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’.    

Manchester Venues 217 to 218

Canal Street is now universally known as the centre point of Manchester’s Gay Village. It is located nearby to Piccadilly train station and lies opposite the new Kampus suburb. It is quite astounding how often these new areas spring up in Manchester, where I often have to peruse the map when I read about the latest one to identify where it is positioned geographically. 

Canal Street first appeared when linked to the construction of the adjacent Rochdale Canal which was initially built in 1804. This naturally resulted in various pubs and businesses being built in that area. As canal trade waned in the 1950’s (post Peaky Blinders) the area morphed into a cotton factory enclave and by night was a red light district.

Canal Street. Image Credit Manchester Evening News

As the cotton era ended it became a dark decaying area and was used for furtive meetings between gay geezers. In the unforgiving 1980’s decade the Greater Manchester Chief Constable James Anderton accused homosexuals of ‘swirling in the cesspit of their own making’, sounds like a lovely open minded chap!

That statement mirrored the abhorrent rhetoric that was being peddled out at that stage by the then prime minister Margaret Thatcher. She also introduced Section 28 in 1988 which effectively banned homosexuality and this was only repealed in 2003 after a long campaign.    

This also coincided with the shameful death sentence years of early AIDS, lovingly portrayed in Russell T Davies ‘It’s a Sin’ TV series, which even though set in London, was partially filmed in Manchester.

In 1990 the first bar opened called Manto which took over an old garage repair building, and they made the exceptionally brave move to not hide away behind unmarked doors and installed sizeable plate glass windows. It was a statement of intent but perhaps understandably did not prevent it from making a loss for the first six months as people were fearful of entering across the threshold. After those initial difficulties it began to thrive and remained there until its closure in 2013.  

Manto. Image Credit Historic England.

Another event contributing to this gradual sea change of acceptance was the endorsement of the forward thinking council who were the first to support civil partnerships and supported many non-discrimination sexuality policies.

Many bars opened there in the intervening years, and it eventually became the most successful gay village in Europe. The location featured heavily in the 1999 ‘Queer as Folk’ and the very recent ‘Tip Toe’ TV series.    

As the popularity increased it became more of a ‘go to’ destination for stag and hen outings and this introduced for a time the ‘gayness’ test. Uncle George one night fell foul of this criteria as I was allowed access, but he was denied entry as he was classed as ‘not gay enough’. I have obviously never mentioned this to him since!

On the musical front, the germination of what later became the Manchester Pride Festival commenced in 1985 with a grant of £1700 from Manchester City Council to sponsor the first event. In 2003 the Gay Village became the established location for what was by that stage a ten-day gathering.

I have never yet attended the festival but anecdotally I have heard from my festival mole Lottie that it has been marred over the last couple of years by been guilty of overselling and valid ticket holders have not even been able to access the event. Previous performers include Ariana Grande, Dannii Minogue, Rita Ora, Jake Shears, Sophie Ellis Bextor and Sugababes.

The street used to be a regular jaunt for a late drink in the 1990’s when we were creatively killing time prior to the 1.24am ghost train back to Preston after numerous gigs and the obligatory visit to Chinatown. In the last year Riggers and I have travelled over for the odd Friday night match to watch PNE and I have had a 30 minute gap at Piccadilly station before my last train home.

So, in October 2025 I decided to use that time productively and had a skelp down and wandered into Manchester The Church and there was a local act called the Alter Girls performing. The venue is owned by husband and husband team John and Antonia Hamilton who previously launched Poptastic in 1996 and also currently own Bar Pop, which is another thriving joint on the street.  

The Church Bar. Image Credit gaymapper.com

I repeated the trick in March 2026 this time venturing into Manchester Via Bar where I saw an artist called Kayleigh playing. The Via has been open since 1995 and is known locally as the ‘grande dame’ of the street. Their website informs me that they will be an active participant in the 2026 pride event with performances there including Claire Richards from Steps, Una Healy from The Saturdays, Adam Rickitt from Coronation Street and Katie Price from Brighton!