Manchester Venue 216 – Grafton Arms

Around eighteen months ago Gill had to undergo an unexpected major operation, but mercifully it went as well as could be expected and after a lengthy convalescent period she is now back fighting fit. One by product of this fraught period is that I gained unwanted but extensive knowledge of Manchester Royal Infirmary (MRI).

A few years ago, they closed a suite of the outlying suburb establishments such as Pendlebury and Booth Hall hospitals and created a giant central hub. This behemoth of a site contains the aforementioned MRI, Manchester Royal Eye hospital, St Marys hospital and the Royal Manchester Children’s hospital and other education and research facilities.

It is situated within the Chorlton and Medlock suburb between Oxford Road and Upper Brook Street (A34), just beyond the Academy venues and lies opposite Whitworth Park. It is a mile long, and I know that as I have measured it when driving in! It contains two large car parks with commendable staff parking spaces available from the third floor upwards, though it can be a conundrum to obtain a public spot during visiting hours.   

Manchester hospital grounds. Image Credit curtismoore.co.uk

There is also a McDonalds, Starbucks and even an M&S Simply Food there. Several buses weave their way through, and it could be a mini country itself, in the mould of Vatican City! On a musical front the local Lime Art Studio undertake a lunchtime concert series which takes place in the Eye Hospital Atrium. They stage around 100 gigs annually with performances from jazz, classical and world artists.

As you depart the more northerly car park your eyes land on the MRI social club which is for staff members only with a £3 annual subscription. They have live sports and in a rather quaint throwback style they have a DJ (quite often DJ Billko based on their websites) on Payday Friday. Though as I wandered past I did wonder if they have ever had bash em up bands performing live there.

The club is now based in the hospital grounds but has had previous different locations and they also had a football team affiliated to them back in the 1970’s who staged their matches at the allegedly haunted and long closed Barnes Hospital in Cheadle. This was previously a mental asylum which always invokes memories for me of Arkham Asylum in Batman’s Gotham city, an establishment I would not have even sent my worst enemies to!

It was also once the setting for a co-produced Italian/Spanish 1974 zombie B movie called ‘Let Sleeping Corpses Lie’ known locally as ‘Don’t Open The Window’. As ever art then later imitated life with a portion of the film dialogue featuring in the 1997 ‘Wizard in Black’ track by Electric Wizard and Carcass had a song in 2020 called ‘‘The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue’ which matched another alternative English title of the movie.  

Barnes Hospital. Image Credit mark-davis-photography.com

Many hospitals now have a Discharge lounge to provide a waiting area to receive final medication and to await transport home. We were ensconced there for three hours, and it was a remarkable place resembling nothing less than a soap opera.

There was an Asian elder woman shouting out for bespoke service in a foreign language but in the main being roundly ignored, numerous malady discussions and a regular trip advisor chap who was providing extensive reviews of the soup and sandwich options on the wards, sounding not unlike a Half Man Half Biscuit track! There were also exceedingly weatherworn but patient staff, a piano in the corner and then to put the cherry on top the priest wandered in….

Just outside the hospital grounds is the Manchester Grafton Arms public house, which has had the same name since the 1950’s and in those days, it had a reputation as a rough house street corner boozer. It has been a long standing Holts Brewery hostelry, who in 1984, demolished the original and turned it into a much larger establishment.   

It has various music icon murals on the walls within, and they have ‘Jammin’ Thursdays and open mic nights and have also staged ‘Grafton-bury’ live events. I am not a regular frequenter and have never really seen it particularly busy despite its student based location, but for obvious reasons the mention of live music has always intrigued me.

Grafton Arms. Image Credit whatpub.com

I quite often pass on the way home to the bus stop after gigs at the Academy complex and on such occasion after a Slowdive show, I could hear tuneage so wandered in. Alongside a silent TV showing Blackburn playing in the extra time of an FA Cup tie there was a chap called Davie B performing.   

My other visit thus far was in May 2025, again after another gig. Now this was an interesting one as I caught the last three tracks of Pist. I wasn’t previously aware of them but researching on the bus home informed me that they derived from Connecticut and were quite legendary in the punk pantheon. They were on the circuit initially between 1993 and 1996 and reformed in 2023. It seemed a slightly incongruous venue for them, but they were excellent.

Their driving force was Bill Chamberlain who was the guitarist and chief songwriter. I have just rather sadly read that Bill passed away last year and their final ever gig was at the Cowley Club in Brighton, so it appears I witnessed them on their concluding tour. They reminded me of Black Flag, and their last single was ‘Right to Choose’ which exemplified their hardcore sound.    

Stockport Venues 15 to 17

In the Stockport suburb of Heaton Moor you will find the Stockport Moor Top public house. There was originally a batch of six houses that were built on that spot back in 1875 and named Belmont Terrace. In 1953 the Wilsons brewery obtained four, then swiftly demolished them and built the hostelry in their place.

For a spell it was owned by Steve Pilling who at the time owned the well renowned Damson restaurant across the road, but that has now long gone. The pub had a dubious reputation back in the day and more recent refurbishments have endeavoured to change the ‘housing estate pub’ look, though its appearance does remind me of the old 1980’s Preston boozers such as the Spindlemakers and the John O Gaunt.   

Spindlemakers pub in Preston. Image Credit bloggergoogleusercontent.com

They have a large partially covered outside area that is very well populated in the summer months, the inside can be a little soulless with a large open room, but they are always friendly behind the bar. They don’t normally have live music, but I struck lucky one night when I saw a local singer called Marvin performing.

If you then weave off down Green Lane, you reach six bonny self-detached cottages on the left. These are a group of almshouses (defined as originally founded by charity) which are known locally as the ‘Ainsworth Homes’ and were originally built in 1907.   

A right turn from there takes you to the Nursery Inn which at the rear contains a beer garden which overlooks a large bowling green. Opposite the pub is the Bowerham chippy which has proper old fashioned opening hours of 11.30am to 1.45pm and 4.30 – 8.30pm, the latter times surely enabling punters to pick up their fish supper on their bumble home! A downhill path then guides you through to the huge Stockport Pyramid roundabout.

Backtracking onto Green Road brings you to the Stockport Heaton Moor Sports Club. Within their extensive grounds there is contained a rugby, lacrosse, tennis and cricket club and they were originally formed in 1899. They also stage a monthly comedy club that is a sister initiative to the nearby Didsbury comedy club.  

Heaton Moor Sports Club. Image Credit themanc.com

My one and only attendance was on a sunny day to attend the annual beer festival in August 2025, with a cricket match in full flow when we arrived. They were also staging outdoor live music, and I was finally going to see the nattily named Reservoir Dads, who are a South Manchester covers band.

I have missed them thus far on their regular appearances at the Crown pub down the road, and totally unjustifiably had the hope that their name would imply some performance in the domain of Arthur Brown or Ozzy Osbourne in his bat biting stage! I could not have been much wider of the mark as after much faffing they finally hit the stage and were exceedingly limp and even had a mum in the band that day!     

I am now transporting you from there into the heart of the city centre and the grand old marketplace where there is a plethora of pubs surrounding the indoor market hall. One such hostelry was Stockport Doctor Feelgood, which was named after the band who were formed in Essex and gained their initial following on the renowned pub rock circuit in the early 1970’s. Their most famous track would be ‘Milk and Alcohol’.

Doctor Feelgood. Image Credit manchestersfinest.com

They remain an act to this day with a much changed line up, with previous members including the original singer David Brilleaux who went on to form the influential Stiff Records in 1976. Perhaps their most famous alumni would be John Andrew Wilkinson (more regularly known as Wilko Johnson) who developed a highly unusual percussive guitar sound by playing with his fingertips and not the standard plectrum. In 2011 he garnered a part on Game of Thrones where for a couple of series he played the mute executioner Ser Ilyn Payne.

In June 2021 the pub opened as a rock bar staging live music most nights a week, but due to rising costs it closed a couple of years later. It then reopened under a new venture Amp which then closed itself eighteen months later. During its tenure the likes of Bez, Clint Boon, Miles Kane and You Me at Six performed there. My personal single foray was to see Rock Doctors, a band I had previously witnessed at the aforementioned Crown.