The Manchester Didsbury Salmon of Knowledge is situated on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury village. It has had previous incarnations under the names of Dockyard, Stokers Arms, O’Neill’s and Times Square. In the early 90’s it was listed under the latter name and was a Bass Brewery house serving in my view the worst beer ever, the infernal Stones Bitter. It changed in 1996 to O’Neills and was for a couple of decades a traditional ‘Irish pub’.
The Salmon of Knowledge. Image Credit geograph.org.uk
In 2014 the ownership moved over to the Stokers Arms, and it was under this derivation I first encountered the establishment, and it was one of the first pubs we visited after our relocation to Manchester in 2017. It was a decent sized pub and had a battered charm about it and I recall having some tidy pub grub there.
It has always been a good spot to watch sport thus Marcus and I were in residence there in the balmy hot summer of 2018 to watch England’s World Cup quarter final win over Sweden. We returned trying to play the ‘lucky pub’ card for the semi-final, but it didn’t work out as we then witnessed the slightly unfortunate defeat against Croatia. On both occasions the place was packed to the rafters.
The further changes in ownership did not materially change the layout of the pub, the latter being the second branch of Salmon of Knowledge to open alongside the original version located in the Northern Quarter.
One welcome addition though was the introduction of live music staged on a small area near the front door. I have seen two acoustic acts performing there, one called Sally and Steve, and the other was Electro Gang.
Diagonally across the road at the traffic lights there has always been a large unit on one of the Wilmslow Road/Barlow Moor Road corners. The building was previously the Clock Tower pub, then a branch of Zizzi before morphing into a steak joint called Cau. The restaurant was in situ when we first moved to the area, but we never had a chance to visit and in 2018 it closed for good when the parent company Gaucho fell into administration.
Kennedys Bar. Image Credit kennedysirishbar.co.uk
Despite its prime spot, the site remained empty for 7 years though there were rumours in that lengthy time span of bar One Eight Six taking over but that never came to fruition. Unexpectedly in the middle of 2025, it was announced Manchester Didsbury Kennedys Irish Bar would soon be located there.
It opened as a sister chain to the already established branch in Altrincham which was established back in 2021. The original branch also recently expanded by diversifying into a spare unit next door to the pub with the addition of an Irish Deli.
The Didsbury version stirred up a veritable ‘fuss over nowt’ before it had even opened by painting the exterior in vibrant red paint, which generated plenty of clickbait on social media. They also stated publicly that they wished to stay separate and apart where they possibly could from the monorail of the recently renewed interest in the Didsbury Dozen pub crawl.
We first visited about a month ago and were supping the obligatory Guinness, though not as nice as the Station pub just down the road. It is a large open room bar, and they stage regular music, though the sound on entry that day was thunderously loud.
On a stage in a corner away from the entrance we saw there was an act called El Rey performing, who was born in Newry, Northern Ireland but then moved to Manchester to further a burgeoning music career. He was followed by a chap named Damon.
We then moved onto Manchester Didsbury Famous Crown which is farther down Wilmslow Road towards East Didsbury train station and which we have frequented a few times before. I have struggled to find the previous history but know it was previously a Greenall Whitley brewery house and can confirm it is a proper olde world boozer with some original features therein.
The Crown. Image Credit aboutmanchester.co.uk
The pub was a rather naughty child during covid by opening illegally which led to it being forcibly closed down. Post-pandemic it was subject to a £470K investment and refurbishment from pub operators Punch Pubs & Co before officially reopening on 01/10/2022. They now stage periodic live music and on that particular visit we encountered a local lass called Jenny performing who had a terrific voice.