Category: Manchester

Manchester Venue 82 – The Castle Hotel

The Manchester Castle Hotel located at the top end of Oldham Street was built in the late 18th century and began trading as a public house in 1816 and it is estimated the grand olde world interior complete with Victorian tiles and mosaic floor dates as far back as 1897. It has had many previous monikers including The Crown and Sceptre, The Crown and Anchor and The Clock Face.

Manchester Castle Hotel. Image Credit Flickr.

There has always been a musical ethos within the pub incorporating the involvement of John McBeith who went on to launch the Roadhouse venue, fondly remembered by me as being the first venue I ever saw Mogwai. The Castle was also the site of a famous John Peel interview with Ian Curtis in 1979 and Fall’s Mark E Smith also chose the pub as a meeting point for some of his abrasive monologue interviews.

The pub fell on tough times and closed in 2008, before subsequently being refurbished and reopened with a linkage to its sister pub Gulliver’s across the road and has gone from strength to strength since that date.

Despite being a fairly small hostelry, they have incorporated an eighty-capacity venue off the corridor to the rear of the pub. Facing the small door entrance is the mixing desk and the stage is to the right, and I must say it is one of the most cramped areas I have encountered when a gig is sold out!

I have attended eleven gigs in total with only the first one being where I have paid a singular ticket to see the band, the others being part of other multi wrist band events such as Carefully Planned and Dot to Dot Festivals.

Thus, on 23/10/11 I saw Veronica Falls who were a four-piece formed in London in 2009. They formed from previous bands The Royal We and Sexy Kids and are still active though sadly their drummer Patrick Doyle died in 2018. They first came to my attention via their excellent debut single ‘Love in a Graveyard’ which was a combination of C86 meets the Raveonettes, and they were good fun in a live setting.   

Veronica Falls. Image Credit Clash

Three years later, Space Blood were in town, a two piece slightly jokey instrumental combo from Chicago and I would place them in the math rock vein, and they have a couple of albums on the books. The following year I witnessed bands called Face, Georgio Tuna  and The Stay Aways, an all-female four piece based in Brighton and London. 

In 2017 I saw a young rapper called Tobi Sunmola from Nigeria, who moved from the country of his birth at the age of 17 and is now living in Manchester. The following year I saw Grand Prix and Thyla, the latter being a four-piece dream pop band who all met while attending university in Brighton. When one of their original guitarists departed in 2021, they decided to call it quits and their final ever gig was at the Hope and Ruin in Brighton on 25/05/22.

In May 2019 I saw another four-piece band called SUN SILVA who initially got together whilst at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Six months later I witnessed Winnie and the Rockettes, a funk and soul band who have supported Chaka Khan and Martha Reeves and the Vandellas and have also headlined the famous Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club. My latest and only post-Covid visit thus far was in April 22 to see a Manchester band called Another Country $$$$.

Manchester Venues 79 to 81

Heading into Didsbury Village down Wilmslow Road from the East Didsbury side brings you first to the Crown Pub. This establishment was cited for flouting the COVID rules and was shut down for over a year before recently reopening under new ownership. Nearby to there is the terrific Sangam Indian restaurant which I have frequented many times.

Closer to the metro stop lies the Fletcher Moss pub, previously the Albert, which I must pay homage to as it is a proper old-fashioned boozer with fires on in the winter and a large beer garden to bask in during the summer months. It has always been run by the Hyde’s Brewery and is firmly entrenched in the ‘Blue side of Manchester’ camp, so much so they lay buses to and from the Etihad for Manchester City games on match days.

A hundred yards away on School Lane you would find the Manchester Botanist. This establishment was previously a Wetherspoons pub called the Milson Rhodes before in 2016 becoming the 12th branch of the Botanist chain. The Botanist pubs all have an inviting cosy layout, on my first visit there it was more in the restaurant domain, but they have recently recalibrated to having a larger drinking only area.  

The Milson Rhodes, predecessor to the Botanist. Image Credit ssmcamra.co.uk

I have seen five musical acts here, the first two being a local singer/songwriter called Liam. The third being an unnamed band and the remaining couple being a geezer called Piano Man who tinkled away in the background with laconic deliveries of easy listening cover songs, though he did have a fine singing voice. The last of these attendances was the cold Christmas Eve just passed.

Many of these pubs referenced are quite often listed in either the original or updated Didsbury Dozen. This is a renowned list of twelve commended places to visit though attempting all of them on one evening could be detrimental to your health!

Picking up the route again on Wilmslow Road brings you the Dog and Partridge. Recently Paul Heaton of Housemartins and Beautiful South fame generously placed money behind the bar of 60 pubs to celebrate his 60th birthday, including this establishment. Also, In the last year he ensured the prices at his gig at the Manchester Arena were capped at a reasonable level to consider the impact of the current cost-of-living crisis, much like Billy Bragg did all those years ago where he had stickers on his albums to pay no more than £4.99. All in all, Mr Heaton sounds like a thoroughly decent principled geezer!

Next door is the Dockyard, previously the Stokers where in an extremely busy setting I watched the 2018 World Cup England Quarter and Semi Final matches. The owners at this point also ran their sister pub of the Plough in Heaton Moor.

A couple of strides away is Rudy’s Pizza restaurant which was previously Rafa’s Tapas where on 30/11/17 we perched on seats on the street opposite Manchester Didsbury Library to watch the Christmas light switch on (even Santa arrived on a fire engine!) which also included a set from the Didsbury Brass Ensemble.

Didsbury Library. Image Credit wikimedia.

On the same side of the road as the library is the Station Pub owned by Marston’s brewery where they host music three nights a week, but I have not yet seen an act play there but I have sampled their fine Guinness and sat in their cosy back room watching the Masters Golf.

Opposite there is the Manchester Head of Steam, a pub chain of eight venues created in 1995 that is owned by Cameron’s Brewery based up in Hartlepool. The Didsbury branch opened in February 2018, and I twice have seen a young folk singer called Callum Rory Norton play there.