Tag: Pins

Manchester Venues 184 to 185 – Piccadilly Gardens

Christmas markets are essentially street bazaars which are linked to the celebration of Yuletide and traditionally take place within the four-week Advent window. The initial concept of them evolved in the last knockings of the Middle Ages and mainly in the German speaking areas of Europe. Early mentions of December markets roll all the way back to Vienna in 1296 but the first recognised reference to a Christmas market was the Striezelmarkt which took place in Dresden in 1434.

They are large open-air gatherings with food, drink (traditionally mulled wine) and seasonal goods for sale. The food offerings can range from Nussknacker (candy toasted almonds) and Christstollen (stollen). The markets undertook a significant modern day revival in the 1990’s and spread their wings to a considerable number of European cities. The first occurrence in England was in Lincoln in 1982 before the larger cities caught the bug with the commencement in 1997 of the Manchester (Frankfurt) Christmas Markets,with the German city initially providing support.   

Manchester Albert Square Christmas market. Image Credit whatsonmcr.co.uk

I have attended a couple of actual markets in Germany including an excellent one in Stuttgart where the facilities now include additional elements such as ice rinks, funfair rides and my own favourite model railways which I am eternally fascinated by. The Manchester shindigs have always personally felt like a paler imitation of the originals. However, despite my reservations they have grown exponentially from the inaugural version which was based solely in St Anns Square into the hugely popular event it is nowadays with three hundred stalls now dotted across many parts of the city with a large footfall attending.

It used to create a considerable nuisance when attending December gigs and then encountering a plethora of inebriated punters on astoundingly busy trains back to Preston. Also, my commute back home after work requires me to devise a different route than normal to reach my destination of Piccadilly station.   

The central hub of the markets was always Albert Square but that has been closed for restoration for the last few years, but it is planned to be reopened for this year’s event. In the interim one of the main areas centralised around Manchester Christmas Market Piccadilly Gardens.

In the 18th century this particular location was donated to the city by Sir Oswald Mosley, Lord of the Manor of Manchester on one fundamental condition that the space be retained in public use in perpetuity.   

L S Lowry ‘Piccadilly Gardens’ picture. Image Credit King and McGaw.

The Gardens were initially designed as an ornamental sunken garden after World War I on the former location of Manchester Royal Infirmary, the Infirmary then moving to its current location down Oxford Road. Prior to building the gardens other schemes including building an Opera House or a new location for the Cathedral were proposed but then discounted. The local painter L S Lowry also utilised the backdrop for his 1954 painting titled ‘Piccadilly Gardens’.

It was subsequently flattened out in 2002 with a central water feature and a concrete pavilion designed by the Japanese architect Tadao Ando with a curved concrete wall to obscure the metrolink line, this all resulted in an overall cost of £20.7m. It is an extremely rare green space in the city centre and contains a transport hub with buses and trams running directly through and adjacent to it. For many years prior to its move to Oldham Street, the famous Piccadilly Records was also located nearby.

Within the village created, room was made for a stage for the purposes of providing musical entertainment. Within the auspices of the 2023 event, I saw an act called General Drummer play there.

Earlier this year another innovative shindig was initiated via the generation of the Manchester Piccadilly Gardens MCR Live Hub with a stage located in another corner of the Gardens. It was designed as a city centre gathering point taking place between early July until the end of September and was part of the wider MCR Live 25 event which deliberately coincided with the Burnage Boys comeback tour.

Manchester MCR Live Hub Stage area. Image Credit ihmanchester.com

Other attractions were the Music for the Senses trail containing murals, mosaics and Guitar Street (located in reality on King Street), where you could find 50 donated guitars, some from musicians including Doves, PINS and Pixies. Commendably at the curtailment of the trail the instruments were auctioned to raise funds for grassroots venues and music projects across Greater Manchester.

Manchester artist Lazerian also created a Cathedral of Sound, a sound installation built from hundreds of reclaimed acoustic guitars. The Live Hub area was staged fully outdoors to embrace the weather in the summer months and contained a bar, street food and a plethora of beer garden picnic tables. They had DJ sets and live musicians, and I saw a couple of local artists called Sabrina and Gordy performing there.

Electric Fields Festival – Part 1

Previous subscribers to this blog will know that I was a major fan of the Wickerman Festival and had great fun at the 14 annual shindigs that were held. Since the last gathering in 2015, our gig crew have been hunting for a comparable event and the nearest we have achieved since was the Electric Fields Festival we attended in September 2018. With that historical context I thought this would be appropriate content for my 300th blog and as the words flowed it resulted in additionally being my 301st!

The festival slowly built from an initial friend gathering into a fully fledged event in 2016 and the chosen location was Drumnlarig Castle in Thornhill, Dumfries and Galloway, about a 90-minute drive from Glasgow, Edinburgh and Carlisle. It utilised the bonny grounds of the category A listed castle which was built in the late 16th century which carried the name of the ‘Pink Palace’ due to the finely hewed glinting red sandstone exterior.    

Drumnlarig Castle. Image Credit sobt.co.uk

It is apparently very grand and ornate on the interior with the small matter of its 120 rooms, 4 towers and 17 turrets. It also contains the Buccleuch Collection which houses a rare Rembrandt of ‘An Old Woman Reading’ and renowned 17th century French furniture and silver. They did also have a Leonardo Da Vinci painting that was stolen in 2003 but recovered in 2007 from an address in Glasgow.

There is also an old roman fort in the Southeast corner of the grounds which was featured in the Time Team programme, and it has been used as a filming location for the TV series Outlander. The estate is rarely opened to the public, but they did provide permission for the festival to be held there between 2016 and 2018.

The nearest conurbation to the site is the sleepy village of Thornhill with a vast population of around 1500 inhabitants which lies on the edge of the River Nith. It contains a couple of pubs and the seemingly obligatory Chinese takeaway alongside a small cottage hospital.

Famous ‘Thornhillians’ include the explorer Joseph Thomson who has the eminent Thomson’s gazelle named after him, which are also sometimes referred to as a ‘tommie’. Another is ex-professional golfer Andrew Coltart who is now a respected commentator on Sky Sports.

A ‘Tommie’. Image Credit animalcorner.org

Since 2012 the Thornhill Music Festival has been staged there, with the original event being instigated by the long-standing Scottish blues combo The Lewis Hamilton Band (not the Formula 1 driver!). That particular band are still active and are regularly on the road.

The festival is still on the roster and the 2025 version took place on the May Day Bank Holiday at the Farmer Arms in the village. One of the headliners was The Cherry Pinks who I saw in 2024 when they played the Wickerman Fringe event. The pub coincidentally won the Dumfries and Stewarty CAMRA branch pub of the year for 2025.  

Thornhill Music Festival flyer. Image Credit facebook.com

After three successful years in Drumnlarig, Electric Fields organisers made the ill-fated decision to relocate to SWG3 in Glasgow due to logistical challenges and increasing costs. However then due to complaints from attendees and ticketing issues, the festival folded, and the 2019 version never took place, and it has never been rebooted.

I could not attend the 2017 carnival as we were in the process of relocating to Manchester that very weekend. Nevertheless, in my absence the boys headed up there to make a debut appearance with Jesus and Mary Chain, Car Seat Headrest and Pins amongst others on the bill.

They lodged at ‘Dewhurst Towers’ in Kirkcudbright and utilised the old Wickerman nemesis of Mr Allen’s taxis for the commute to and from the site. The one downside they referenced was that it was a long way to travel as it was forty miles and over an hour each leg of the journey.   

I ensured there were no ‘life events’ disbarring me making a pilgrimage up to the 2018 gathering. Travel lessons were learnt from the previous year and lodgings were sought in the vibrant town of Dumfries.   

In 1306, Greyfriars Kirk in Dumfries was the location of Robert the Bruce, the future King of Scots, slaying his rival John Comyn III of Badenoch and during World War II the Norwegian armed forces in exile brigade was based there. Loreburn Hall, known locally as The Drill Hall has held concerts from Big Country, The Proclaimers and Black Sabbath.

Famous ‘Doonhamers’ include in their ranks Henry Duncan, founder of the world’s first commercial savings bank, J.M Barrie, author of Peter Pan, John Lawrie, Private Fraser in Dad’s Army, musicians Ray Wilson, once lead singer of Genesis and Calvin Harris. The final ex-resident is Kirsty Wark, the excellent broadcaster who undertook the heartbreaking interview of my favourite author Iain Banks shortly before his premature passing.