Tag: Beautiful South

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.

Manchester Venues 65 to 67

Continuing the circular route of the Sounds from the other City Festival brings us to the historic Kings Arms on Bloom Street. It is situated deep in the old industrial quarter of Salford, and it is an easy five-minute jaunt from Salford Central train station. The pub was first licensed in 1807 and the original building initially resided on the other side of the street.

Lucy Davis was a landlady there in the 19th century and after throwing her husband out for being a drunken lout, she created a profitable dance hall and den of ill repute upstairs! It has been the base for many interesting clubs, namely the North of England Irish Terrier Club, the Knitting Club and the Salford Friendly Anglers Society, the world’s oldest angling club and a sign of the final listed club is still visible on the gable end of the pub.

Many pubs fell by the wayside in this area, but the Kings continued to flourish being famously taken over in 2011 by Zena Barrie and Paul Heaton of Housemartin’s and Beautiful South fame. They embellished the artistic undertakings and a pot pourri of arts exhibitions, vaudeville, comedy, poetry nights and gigs took place under their tutelage. They were also apparently regularly heard rehearsing in the upstairs function room.

Paul Heaton. Image Credit Hull Daily Mail.

The pub has also been used as a location for music videos and TV shows like Cracker, Fresh Meat and the Hairy Bikers and was always a good gathering point to commune with like-minded souls on the SFTOC monorail, much like the other central hubs of the festival such as Islington Mill and the Old Pint Pot.

It is an olde world pub with a large main bar room area downstairs with seats dotted around the perimeter. At one of the festivals, I saw a Chinese dragon parade the room, it is that kind of quirky place. They are a renowned real ale venue and have been in the Good Beer Guide for the last decade and are a keen supporter of small local breweries. There is also a small beer garden accessed from the back of the pub.

Stairs led you up the Manchester Kings Arms Events Space.  It is a theatre style space and has a standing capacity of 120 and seating capacity of 50.  The venue even holds a wedding licence.

My first visit there was on 06/05/12 was to see Meddicine from London. An appropriate act considering the industrial history of the area as he resembled a lo-fi Death in Vegas though a single released last year sounded more like Eminem.   The other act that day was a good fun two-piece local scuzzy garage rock band called Brown Brogues. 

Five years later I witnessed Manchester electronic artist Vacuumorph and in 2018 I saw AYA, a Manchester rapper and producer who formerly recorded under the moniker LOFT.

Kings Arms. Image Credit kingsarmssalford.com

In a room adjacent to the main bar was Manchester Kings Arms Downstairs Stage where acoustic gigs occasionally took place. In 2012 an act called Yule FM played there and six years later in 2018 a local chap with the vaguely unpleasant moniker of DJ Acid Rephlux performed on that stage.

At the 2017 festival they excelled themselves by creating a third stage putting them on a par with Chorlton Irish Club and the Adelphi in Preston as the only other venues where I have attended three stages.

The only issue was that nobody could find the third stage, before we eventually realised, we had to traverse down the stairs past the kitchen and into the beer cellar. Thus, Manchester Kings Arms Basement became and remains the smallest venue I have ever attended, with about 10 people crammed in and myself outside with my head craned around the entrance peering into the dark interior. The band on the tiny stage was an act called Maeve Rendles 9 Victims, and despite an extensive search I can find no back story behind their mysterious and sinister name! 

The continuing joy for me of these festivals is the chance to visit these types of different venues that in any other context you would not normally attend.