Classic Northern Quarter Pub of Character Crawl

Mother Mac's (33 Back Piccadilly, M1 1HP), the very definition of a

'backstreet boozer'.

The name comes from a former landlady called Mrs. Mac.

The history of the pub includes a gruesome and notorious murder from the

1970’s.

In 1976 there was a fire in Mother Macs which started mysteriously. Once the

blaze had been put out, the fire brigade began their investigations into why

and where the fire had originally started. The pub had a dumb waiter for

moving food from one floor to the next. When the dumb waiter was inspected,

the cut up bodies of the landords wife and children were found inside. The fire

had been started deliberately but things had not gone quite as planned.

You can read the full newspaper story yourself when you visit - on the wall

(i.e. the two frames near the old ladies in the centre of the above picture).

Mother Mac's is so authentic its Dickensian, a vision of a city pub in a working

district before hipsters took over the NQ.

Carry on down Back Piccadilly where in the nineteenth century it was said the

prostitutes were 'too old, too ugly or too young' to the junction with Tib Street,

turn right and cross the car park left to The Unicorn.

The Unicorn (26 Church Street, M4 1PN)

The Unicorn is a faded, multi-roomed pub with an interior that dates from the

1920’s although the license has been on this site much longer. The two rooms

on the right as you enter from Church Street are particularly good, whilst the

magnificent bar is like a ship in full sail, bearing its two or three ales. The

atmosphere inside is very local, a favourite of many of the older folk who used

to work in the markets that formerly enlivened this area.

Personally I thought it was a bit dingy and smelly. When I visited with friends

we walked in and walked straight out again.

Walk back along Church Street, pass Tib Street and turn left onto Oldham

Street to visit three pubs of character all within 50 yards of each other.

The Castle Hotel (66 Oldham Street, M4 1LE).

Behind the crazy skewed Art Nouveau lettering on the façade, you’ll find an

elaborate mahogany bar smack bang in front of you. This is the only tied

Robinson’s pub in the city center, often stocking the full range of ales from the

Stockport brewery. Immediately behind the bar is the old snug and behind that

down a corridor is a beautiful performance room with a timber skylight.

The pub drags in a mixed clientele of trendy young and old but suffers from

turning up the music volume too high in the evenings.

Gullivers (109 Oldham Street, M4 1LW)

Run by the same people as The Castle, multi-roomed pub, with a strong roster

of live acts. It’s small and pokey with a stage and mini theatre in the back

where live acts perform. They renamed it Gullivers in the 1970’s (originally

called The Albert Hotel, then The Grenadier) and restored the green tiling to

the front of the building whilst the original tiling is still visible at the Tib Street

end. Gullivers has had an eclectic history of different guises over the years,

encompassing everything from a jazz club to a transvestite bar.

Nowadays it’s a bit of a hipster bar.

The City (Oldham Street)

This pub with its panel of The Glorious Revolution of 1688 with William III

being welcomed by Britannia - there's a vicar with upraised arms celebrating

the triumph of this Protestant pub. However for most of its history the pub has

been Irish Catholic, yet the panel still survives.

What The City loses in modern day charm it makes up for with a long and

complex history. Originally it was divided into two separate pubs, with

separate entrances in Oldham Street and Tib Street. Records of the pub go

back to the 1780s when landowner Arthur Glegg leased the site to Joseph and

John Stopford who built the six dwellings that would go on to make up the

pubs. By 1800 the site had the two pubs, the Oldham Street side being the

Kings Arms in 1803/4

Over a century later as the Top King in 1914 it was purchased by Chester's

Brewery. It became a freehouse in 1995 and remains one today.

The Crown and Kettle (2 Oldham Road, M4 5FE).

The Crown and Kettle which has one of the most astonishing pub interiors

around dating from an undetermined time in the 1840s or 50s. Huge Gothic

timber pendants hang down from a ceiling alive with crazy quatrefoil (fourleaf)

tracery. The pub was closed for 15 years after an arson attack prior to re-

opening in October 2005. The interior shows the distressed but cleaned

ceiling in the lounge and how it originally might have looked when painted in

the vault. Shame that all the rooms have TVs but at least there's four or five

cracking ales. There's a good story about three entrances. In 1950 when a

drunken journalist from the Daily Express next door tried to get in the landlord

threw him out, he tried in the next entrance and then the next with the same

result. At the third he asked the Landlord, “Do you own all the pubs round

here?”

Supposed to have the most beautiful ceiling in Manchester

We found that the ceiling is falling to bits – they have a net to catch any falling

debris until it is repaired. Beer was really good from here.

As you come out of the Crown and Kettle, turn right and head onto Swan

Street to visit the Smithfield (known by many geeks as ‘beersville’.

The Smithfield Hotel (37 Swan Street, M4 5JZ).

This has a bewildering number of beer festivals, pool and doubles as a B&B if

you’re feeling exhausted. It's been ripped out and refurbished on many

occasions but outside you can still tell it's 200 years old. Reputedly the best

selection of beers in Manchester.

Beers was actually amazing! Pub is fairly uninteresting though.

The Marble Arch (73 Rochdale Road,

M4 4HY).

This is a beauty built in 1888 for McKennas

Harpurhey Brewery but became known as

The Marble, because of its exuberant design.

It's now home-base for the wonderful Marble

Beers.

The original interior details of tile and mosaic

are spectacular, note the red roses for

Lancashire and the tiled frieze of drinks on

offer including 'gin' and 'whisky'.

Some the beers produced by the Marble

include Marble Bitter, Manchester Bitter,

Ginger Marble, Lagonda IPA plus seasonals. The beers are all vegan and all

organic. The food is very good and there's decent a jukebox in this fabulous

boozer - as well as a beer garden.

There is another less attractive, less colourful bar on Thomas Street which

has a better standard of service but less character.

Hare and Hounds (46 Shudehill, M4 4AA).

Outside the pub has a handsome yet slightly austere green tiled façade whilst

inside it splits into four if you include the function room upstairs.

There’s a lounge, a basic but comfy vault with TV and darts, and a long lobby

doubling as the live entertainment space – if there's no older Mancunians on

the karaoke it's only a matter of time before the singing begins. Good period

detail survives in the tile, wood-panelling and etched glass. Food is simple,

snacks, sandwiches, homemade pickled eggs and the like.

The Lower Turks Head (36 Shudehill, M4 1EZ.).

Built in 1745, but it definitely features another marvelous 1920s' tiled facade.

The next door shop has been occupied as well to create a Scuttlers bar

named after the notorious nineteenth century Manchester youth gangs.

There's a food room on the first floor and several bedrooms above.

One of the pictures on the wall hints at troubles that Skuttlers caused and the

attempts by the locals to curb their mayhem (with some success it seems!):