Railways – Manchester's Estate Pubs

Atkinson Road Urmston Manchester M41 9AD

Once the was a hotel here – the Victoria Hotel.

The hotel was designed and built by James Reilly who had done the same for the Pomona Palace.

First thought was to call it the Duke of York ,but by 1874 the hotel was completed and opened as the Victoria.

Built in the grand Victorian manner.

But then:

The seven properties were introduced after the Victoria Hotel was replaced. It is formed by shops from Station Road through to Atkinson where the Empress Cinema sat and includes an open arcade with the then new pub. This became Phase Two of Urmston’s redevelopment scheme after the Precinct was decided on. The project by Edendale Property Ltd. and Booth Dale Investments was intended for 1964 but eventually arrived in 1966, since then it has gone through radical changes and major disappointment tending to be the result. 1967 had Council approving of the area being designated a pedestrian precinct and officially named as Victoria Parade.

Urmston Net

The new arrival seems to have been pared back to a brick and wooden shuttering box, the most austere of Sixties architectural styling.

Its history seems to have been, to say the least, unremarkable – until it received a 2011 makeover as the Boogie Piano Bar.

The ‘crazy piano’ phenomena is coming to Manchester for the first time with the launch of The Boogie Piano Bar.

Party-goers throughout the globe have taken to the new-style piano bars for a good sing-song to the latest tunes, as well as classic tracks, and now Britain’s second city will have its first crazy piano venue.

“You have live music and can enjoy a crazy sing-along… it’s not what people think of from a stuffy old school piano venue.”

Inspiral Carpet’s Clint Boon and celebrity make-up artist Armand, were among the guests at the Boogie Piano Bar in Atkinson Road, Urmston, for the VIP opening on Friday, December 2 with a special performance from pianist Tom Lannon.

The brainchild of entrepreneur and restaurateur Joe Abid, the new piano bar is the latest addition to his Urmston venues which include the Boogie Lounge, also refurbished.

With a £160K investment, The Piano Boogie Bar is open seven days a week with live music on Fridays and Saturdays when it is open until 2pm and has capacity for 200 revellers with sumptuous booth seating.

It will be offering cocktails, house wines and fizz and will be serving tapas style snacks as well as a bar menu with burgers, nachos and other bar meals from £6.95. It will also be serving a full Sunday lunch.

I Love Manchester

The craze for crazy piano appears to have been short lived, as it was reinvented once again, this time as Stage One Bar.

Stage One Bar is part of the Urmston Music Foundation- an all-embracing name for several ideas for venues in Victoria Parade. The project is aimed at young adults with an interest in live music and in performing.

What Pub

Saturday 6th March 2021, closed even before the Covid crisis and sold at auction for £205,000, the Victoria is now beyond forlorn.

The property is located in Urmston town centre at the end of an established retail parade known as Victoria Parade with access at the rear being taken from Atkinson Road.

Urmston railway station is approximately 150 metres to the north west.

Not much by way of a eulogy.

This particular ugly duckling never ever became swan.

The Victoria Hotel football team pictured here before their derby match with the Lord Nelson in November 1972.

Unfortunately they lost 6-1

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In 1892, during excavation work in connection with the building of the Manchester-Sheffield-Lincoln railway line, a stone axe was found in the Gore Brook area. It probably dates from the Neolithic or New Stone Age (3500-2000 BC) and is an indication of how long this area has been settled by man.

Continued occupation of the area is evident as the line of Hyde Road is believed to be a Roman Road. It would have been constructed during the occupation from 79 AD until around 390 AD, after which it fell into disrepair until coming back into use in the 19th century.

It says so here.

Alas, I came too late – the Neolithic and Roman citizens having absented themselves sometime earlier, I assume. Gore Brook we are told was christened by the subsequent Danish inhabitants – filth they found to be the most apposite name for a brook.

Had I arrived in 1905 I would have found an area strewn with mature trees, picture book cottages and sylvan glades. Along with the emergent network of railways and attendant industries, hot on their heels.

The population increased from 3,000 in 1845 to 13,500 in 1890, and again to 27,000 in 1900. The Gorton Works of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincoln railway opened in 1848.

So the heady, carefree days of postwar expansionism, filled the area with industry, homes and people – a largely white working class population, with an Irish heritage.

I came in search of a pub The Garratt – alas again too late was the cry, this former Holt’s pub, with extensive decorative tile work and etched glass windows, depicting its railway connections was long gone – along with Beyer and Peacock and their enormous locomotive – now immobilised in the Museum of Science and Industry

So here we have Manchester’s History in microcosm, boom and almost bust, a short lived period of wealth that was never evenly distributed and eventually disappeared in a puff of locomotive steam. Hard working workers no longer slaking their thirsts, following a hard day’s work.

Lively atmosphere, and somehow it struggles on.

Ignore the Mild pump as they do not sell it.