Manchester Venues 219 to 220

In 2017 a new variation of the ‘Mackie Mayor’ food hubs, or perhaps more so a mirror of the BoxPark in Shoreditch, was opened by Bruntwood Property Group on Oxford Road which was named Manchester Hatch. It is situated just beyond the old BBC buildings and lies underneath the Mancunian Way motorway bridges.

My first memory of those bridges was in 1985 as part of a very early morning trog back into the city centre from the Manchester International venue after a fabulous seminal Husker Du gig. The reasons behind that particular march were there that there no late trains in those days and the walk was followed by a restless kip in Manchester Victoria station waiting rooms before subsequently catching the 6am train home.  

Hatch complex. Image Credit manchestersfinest.com

Hatch lived up to its name as it was comprised of a suite of around thirty colourful repurposed shopping containers which housed various local and independent food and drink traders including Kongs, Parmogeddon, House of Habisha and OL Brewery. There were three separate bars and in the middle of the central space there was a large food courtyard where I once grabbed some tea prior to a gig at Castlefield Bowl.

The name also implied that it was specifically for small pop up businesses to then be able to grow into more bespoke bricks and mortar sites. It was open seven days a week from 12 noon, and the contracts stipulated that each trader was required to be operational when the overall venue was open and their retention was desirable to endeavour to create favourites for footfall to return regularly. Due to their close proximity to the universities, they were a key component of Freshers Week.  

At one stage the overall business was achieving a £3.5m turnover, however in the summer of 2023 it all came to an abrupt and inglorious end. The traders were initially given a very short notice closure period, which was subsequently extended after an understandable backlash to October 2023 and this then transpired to be its final closure date.   

It was then scheduled to be taken over by STACK who already have existing sites in Leeds, Middlesbrough and Newcastle, the latter directly outside St James football stadium.  Initial plans were for it to open by the end of 2024 after a full refurbishment with the original Hatch traders being given first refusal within the revamped site, but to this day the area remains closed.

Venue nightclub. Image Credit Manchester Evening News.

They also incorporated a small stage where live performers would play on a Thursday, Friday and Saturday whilst you were dining or imbibing and I saw two such acts there on different occasions, they were namely Reggae Collective and The Events. At other times a DJ was employed from a local record shop to provide the tuneage which apparently included ‘non-offensive hip hop’ which instantly reminds me of the Parental Advisory label initiative instigated by Tipper Gore in 1985.

I will then move across the city to take you to the Manchester Venue nightclub located at 29 Jacksons Row just above Deansgate. It is a student based establishment that first opened its doors in December 2006 and has no dress code apart from an aversion to football tops and has a 400 capacity.  

It is open from Wednesday to Saturdays with a theme event each night, namely Jam Wednesdays (including live gigs), DISORDER Thursday, Live Forever on Friday and Independence Saturday. To be honest, I was barely aware of its existence until it became a surprising addition to the 2019 Dot to Dot festival roster, so naturally I had to make a visit alongside the other twenty one gigs attended that day, it was a proper shoe leather erosion event!  

We arrived there about 5.30pm on a sunny day and headed down the stairs into the sparsely populated dimly lit basement with the obligatory sticky carpeting. I recall a large poster on the wall with a musical version of the Usual Suspects picture including David Bowie and Iggy Pop amongst others.

Stanleys kitted out. Image Credit facebook.

The band on stage was The Stanleys, a four piece from Wigan and they are supporters of their local footy team, so much so they appeared in the recent 26/27 home kit launch. They have released a slew of singles and appeared on the Strummerville stage at Glastonbury in 2025. It is refreshing that on their upcoming tour they are supporting their local venues by performing two nights at the Snug in Atherton, unsurprisingly both already sold out.

It is always very odd attending nightclubs in the afternoon, thus after their set we re-emerged from the dingy den looking like vampires squinting into the bright light!  

Lancaster Venues 35 to 36

Our next port of call at the 2025 Lancaster Live festival was the Lancaster Golden Lion. This is one of the oldest of the town’s public houses as one has existed on this very spot on Moor Lane since the 15th century.  This hostelry sat on route from Lancaster Castle to Gallows Hill and is allegedly the venue where prisoners were allowed one last beverage on the way to their execution, and this list includes the famous Pendle Witches.

One local legend pertaining to this is that one tee-total chap refused the offer of a last drink, (not even a diet coke) and was then summarily hanged. Had he sensibly stayed for a cold one he would have been in the warm environs of the pub when his pardon was delivered by a courier. The lesson here is to never refuse an ale when it is offered to you, an approach I heartily approve of!   

Pendle Witches. Image Credit pinterest.com

The building is purported to be haunted, where one regular spectre is the nun whose job it was to escort the condemned up the hill. It was also locally known at one point as the Whittle, the gruesome back story behind that moniker is that there was a mineral water well very close by and the local butcher used it to wash his whittle after quartering the rebels in 1715. Unsurprisingly it was never used again for drinking purposes!

None of the original building remains now, however the cellars have been used for centuries, and it is believed that within those there is a secret doorway that takes you to a veritable maze of tunnels that smugglers used in those days.

It is nowadays a small, homely spot with open mic nights on a Tuesday, live bands on a Thursday and a Saturday and folk nights on a Sunday. On the downstairs stained-glass window, you can still clearly see the imprint of Lion Ales. The Lion brewery was located in Little Harwood (their beer was also conversely known as Matthew Brown) and in my early boozing days in the mid-80’s, the town of Blackburn was awash with Lion pubs alongside many Thwaites houses, the other local brewer.

Golden Lion. Image Credit Epicure & Culture.

The huge conglomerate of Scottish and Newcastle made an offer of £186 million that the brewery could not feasibly refuse in 1987 but then they shamefully did not promote them and chose to close Lion Ales down for ever a couple of years later, and that as they say was that!

I only recall visiting there once before prior to attending a Thrills gig at the Sugarhouse round the corner in 2003. On my second attendance there was a Morecambe indie pop four piece called Life in Neon on stage. They had only formed a year earlier and had just released their first album, which was titled ‘Live in Neon’ and was recorded at Lancaster Great Hall.        

We then mulched the short distance to Church Street and headed into the Lancaster Stonewell Tap which dates back to 1602.This establishment was known for many years as the Stonewell Tavern before new landlord Tim Tomlinson took over ownership in December 2017 added to his existing pubs The White Cross and The Merchants 1688.  

He decided to take the hostelry in a different direction by following the trend of craft beer establishments and this also generated the new rebranded name. The location of Stonewell does have some local precedent as it appears on the first known Lancaster map drafted in 1610. The pub has also previously been known as Paddy O’Mulligans but the one with the most longevity is when it was the White Horse for a period of 180 years.

Stonewell Tap. Image Credit bpprodstorage.blob.core.windows.net

It has always been a well known music pub with live gigs taking place on Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays with a vinyl DJ hitting the decks on Friday evenings. It also has regular inclusion in the annual Lancaster Beer and Pie Festival roster.

In its Mulligans phase they had visits from Countdown’s Carol Vorderman, TV gardener Charlie Dimmock and actor Timothy West and the ‘Rochdale Cowboy’ Mike Harding used to be a regular participant in their trad music session nights.

On our late afternoon foray, we caught a portion of a local three-piece folky act called Filthy Laugh. They have been in existence for over a decade and have prolifically recorded seven albums in the last five years. Their name derives from a lyric in the Belle and Sebastian song ‘The Boy with the Arab Strap’.