For one of the main city train stations, Salford Central station is somewhat of an anachronism. I currently work very close to this station and have many colleagues who are commuting over from Preston who now don’t have a direct train to Central and have to change at Salford Crescent. They are due to close the station for a few months to upgrade and make the platforms safer, however they have missed a glaring opportunity to open up for wider use the other platforms that are available on the Piccadilly to Victoria station line link, more short sighted thinking relating to Northern based stations and on any initiative that sits outside HS2, methinks!
If you turn left as you exit Salford Central this takes you directly to the Salford Egerton Arms Hotel. The pub has sat at the Gore Street site since at least 1841. It must have been a pacifist venue back in the day as the pub’s coat of arms motto ‘Virtuti – Non – Armis – Fido’ apparently translates as ‘I trust in virtue not arm’s’. It is purported that the name derives from the Egerton family who owned the Tatton park estate around the time of the inception of the pub.
The pub has been owned by the local Joseph Holts brewery, still arguably the cheapest beer in Britain. I first visited there in 2017 as part of Sounds form the Other City festival (SFOTC) in 2017 and we saw a three-piece from Leeds called Autobodies.
There was also a chap in residence on the microphone who was publicising his quizmaster duties later that day and he had the most amusing laconic style in his delivery. That evening we were in the Pint Pot pub preparing to head off for our train home and begun chatting to three lads who we discovered had become the actual quiz winning team and they had received a tidy price of free tickets to next year’s festival. At the 2018 event we witnessed a local band called Perkoset at the Egerton.
Next door is a decent food establishment called Caribbean Flavas and we have sat in the window a couple of times sampling their wares whilst in the area. There has been an uplift locally with acclaimed Italian and Tapas restaurants opening up nearby the station.
Directly across the traffic lights and the busy Chapel Street you find the Salford Arms Hotel. The pub has the same longevity as the Egerton, and it circles round onto Bloom Street and has also doubled up as a working hotel in the past. I walked past recently, and I have identified that the pub is now permanently closed.
It always had a battered old boozer vibe about the place, and I first visited there when in attendance at the 2012 SFTOC event. On a makeshift stage in the middle of the pub we saw a thrilling set of shoegazey noise from History of Apple Pie who had not yet released their excellent debut album Out of View. On our way out we saw them loading up their transit band and had a brief chat.
We returned later to see a very early set from Birmingham’s post-punks Victories at Sea. Just checking back on the bill now I see that Lovely Eggs actually headlined the venue that year. In 2017, we saw Manchester based artist Maddy Storm and the following year we ended the festival with a fun set from Leeds party band Crumbs.