Month: June 2024

Manchester Venue 123 to 125

Manchester St Ann’s Square near Deansgate in the city centre has a long history dating back to 1708. When the Act of Parliament that granted the initial build of St Ann’s Church was approved there was an additional stipulation that a 30-yard space should be retained for the fair which had toll entry gates and was a primary place to hire servants. The fair area then became the square and was named after the monarch of the time.

The adjoining conservation space was home to the Cotton Exchange which morphed into the current Royal Exchange in 1874, at that stage containing the largest trading floor in the country. The building is now utilised as a thriving theatre.  

St Ann’s Square with Royal Exchange Theatre. Image Credit Manchester Evening News.

On one corner of the square is the back entrance to one of Manchester grandest pubs Mr Thomas’s Chop House which was opened in 1867 by its founder Thomas Stubbs. It is a Grade II listed building and has many of the original features. The main entrance is on Cross Street directly opposite one of my favourite Chinese restaurants in town, the Rice Bowl.

Nearby is the legendary basement bar Corbieres initially opened by ex-Manchester City footballer Mike Doyle in 1978. It has always had the reputation of having a fine content on the jukebox and I always liked the tale of punters in there backing the winner of the 1983 Grand National on a horse called Corbiere and spending the winnings on ale in the bar for the rest of the day!

St Ann’s Square is one of the many sites utilised for the Christmas markets but is also the hub for other festivals. One such event was the annual Jazz festival which was based there in May 2019.  Coinciding with the day of this event, John Dewhurst and I were burning shoe leather across the length and breadth of the city in attendance at the sorely missed Dot to Dot festival.

Corbieres Bar. Image Credit manchestersfinest.com

As we passed through the square a band called Heavy Leno were on stage and as there was link up that year with the Manchester Food and Drink festival, we took the opportunity to grab a seat for a beer and a pizza stop. This was in addition to other 20 venues we visited that day! Earlier this year in March the Irish festival tent run by the O’Sheas bar was located there and I witnessed a band called The Cullodens play.

The aforementioned Manchester St Anns Church was only the third church to be consecrated in the city. The church narrowly escaped damage from a Luftwaffe raid during World War 2 and apparently still has a burnt-out incendiary bomb which landed on the roof.

It contains within an organ that dates to 1730 which has expanded over the years and now contains 54 speaking stops. The church has for a long time been linked up with the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM), and students perform recitals there. I happened to be passing one afternoon in June last year and I could hear tuneage so snuck in and I caught a portion of one such RNCM Organ recital.   

St Ann’s Church. Image Credit Geograph Britain and Ireland.

The adjacent street to the church is Manchester King Street which for many years has been one of the main shopping streets in the city and was the first city centre street to be fully given over to pedestrian use in 1976. On my birthday in 2019 we have been for a meal and discovered there was a pop-up stage in place on King St, the reason for which I cannot recall. Performing on the said stage was a local singer songwriter called Dee Olares.  

Bolton Venue 1 – Bar Four in the Vaults

Bolton is a former textile mill town in Greater Manchester and in its industrial peak in the 1920’s there were over 200 cotton mills in the area employing 36,000 workers people making it one of the most concentrated cotton spinning centres in the world. The northern side of town faces Rivington Pike and the locally famous Winter Hill TV mast on the West Pennine Moors. Famous ex-punters include comedian Peter Kay, steeplejack Fred Dibnah and boxer Amir Khan.  They also have a baseball team based there with the memorable moniker of Robots of Doom.

Bolton Robots of Doom emblem. Image Credit news.ltn.com.tw

My first forays into Bolton were on football trips and in fact the first ever away game I attended on my own following Preston was at their old ground of Burnden Park with the terraces adjacent to Normid superstore! A group of us went over on the train, we drew 2-2 and the game took place on 17th December 1983.

The significance of that date is contained in the tale that when I was walking back to the station and put my transistor radio on (pre-internet!) to check the football scores I was instantly approached by two policeman. The reason for their interest was for any details of the news headlines, but I had only picked up on the sports results so could not provide any information. It transpired the only news headline that day was of the IRA Harrods bombing in London.       

Many football trips followed including a couple at their new stadium at Horwich retail park when they relocated there in 1997. A particular nadir was in May 1993 when Bolton beat us 1-0 to gain promotion and that result also relegated us, a particularly fun afternoon that one!  

The old away end at Burnden Park, at least you could do some shopping after! Image Credit Fine Art America.

I recall in the mid 1990’s I had a prang in my motor which necessitated obtaining a new bonnet. The sourcing of that particular car part took me to an anonymous retail park under railway sidings in Bolton. The suspicious looking geezers and location was akin to completing a deal outside a lock-up in the Sweeney!

Aside from the above occurrences it is a place I have rarely frequented despite it being a 30-minute train ride from Preston as we would normally just pass through on the way to Manchester, I only have recollection of one pub trip over that way.

On a musical front, there have never been any venues of note there apart from a brief period in 2009 when a venue called the Soundhouse opened with a 650 capacity. I picked up that Glasvegas were playing there but dawdled on tickets and it subsequently sold out on me. Shortly after that gig the venue abruptly closed for good.  

However, the musical gods decided to give Bolton a second chance with the inception of the Right to Roam festival, a metropolitan multi venue music and arts event around the town centre. Jez Catlow flagged it to me as an event of interest after he attended the 2022 version. The tickets were only £10 and there were over 100 bands performing over two days, though not altogether sure how the organisers break even.

Marcus, Anita and I decided to head over to catch up with Jez’s crew on the Saturday of the July 23 shindig. The trip started surreally as at my local train station there was a pillock who instead of taking the standard route via the main road between platforms decided to hop across the actual track. I don’t whether there is a third ‘live’ rail on my route, but if so, he avoided it!

The ticket pick up point was in the basement of the Grade II listed Market Hall which opened in 1855 and encompasses an area of 7000 square yards and at the time it was cited as ‘the largest covered market in the kingdom’.

Bolton Market Hall. Image Credit flickr.com

Next door was Bolton Bar Four in the Vaults which opened its doors in 2022 and championed music and young upcoming acts in an intimate setting. First up there was the former Hacienda glass collector and Inspiral Carpets frontman Tom Hingley with an acoustic set. Later, we saw Double Cross who were an acoustic harmonica and guitar duo.  

I have just read that the bar is closing as they are a making a loss and the business will be moving into the new market food hall where they hope to maintain the music slant with open mic nights at weekends. The owners will continue to run their other music sites, the Ramp and the Loft, both in nearby Horwich.