Author: jimmyc1968

Manchester Venues 166 to 167

Directly outside the Manchester Oxford Road station in an old coffee shop and cycle hub they have now opened the Oxford Road Tap which completes the trilogy of tap bars at Manchester stations alongside the already existing Victoria and Piccadilly Tap. I have had one visit thus far to this small tidy craft beer spot where it has a large repurposed National Rail sign and also a live timetable, so you know exactly how much time you have to drain your pint!

Oxford Road Tap. Image Credit uk.news.yahoo.com

Opposite the train station access road and the Palace Theatre you will find the Grade II listed Principal Manchester building, though it is more widely known as the Refuge Assurance building. The Refuge company was founded in 1858 and moved to its Oxford Road location in 1890.

After purchasing the site, they worked with the renowned Victorian architect Alfred Waterhouse in designing their new head office, whose previous work included London’s Natural History Museum. The grand ornate high ceiling interior was built in 1895. There were further extensions in 1905 and 1912, the latter incorporating the impressive 220ft baroque clock tower which formed the new main entrance, with clock quarters stylised with a Manchester bee, which is now synonymous with many other contemporary artefacts in the city. The latest incarnation accommodated up to 1900 clerks.

During the Second World War they constructed two air raid shelters in the basement but thankfully avoided any direct hits. The Refuge company relocated to Wilmslow in 1987, the building then becoming Charterhouse Hotel and in 1996 it was renamed as the Palace Hotel. It changed hands again in 2016 with the Manchester Refuge Bar taking over one half of the building.

Refuge Bar. Image Credit we-heart.com

There are many separate spaces in this vast space, and these include the public bar that you encounter immediately upon entry. Behind there is the Dining Room where we have visited once for a very decent Sunday lunch, it is exceedingly popular, and we had to book a couple of months in advance. Next to there is the Winter Garden area and there is additionally the Den and a Private Dining Room which can both be booked with capacities of 80 and 10 respectively.  

I had walked past this building for many years on the way to the station, but it was around 2018, a couple of years after opening, before I finally made a visit to the bar. It is also handy as an alternate though tad expensive venue to contrast the nearby fine grungy pubs and has been utilised prior to late trains and for post Ritz and Gorilla gig drinks.

They have regular DJ’s on there but in April 2024, the day we sampled our Sunday fodder, I was delighted to find that my ‘bonus gig’ banner was flashing as there was a jazz band playing in the main bar.

The aforementioned attached Manchester Principal Hotel (now renamed post-covid as the Kimpton Clocktower Hotel) was subject to an extensive £25m refurbishment in 2016 which resulted in the creation of the largest hotel ballroom in the whole of the Northwest of England. The hotel is alleged to be haunted by a grieving war widow who committed suicide by throwing herself down the staircase from the top floor and this area was only accessible to the menfolk at that time! Room 261 is also to be avoided with reports of the sounds of children playing in the hours of darkness.  

The annual Manchester Literature festival has been in place since 2006 and was built on the legacy of its forerunner the Manchester Poetry festival. It is a two-week multi venue event that occurs every October and also provides a year-round Creative Learning programme which supports the next generation of readers and writers.

Principal Hotel. Image Credit Country and Town House Magazine

One of the selected venues for the 2018 event was the Principal Hotel. Marcus had a spare ticket for an audience with the Wedding Present lead singer Dave Gedge and this took place in one of the numerous function rooms on a Sunday afternoon.

As we exited the lift I ran into Jo Davies (nee Brewer) who was one of the large crew that I used to attend the Raiders/Warehouse indie nightclub with in the early 1990’s. I was a regular there between 1985 and my last attendance on John Dewhurst’s stag do in 2005. I know the next generation of sons and daughters now attend, though I did hear last week from one of those old timers on a recent attendance that one of the DJ’s was playing Taylor Swift, by heck that would never have happened in my day!

Dave was there to talk about a book he had recently penned with the interviewer Richard Houghton called ‘All The Songs Sound The Same’. The theme of the tome was to present 300 Wedding Present stories from fans, friends and band members including one from our current PM Sir Keir Starmer. He then followed the chat by playing acoustic versions of four of the band’s finest tunes.     

Stockport Venues 9 to 10

In 1894, 4 acres of land was donated by the local Lord to Heaton Norris District Council. This area then evolved into Stockport Heaton Moor Park, which was officially opened on 17 July 1897, to coincide with Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee celebrations. The ceremony incorporated the dramatic opening of the gates with a golden key, all sounds a little Willie Wonka to me!

Over the corresponding years, facilities such as bowling greens and tennis courts were added, and it was utilised for army drills and vegetable growing during the two World Wars and also won the Britain in Bloom award in 1981. The park went through a period of decline before being revitalised by the Friends of Heaton Moor Park in 1997 where they were assisted by some lottery funding. In June 2020 a blue plaque was installed commemorating the original forerunners who initially created the park.      

Heaton Moor Park. Image Credit heatonmmorpark.co.uk

It is a bonny enclosed green space with an obligatory café at one corner and there is a natural bowl area in the middle of the park. On a recent visit we were entranced watching a dog who had the outstanding ability to dribble with a ball the size of a beach ball, a hugely impressive feat!

The bowl is also a natural amphitheatre for the location of the music stage for the annual Heaton Moor festival. We attended there on an extremely sunny July day for the 2022 shindig, the roster was compered by local Irish singer Paul Hunt who plays regular gigs at the nearby Cassidy’s bar. He introduced a young artist called Alfie who had a fine voice, and he was followed by a Stockport lass Karen James who is a Northern Soul and Motown singer.   

When the railway first arrived in Stockport in 1840, the population expanded and as a result a second place of worship was required, thus Stockport St Pauls Church was built in 1876. The octagonal tower was added in 1900, and the Grade II listed building has a capacity seating of 400. They have developed their own embroidered banners which now hang on the stone pillars, and they have developed a quiet children’s play area with soft furnishings and toys, sounds like a fun area to me!  

Stockport St Paul’s Church. Image Credit stpaulsheatonmoor.org.uk

In the church grounds, a summer event took place in July 2023 where there were interactive stalls including the ‘Electric Wire’ game monitored by the ‘Men in Sheds’ who are a local voluntary group. They commendably aim to tackle social isolation and cover learning skills in fields such as computers, woodworking, photography and general restoration.

As a bonus gig for myself, there was music provided by the Stockport Silver Band, who were formed in 1870 and currently practice in Reddish Conservative Club. They performed some quirky cover versions, but for the life of me I can’t now remember what they played!

As you progress into Stockport town centre across the M60 (not on foot!) you cannot miss the famous Pyramid or alternatively some have cited it as a Ziggurat! The building was intended initially as a ‘signature site’ within an ongoing scheme to build multiple pyramid-shaped buildings on the banks of the River Mersey.

The actual planned number is disputed but is now somewhat moot as the original developers went into administration during its construction and they had to be bailed out by their financiers The Co-operative Banking Group. Despite this it is sometimes called the ‘Stopfordian Valley of the Kings’!     

The six storey 8000 square meter site was completed in 1992 and was empty for the first three years of its life before the aforementioned Co-op took residence there until they relocated to Manchester City Centre in 2018.

Stockport Pyramid. Image Credit bbc.co.uk

The building has laid empty since then but there are now plans afoot for the award-winning restaurant chain Royal Nawaab to transform the pyramid into a huge restaurant and banqueting centre, and I recently saw their name on the structure when I was on a flight back to Manchester Airport. It will comprise a 400-cover restaurant on the ground floor, an 800 capacity first floor banqueting centre for weddings and a further 400 capacity banqueting space on the second floor. There will also be availability for 500 car parking spaces. I am very sure I will make a visit at some point.

Talk of this reminds me of the 1983 Frankie Vaughan track ‘Stockport’ with its refrain ‘Stockport, Stockport, it’s the place for me’ that was recorded at the town’s Plaza Theatre and receives periodic airplay on Radcliffe and Maconie’s 6 Music show.  

More specifically though, there is a 2023 tune called ‘Stockport Pyramid’ by Julian Homer and an even more recent Anthony Szmierek song ‘The Great Pyramid of Stockport’ containing the lines ‘Imagine what the Pharaohs could have done, with a four day working week, and a three-fingered Twix’. It is the third track on his most recent album ‘Service Station at the End of the Universe’ which has a terrific picture of the brutalist building of Forton Services on the cover!   

Anthony Szmierek album cover. Image Credit www.normanrecords.com