bags of sweets by the front door, on the night of Halloween, and try look out for the fireworks in the sky, a few days later.

As for the carved pumpkins, they have long been consigned to history, while I still wonder about the Catholic conspiracy, remembering that down the ages, Governments have fastened on groups or ideas which if exploited can be turned to the advantage of the establishment, whether it be The Protocols Of Zion, the Zinoviev letter, or the destruction of the Reichstag.

Location; Manchester







Pictures; Halloween visitations in Manchester, 2019, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Remembering the South African War

It is the one in St Ann’s Square, commemorating the men who served in the South African campaign.

Location; Manchester

Picture; St Ann’s Square, 2010 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

The places I usually don’t photograph ...................nu 1 that other entrance

It was September 2014 and I was  on my way to meet up.

Location; Mr Thomas’s St Ann’s Alley

Picture; Mr Thomas’s St Ann’s Alley, 2014 from the collection of Andrew Simpson