On Edge Street in 1969 ........... waiting for something to happen

This is how I remember Edge Street, which is part of that warren of streets which is now known as the Northern Quarter.

Back in the late 1960s and early 70’s it looked tired and run down, waiting for something to happen.

The street was cut sometime before 1793, and the buildings are a mix of late 18th and early 19th century with some from succeeding decades and pretty much all of them have gone through multiple uses in their long existence.

Leaving aside the trail of litter, the street has that air of neglect, but that might just be because we have caught it on a Sunday, when everyone with any sense was elsewhere.

Of course it is very different today, the whole sale market at the end of the road closed a long time ago and is now part of a residential development, and some of the buildings lining Edge Street were demolished to make way for new ones, while the remainder have changed their use, reflecting the new Norther Quarter.

But the Bay Horse Tavern is still there on Thomas Street, and many of the residents and shopkeepers on this stretch of Edge Street, were not so different from their predecessors in 1911, who included a potato merchant at no. 32, a fruits salesmen, coal dealer, and shop keeper, although I suspect few in 1969 would have understand the need for the Patent Ice Company which operated from no.22.

Location; Edge Street, 1969,

Picture; Edge Street, 1969, Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection,
https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR35NR9v6lzJfkiSsHgHdQyL2CCuQUHuCuVr8xnd403q534MNgY5g1nAZfY,

If it wasn’t for the houses in between you could see all the way across the fields to Ancoats Hall*

Smithfield Wholesale Fish Market, 1900

We were in the Northern Quarter recently showing some of the family around this part of the city.

There will be many who remember it as a bustling area dominated by the whole sale markets and lots of little businesses.

But when I washed up in Manchester in the late 1960s it had taken on a more run down and seedy appearance, a place waiting for something to happen but not quite sure what that something might be.

Junk, 2 Dale Street

Today large parts of it seem to have a purpose and function again.  Here are those quirky little shops and businesses you won’t find elsewhere in the city.  It is to quote one review, “a centre of alternative and bohemian culture.”**

And as you would expect it’s also rich with history.

Walk these streets and more particularly the small narrow ones or the even smaller ones which sit behind them with names like Back Piccadilly and Back Thomas Street and it is still possible to get a sense of the city’s past.

More so because a fair number of the late 18th and early 19th century workers home and workshops have survived.

Detail from Green’s map of Manchester 1794

They were built just as Manchester was beginning to grow into something new and exciting on the back of commerce and cotton.

A place Asa Briggs described as “the shock city of the Industrial Revolution” and one that attracted visitors who came to gawp at the mills, the smoke, noise and great show warehouses, taking away vivid memories of the sheer frenetic activity of a new type of city.

Now there is no getting away from the fact that there was here also a lot of sorrow, blighted lives and a sense that for those working in the mills, living hard by the canals and factories and existing in awful housing conditions Manchester was no easy place to inhabit.

It was also a place of overcrowding, poor sanitation, and long hours of work which were recorded by Kay, Engels and others.

My old friend Richard Buxton’s family had moved to New Cross from rural Prestwich in the late 18th century and exchanged fields for those narrow mean streets and courts.

But during this period it was possible to walk just a few minutes from Piccadilly or New Cross and be in fields, with fresh streams and endless expanses of open countryside.

Richard Buxton is a case in point.  The family home may have been in a crowded little terrace off Great Ancoats Street but where he began work was just where the city met the country.

Port Street, 1960

In 1798 he was apprenticed at the age of twelve to James Heap in Port Street “to learn the trade of bat maker; that is a maker of children’s small leathern shoes.”

At that time Port Street was still on the edge of city.  On one side there were houses and workshops and open land on the other.

Standing with his back to the built up street Buxton could have looked out east on fields and the occasional houses with an almost uninterrupted view to Shooters Brook and the farms beyond.


Twenty years later you could still have followed the river Medlock or the Rochdale Canal out past Ancoats Hall and be open countryside by the time you reached Beswick.  Had you chosen to head west instead, once you had cleared Cornbrook with its dye works and chemical plants you were fair set for the field and farms which would eventually take you by degree to Chorlton and beyond.

Junk, 2 Dale Street

All of which would have been familiar to Buxton who was a botanist and often walked out of the city in the early to mid decades of the 19th century.

Now I know that is a long way from where we started in the Northern Quarter, so perhaps we should end where we started.

I think any one fascinated by the history of the city should just wander the area, and I suppose if you want a guide there is nothing better than Claire Hartwell’s book, Manchester, Penguin, 2001.

Our Jill and Jeff did.  The following day they were back there and in one of the shops on Dale Street Jill bought a very nice little red dress.  One of the memories and for showing off back in Eltham.

Pictures; Smithfield Wholesale Fish Market, 1900, now the Craft Centre, m59592,Port Street, 1960, H. Milligan, m04850, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, Junk, 2 Dale Street, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, detail from Green’s map of Manchester 1794, courtesy of Digital Archives, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

*apologies to Gus Elen and his music hall song, If it wasn't for the houses in between
Oh it really is a wery pretty garden
And Chingford to the eastward could be seen;
Wiv a ladder and some glasses,
You could see to 'Ackney Marshes,
If it wasn't for the 'ouses in between.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1GmDA8FU9w

** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Quarter_(Manchester)

Bits of paintings no one wants .... Mr. Wrigley, beer sellar ..... and a stroll down Spear Street in 1851

Spear Street is one of those long thin streets which you either know intimately or stumble across by accident.

That bit of Spear Street in 2023

In my case it was almost by accident on one of those aimless strolls across the back streets of the city over 40 years ago.

And I keep going back.  

Too many it may seem very unremarkable, and not worth even the few minutes it takes to venture along it from Back Piccadilly Street up to Great Ancoats Street.

After all for most of its narrow length, even the buildings have turned their back on it, and the few which do open out on to the street are little more than shuttered entrances which long ago became the playground for graffiti artists with a spray can and little imagination.

Which brings me to my pictures of the wall almost opposite Faraday Street.

Back in 2016

This bit of Spear Street has long fascinated me not least because of the mystery of the moving street, which is Back Spear Street.*

On the 1849 and 51 maps it is directly opposite Faraday Street and contained seventeen properties along its length which ran off Spear Street and then took a right to run parallel with its name sake.

The street line is still there a century later, but now most of it has vanished under buildings and a tiny bit now comes out beside my wall with its few bits of paintings no one wants.

They were added sometime in 2017 and post date the image of a reclining naked woman which had been painted the year before.  Sadly the spray can brigade have obliterated her with  giant bubble writing in shades of green.

And that could pretty much be the end of the story but as if ever there is the inevitable twist which in this case focuses on the building which was the resting place of our young woman.  

And back in 1849

Google maps list it as 51 Spear Street and in 1851 the site was home to William Wrigley who listed his occupation as beer seller.  He had been selling beer and cheer since at least 1841, and a decade later had been joined by Matilda Wood at 55, and Richard Fox at 57 who made ginger beer.

And they had competition from two more beer sellers as well as the White Lion Tavern the Crown and Mitre and the Royal Olympic Tavern.

Mr. Wrigley’s business had an annual estimated rental value of £18 which was a tad higher than the stables located next door which is now a vacant plot.

But while the building looks the part, with that cellar window which the maps show had steps down to it I can't be sure.

So sadly perhaps no ghost of Mr. Wrigley to stir at the use of his wall as a venue for paintings and Bubble writing.

Location; Spear Street, Manchester

Pictures; Spear Street in 2023, and 2016 from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and in 1849, 1844, from the OS of Manchester & Salford, 1844, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

*Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester nu 39 ............. the mystery of the moving street, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2016/09/lost-and-forgotten-streets-of_13.html

Edge Street ……. before the Northern Quarter

Now Edge Street does what the Northern Quarter does well.

Edge Street, 2021

It is a longish narrow road connecting Oak Street to High Street, and retains a few old buildings.

And it has always been a mix of residential and commercial properties, which by the middle of the last century had pretty much been forgotten by the city.

So much so that there are only a handful of photographs of the place, and none of them give you much idea of what it once looked like.

Maps from the 19th century show that the houses were a cut above some of the surrounding streets and there were just two of the notorious back to backs.

A few even had domestic servants.

In all, the 1851 census records just 28 homes, squeezed between industrial units.

Edge Street, 1851

But those 28 were home 298 people, with the houses subdivided into multi occupancy and families living in the cellars.

At number 42, the property contained 2 households, both of which contained seven individuals, while at 34 there were four Households, made up of a couple, family of six, and two more families of two and four.

Other houses were less densely populated, but multi occupancy was the rule.

The inhabitants of the street were drawn from across the UK and their occupations were what you would expect from the area.  A large number worked in the textile industry, a fair few were skilled workers, including, milliners, blacksmiths,  a saddler, and a watchmaker.  And here too were the washerwomen, and beer house keepers.  

Edge Street, 1966

Added to these there were those on the margin, who eked a living from domestic industries like the “ginger beer maker”, a few box makers, and an “umbrella maker”, as well as those who worked the streets, selling eggs, fruit, fish and second hand clothes.

In time I will go back and examine the age profiles of the residents as well and the age distribution.

For now, I know there was one pauper, and a “Greenwich Pensioner” who has served his time in the Royal Navy, and interestingly he was just 44. 

By the end of the 19th century some of the larger properties had become “eating houses” and with a nod to continuity there was still a sadler, and an umbrella manufacturer.

Today, the street like much of the Northern Quarter is the preserve of cafes, bars and restaurants, with a mixture of “odd and interesting” shops.

We were last there on the Saturday before the May Bank holiday, and like much of this part of the city, the street had been blocked off and given over to outdoor eating and drinking.

48 & 50 Edge Street

And as you do I was attracted to numbers 48 and 50, which I suppose was partly because of the bright yellow walls.  In 1851 number 50 was occupied by two households.  

These were Mr. and Mrs. Lambert and their visitor, and the Higginson family which comprised, Mr. and Mrs. Higginson and their two daughters.  He was an “earthenware dealer", and his fourteen years old daughter was a “house servant”, while their neighbour gave his occupation as painter.

Next door at 48, the property was also subdivided between a family of four and another of two.

Today, there are more than a few apartments, above the shops and restaurants and as separate developments, and it would be interesting to discover what the density of residents is in the 21st century compared to 1851, especially given the smaller side of modern flats.

But that is for another time.

Location; the Northern Quarter

Pictures; Edge Street, 2021, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, in 1851, from Adshead’s map of Manchester, 1851, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/ and Edge Street in 1966, W. Kay, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Passing Piemaster …………

January in the Northern Quarter.

Location; The Northern Quarter

Picture; Passing Piemaster, 2023, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Art on the street …….. the Northern Quarter

They come in many different sizes, styles and artistic quality, but the artwork across the Northern Quarter adds to the “quirky” nature of the place.

Now I know that there are heaps of towns and cities all over the place where you can see street “art” ranging from Sidney’s spray can efforts, to commissioned works which jostle for attention with the odd fading ghost sign.

And just before New Year I came across some that I liked, and which did indeed brighten up that drab spot dominated by the multi storey car park on Tib Street.

I could say more but I think that is about it.

Location; Tib Street

Pictures; Art on the street, The Northern Quarter, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Out in the Northern Quarter ……

Parked up

Location; Newton Street, Manchester

Picture; Parked Up, 2023, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Out in the Northern Quarter …… the poster

I became a regular at the Royal Exchange Theatre some time around 1977, just a year or so after it opened with its futuristic looking structure.

Back then I got a season ticket and while there were sometime productions which I didn’t enjoy there were plenty more that were fun, electrifying and totally memorable.

Some were high theatre while others like Leaping Ginger and a heap of farces were the best anecdote to a bleak week in the middle of winter or a rainy June.

We tried to get tickets for the latest musical but left it too late, leaving me just to reflect on some of those earlier productions and wonderful afternoons in the bar.

Location; Tib Street, Manchester

Picture; the poster, 2023, and Vintage Royal Exchange, 2001, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Forgotten gardens of Manchester …….. no 1.... in a car park

Now, I say forgotten but it may just be that the little garden at the bottom of Hilton Street is just resting, and its gardeners will return.

We first came across it back in 2012, and have watched with interest over the next seven years as the plants matured and lost that new look.

But last Saturday it was a tad overgrown and unkempt and I wondered if those people who had lavished so much care on it would be coming back.

In its way the plot is in a perfect spot at that point where Hilton Street becomes a dead end, beyond which there is the car park which occupies what was once the canal basin.

This stretch of road has been finished off with stone setts, and my friend Lawrence who worked in Langley Buildings which stretches back from Hilton Street to Dale Street, tells me that the setts have “been used in making TV programs”.

And just maybe the garden featured in a programme, although I guess it is more likely that they are part of a regeneration scheme, which brightened up the car park.

All of which led me to explore the plot through time, as you do.

In the late 18th century this area was still fields, which was quickly developed with the coming of the Rochdale Canal.

By the 1840s the garden site comprised a timber yard and a number of domestic properties running back to Brewer Street, three of which were back to backs, most of which had gone by the early 1930s, and remaining buildings by 1951.

I suspect there will be someone who can tell me whether the spot remained undeveloped during the next half century, and I hope there will be someone who can tell me more about the gardens.

We shall see.

Location; Manchester

Picture; the Hilton Street garden, 2021, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and the spot in 1851  from Adshead’s map of Manchester, 1851, courtesy of Digital Archives, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/ 

The history lesson on the street …………

Now, I like the way that you can come across a bit of history on a Manchester Street.

Which in this case is not a building where you go looking for clues to its past or a whole street which reveals its story in lots of different ways, but a simple slab of writing offering a quirky slant on a bit of the past.

Here on Turner Street Andy encountered just such a bit of history, and when the  lock down is truly, really over, I think he will have a drink in the Abel Heywood to ponder over what he has read.

And then consult his many books to follow up on the story.

Or he may just stay in he pub and have another drink.

We shall see.

Either way I await his next email.

On the other hand he might set himself another project which involves the frequent return to the said street, avoiding the pub and concentrating on the developments in the area, including the one which see a set of apartments rise on the empty piece of land on Red Lion Street.

And for those unsure where this is, it is the road that runs off Turner Street down past the Abel Heywood to terminate at Church Street.

It is a development I have already written about and is the plot is there on his last picture.*

Location; the Northern Quarter

Pictures; a bit of history, a pub and what Ms Jessie Heywood did

*Gaze upon Red Lion Street all you who are curious ….. and lament its passing, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2021/03/gaze-upon-red-lion-street-all-you-who.html

Two pictures ……. three years ………and that sculpture .......... Church Street

 It is one of those obvious observations that  just like nature abhors a vacuum, property developers and city centre car parks tend to come together usually to the benefit of the developer.

So, like many people I have watched that plot on the corner of Church Street and Tib Street with interest, less for the car park which occupies the space and more for the imaginative way someone chose to retain a bit of the former building and then attach a fun piece of sculpture on top.

The sculpture, known as the Big Horn was designed by David Kemp and dates from 1999.

And I won’t be the only one who thought such a thing was in keeping with the character of the Northern Quarter, which over the last quarter of a century has reinvented itself from a slightly run down area waiting for something to happen into a quirky and interesting place.

But as Andy’s two pictures show, fun and silliness will give way to new shinny developments, and what was a cark park is now a very big new building.

Not all, however is lost because according to the Manchester City Council Planning Portal, the plan was to bring the Big Horn out of storage and re-erect it on Tib Street at its junction with Short Street.*

That application was dated from 2017 and given that I didn’t know of the plans to save it and relocate it I have never gone looking for it, but I will now.

Although I suspect Andy will include it as one of his next projects.

Leaving me just to throw in that the car park site in 1911 was listed as, “Thomas Waterhouse & Co, merchants”, and “Harrison & Co carpet factors” 

Location; Manchester

Pictures; Church Street, 2018, and 2021, from the collection of Andy Robertson

*118552/FO/2017 | Erection of former Tib Street Car Park ' Big Horn' sculpture at 1st and 2nd floor level at junction of Tib Street and Short Street. | Afflecks Palace 52 Church Street Manchester M4 1PW, Manchester City Council Planning Portal, https://pa.manchester.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=documents&keyVal=P0YHUGBCIM300

Gaze upon Red Lion Street all you who are curious ….. and lament its passing

Now, I am of course playing a little hard and fast with the passing of Red Lion Street.

Red Lion Street, 2021

Even after the planning application has been acted on and a new set of apartments have risen from what is presently open land, the street will still be there.

Andy was on the street this week and the clue in his picture are those builder's boards, which led me to the planning application, and the news that the site will become 38 apartments, taking in the plot of land from Church Street up to Catlow Lane and incorporating the former Bulls Head on Union Street.*

Like all such planning applications the submission includes a heritage statement which is always a fascinating read, and places the site in its historical context.

Red Lion Street, 2014

Not that I am going to quote the document, because it ain’t mine to do so, but if you follow the link I think you will not be disappointed.**

Instead I shall quote Andy and include a picture he took of the same place back in March 2014, which he says “is one of the very first of my pictures to appear on the blog. 

As you can just about see from image 1 it has now been demolished”.

Since that first picture he had kindly provided over 640 photographs for the blog, many of which have chronicled the slow decline of a building, its demolition, and the stages by which a new one has risen from the ground.

As I keep telling him, there are a unique record of how the city and some of the surrounding areas of Greater Manchester have been transformed over the last two decades.

Red Lion Street, 2014, of the first on the blog

That said his back catalogue dates from the early 1990s, allowing for heaps more pictures and stories.

Location, Manchester, 

Pictures; Red Lion Street, 2014-2021, from the collection of Andy Robertson

*CDN/19/0126 | Discharge of conditions 5 (Details), 10 (SECBD), 11 (Surface Water), 12 (Archaeology), 13 (SUDS1), 14 (SUDS 2) and 19 (Noise) attached to application ref no 113713/FO/2016 | Red Lion Street / 2 Union Street Manchester M4 1PT, Manchester City Council Planning Portal, https://pa.manchester.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=documents&keyVal=PMUZTNBCKSV00

**Written Scheme of Investigation, https://pa.manchester.gov.uk/online-applications/files/A06413E85A9DFC3ACF427D56A8EDAA14/pdf/CDN_19_0126-WRITTEN_SCHEME_OF_INVESTIGATION-1104144.pdf

Lost on Thomas Street with the ghosts

Now I don’t pretend this is the best picture of a window, but gaze on it with interest, because soon it will be gone and with it the history, stories and ghosts of all the people who have lived and worked here back into the early decades of the 19th century.

We are on Thomas Street between John Street and Kelvin Street in a row of properties of which only the popular Al-Faisel still trades.

But soon they will move out for another site on Thomas Street, because the remaining buildings are unsafe.

A recent City Council survey showed that numbers 56 down to Kelvin Street were damaged in recent storms and some interior walls were bowed.

Not that this should surprise anyone given that for over a decade and maybe more, they have been unoccupied, with the their fading shop signs announcing that one business had been “Established in 1861”, another had traded “Cash and Carry” and the last carried the sign "Wearhouse" hinting at its final activity.

Occasionally the fronts are hijacked by posters advertising events in the Northern Quarter, or for businesses which are thriving.

Go back to 1911 and Al-Faisel’s was Lord’s Restaurant with the remaining strip occupied by Tap & Co “ticket writers”, Mr William Freeman, hairdresser and George Clegg, stationers.

Sixty years earlier and they were home to a baker, glass merchant, a blacksmith and an umbrella manufacturer, and with a bit of further research we should be able to push back to the date they were built.

This will involve a trawl of the maps, census returns and rate books which will fasten that date and give us a comprehensive record of those who worked in this block and called it home for two centuries.

But for now I will finish with Peter’s painting of Al-Faisel, made in 2014, which will soon, like that window become a piece of our history.

Well I had but then I came across Steven Marland's excellent blog on the Al-Faisal and the history of Thomas Street which added more than a few puzzels I had been too lazy to go looking for.*

And so I commend Al Faisal – Thomas Street Manchester from Mooch.*

*Al Faisal – Thomas Street Manchester from Mooch, https://modernmooch.com/2018/10/03/al-faisal-thomas-street-manchester/


Location; Thomas Street, the Northern Quarter

Picture; 56 7 58 Thomas Street, 2018, and 2014 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Painting;  Al-Faisel ©2014 Peter Topping Paintings from Pictures
Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk
facebook: www.facebook.com/paintings frompictures

Shapes in the city

Now I always like those urban pictures which offer up shapes against the sky.

And clearly Andy Robertson does too, because he took this one of the Crowne Plaza with the CIS behind.

Location; Manchester

Picture; City shapes, 2018, Manchester, from the collection of Andy Robertson

The untold story of that house on Tibb Street .......

Now there will be a story about this space.

It will include the people who lived and worked there and a heap more about when it was built and what that tells us about this bit of the city.

We are on Tibb Street just down from the junction with Whittle Street and hard by Gullivers which many will remember as the Albert Hotel but none now will be able to claim that they drank in it when it  went variously under the name of the Kings Arms, the Coronation and the Queens Stores Vaults.

None of which is about the demolished property sporting that metal box protruding from the wall or its derelict neighbour.

I will go looking for the history of the building and its possible future.

But for now I shall just leave it that.

Location; Tibb Street




Picture; Tibb Street, 2018 from the collection of Andy Robertson

More surprises in the Northern Quarter .......

If you go down to the Northern Quarter be ready for a few surprises.

Of all the places in the city it is one of those which seem to change with the weather.

Now that is not surprising when you think of the large number of very old buildings, more than a few of which are tired and some that are “past their sell by date”.

Add to this the large number of small businesses which open, serve a need and close as fashion and the rents change.

Many of us will remember when this area was not the Northern Quarter and was the hub of the wholesale food trade and later still when it fell on hard times with the closure of the markets and a period when it was waiting for something to happen.

All of which is now in the past and as Andy discovered last week bits of Thomas Street are being “done to”, just what that means is unclear but it looks like it is going to happen to what was , 46 and 48 Thomas Street.

There was also a rumour on social media that someone had plans for Al-Faisal at number 58, which has been serving up wonderful food since 1992.

I went on to the planning portal to check but was relieved to find no application for alternative use, which means I think it is time to celebrate the restaurant with reminder of Peter Topping’s painting he did in 2014.*

Location; Thomas Street

Pictures; The Northern Quarter, 2018 from the collection of Andy Robertson

* Eating out in the Northern Quarter, now and 100 years ago, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=Al+Faisal

In the Northern Quarter ....... 4 years after I first walked into the Manchester Craft and Design Centre

Now not the most zippy of titles I know but 49 years ago I stumbled across the place and yesterday I was back there.

Of course 49 years ago it was the retail fish market which had opened in 1873 and closed just a century later.

Just nine years later it reopened as the craft centre and we have been going there ever since.

And yesterday I was there with a purpose, firming up an order for two rings from one of the shops.*

In time I will return to the story of those two rings and to the excellent service we received, but for now I shall reflect on that old fish market, for here was where I saw my first cod.

Not the boil in the bag or even the battered fish variety but the real thing, from head to tail, and looking very big.

We had got there quite late in the day and things were quiet, but that pungent smell of fish on ice, and the banter of the traders reminded me of Billingsgate Fish Market by the Thames but that also is another story for another time.

Location; Manchester Craft and Design Centre, Oak Street, http://www.craftanddesign.com/our-history/

Picture; looking in, June 2017 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*R A Designer Jewellery, Manchester, http://www.manchesterjewellers.co.uk/

Down in the Northern Quarter

I like the Northern Quarter.

The name may be new and there is lots of new development but there are still a shed load of quirky shops and interesting things to see
.

Location; the Northern Quarter, Manchester

Picture; the Northern Quarter, 2014, from the collection of Andrew Simpson 

Smithfield Market Hall ........... all clean and restored

Now the old Smithfield Market Hall always seemed to me to me to sum up the sad decline of this bit of Manchester.

Peter's painting of the hall based on an earlier photograph he took in 2000

Once it was a bustling hub of activity dominated by Smithfield Market which had opened in 1822 and according to one writer was so extensive that, “it would be difficult to point out anything in the three kingdoms of nature - animal, vegetable, or mineral - that cannot be procured here.”*

But things change and with the removal of the wholesale market out to the east of the city in the 1970s the area lost much of its purpose.

For many this was further underlined by the loss of all those pet shops on Tib Street which like the wholesale markets drew people in.

And the old Market Hall on Swan Street just epitomised that decline.

Its once bright stonework had been darkened by the soot of countless coal fires and industrial chimneys and these were then plastered with all manner of posters for long forgotten concerts, companies that had ceased to trade and products which no one used or could remember.

I visited it around 1986 when it was being used as a skills training centre for young people and more recently there were grand plans to settle the archives of the County Records Office in the building.

But the students moved out and the County Records office went to Central Ref after the library’s makeover.

And while the old Market Hall stood empty the surrounding area was transformed.

Peter's photograph of the hall in 2016

The Victorian wholesale fish market was converted into a craft centre, new small businesses  opened up accompanied by a mix of quirky restaurants and bars and added to all these were those fascinating wall paintings some of which dominate gable ends and make the Northern Quarter an interesting place to visit and to live.

And not to be left out the Market Hall has had its own transformation, starting with those walls which have been cleaned and extending to the restoration of the inside.

So it is fitting that Peter should have painted the Market Hall  leaving me to hope that it finds a new purpose to match the exciting developments around it.

Peter used an old photograph from 2000 and he pointed out "that the shutters and windows have been overlayed from reference to how the hall was in 2000 I have guessed at the actual because I only had part of the hall to refer to. So in that  respect although the painting is © 2016 it is from  a reference taken in 2000."

And  for those interested in the hall's transformation, Peter added his photograph  taken a few days ago.

Location; Manchester

Painting; Smithfield Market Hall, © 2016 Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures
Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

Photograph; the Hall in 2016, ©  Peter Topping,

* Duffield, H G Stranger’s Guide to Manchester 1850

Out in the Northern Quarter with an artist

I like the idea of a painting of a painting.

We were out in the Northern Quarter researching the new Manchester Pub book and stopped to marvel at the sheer size of the image on the gable end.

And as you do we swapped stories of other such “street paintings” with two chaps working for Vodafone.

They had just come across a new one round the corner and off Peter went to look.

Now as everyone knows he is the artist and so I was not surprised when yesterday he sent over his painting of two of those paintings.

All four of us pondered on who was responsible for the originals and who had commissioned them, and the effort which had gone into heir production.

At which point I am very confident that someone will know and quick as a flash will come up with the name, the art funded project and a list of all the others across the Northern Quarter.

We shall see.

Location; Northern Quarter

Painting; montage, of the paintings at the back of Tib Street, near Brightwell walk © 2016 Peter Topping

Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk