Finally...a bit of a labour of love.
Not concert or music related at all - so if you have found your way here looking for more history / Manchester History, this is not my usual content. Music blog followers, this may still be entertaining.
I've been working on this since last year...but managed to complete the "history" when another friend posted a missing link picture from 1974...
A remarkable story of one of my favourite pubs in Manchester UK - more than 450 years old surviving almost unchanged though redevelopment and bombings.
Thanks to all the places and people I've pilfered pictures from...none are my own - please contact me if they are yours and you wish for a photo credit or to link to your work.
1. The Old Wellington Inn & The Shambles.
Built in 1552 and bought in 1554 by the Byrom family (of writer John Byrom fame) - licenced in 1692 as "The Vintenrs Arms" .then "The Kenyon Vaults" then "The Old Wellington Inn". The fyshing tackle shoppe was originally a drapers, it was a wine merchants then then the Old Wellington expanded to fill the space the shops occupied. Originally the market stalls across the road were butchers (Shambles was the word for a meat market place). The Rear part of the building with the sloped roof built in the 18th century as "John Shaw's Punch House" - became the "Kings Head Tavern" in 1809 and "Sinclairs Oyster Bar" in 1845 when Oysters were added to the menu.
This picture was taken in 1904 - the meat stalls had been moved - but the other buildings on the right are in the same location - rebuilds and extensions of originals from c 1550
2. Absolutely love this one - c1913 - the tackle shoppe is already a wine merchant but such wonderful context from he buildings around.
3. I don't think this adds anything to the story - just love the picture C 1920 is my guess.
4. Some of the buildings on the right were demolished in the Victorian era - but in 1940, Manchester was devastated by the Germans in the Manchester Blitz. Sinclairs was one of the very few Pre 19th century buildings to survive - the Old Wellington Inn the ONLY Tudor building to survive. Pretty much every building from the previous picture is destroyed apart from the 2 pubs and the wine merchant (divine intervention? 😜)
5. For ME this is the most fascinating one I have found...my Dad's office clearly visible on the far left of the picture, and some sort of underpass in front of the pubs (which are bottom centre)- but before the construction of the Arndale shopping centre - I'm guessing C1960 or so?
6. Until 1974 - this is how the Shambles looked...all the surrounding buildings gone. It was this way at the time we moved to the area.
7. To make way for the development of the Arndale shopping centre, the surviving buildings were floated on a concrete plinth and jacked up by almost 5ft
8. To make way for the development of the Arndale shopping centre, the surviving buildings were floated on a concrete plinth and jacked up by almost 5ft
9. "Shambles Square" reborn c1980....this was immediately adjacent to my dad's office building (National Vulcan - the engineering insurance arm of Royal Insurance) - he used to pick up evening shopping from the Safeway supermarket that was there on the way home. It was TRULY grim...a disaster of 1970s concrete planning...but often a quiet respite from the busy city when we used to hang out there as teens.
10. Just another view in the 70's 80s which nicely shows how some of the original Tudor details that had been covered over in the 1800s were revealed - and still the awful concrete jungle and old Marks and Spencer department store surrounding it.
It's this era when it became a regular haunt....and it was always Sinclairs, not the Old Wellington....why?? Because the beer was better (Old Wellington was Bass...commonplace nationwide, Sinclairs was Sam Smiths from Yorkshire....delicious Old Brewery Bitter (OBB).
11. Manchester on 15th June 1996 - the Provisional Irish Republican Army detonate the largest bomb ever exploded on British soil in the heart of the city. My dad's old office building is destroyed - as was 1/4 of the Arndale Shopping Centre, and large parts of the Royal Exchange shopping centre and theatre. 212 people were injured but miraculously no fatalities...even the bomb squad who worked until the last moments to diffuse the bomb, without success.
The now iconic red mail box stood completely unaffected.
Shambles square (just past the bridge on the left) ironically was almost entirely undamaged BECAUSE of the protection provided by the awful concrete structures that surrounded it.
12. And so began the rejuvenation of the city. I think those who argue definitively that the IRA "did us a favour" are wrong....Birmingham, Coventry, Liverpool have all undergone significant rejuvenation without the IRA's "help".... but it WAS a turning point.
The Old Wellington Inn and Sinclairs were turned at 90 degrees to each other...painstakingly reconstructed (not moved intact this time, but moved in "chunks" - 300 ft from the original location) connected at the corner by new structure....and now opening up the area to showcase the cathedral behind (it was so hidden before, you barely knew it was there).
13. A plaque outside Sinclairs gives a potted history...it's still identical to how I first saw it in 1973 - and for a structure like this to survive 2 redevelopments and 2 major bombings is quite incredible. It used to be our favourite city pub....it almost still is, were it not for the fact that it's now so popular it can be hard to get in!!
14. A final aerial view showing the shambles in its new context - the Mitre Hotel (c1815) to the left, The Corn Exchange (c1897) to the right - currently being redeveloped and Manchester Cathedral (c1450) to the rear - one of 15 Grade one listed buildings in the city.
