Primrose View – Oldham

Primrose View, 25-27 Ashton Rd, Oldham OL8 1JX

Once there was an OB brewery here, OB – OK?

Fine Lancashire Ales, bought out by Boddington’s.

Closed down by Boddington’s.

Boddington’s was bought out by Interbrew.

Beer can and will eat itself – Boddies the Cream of Manchester, the transubstantiation of Monopoly Capitalism, it rises to the top, as another local brewery and its pubs sink.

Almost without trace.

A poor do in the poorest of towns, the view was never primrose.

The blanked, bricked and tinned windows, have a more than somewhat restricted view of an uncertain future, demolition or redevelopment, planning applied for 2014.

Another new flue, that never arrived.

The Griffin – Heald Green

Wilmslow Road, Heald Green, Stockport SK 8 3BE.

Once upon a time, some time ago –

Fields.

Lots of them, full of farmers.

Thirsty farmers in search of succour, or better still, bitter.

Rough tracks cross the county, ready for the roadhouse ruffians to surface, and resurface as thoroughly modern thoroughfares.

No more back to back, back to basics culture, compact company cars are hereon in, carrying the weary worker back to these shiny suburbs.

You should see the estate they’re in.

A brand new boxy breed of boozer is created, for the blue collared, blue blazered clientele.

 

Post 1980 a fresh wave of affluence demands refurbishment, a squeaky clean ambience for the executive refreshment, entertainment environment.

Gone are the confident rectilinear volumes of modernity, to be replaced by an anonymous non-style style, a confused collision, a mismatched, mishmash mash-up.

Surrounded by plants.