Manchester estate pubs

Lorimers Arms Osborne Street Collyhurst Manchester M40 7PZ

The Lorimers Arms was an estate pub that was situated in between Rochdale and Oldham roads in the Collyhurst area of Manchester. The pub had two rooms with a fairly basic bar and a more comfortable lounge, I had a drink in the bar which was a decent enough room to have a drink in.

When I visited this pub it was a Vaux tied house and there were no real ales on the bar, I had a drink of keg Samson bitter and this was a pretty poor drink. The pub is still standing but has closed down and been converted to other use.

Yet another Manchester pub to close down.

Alan Winfield

Typical of its time, developed to meet the needs of the new estates which replaced the slum clearance of the Sixties, in an area surrounded by industry.

Once home to the Osborne Street Baths and Wash House, and a pub of an earlier age – The Osborne, still standing – ceased trading.

Manchester LocaI image Collection

Photo – Gene Hunt

Much of this is now gone – the buildings the people and the work.

The pub had briefly become the centre for a telephone chatline service, prior to its current use as a place of worship – for the Christ Temple International Church

I chatted for a while with Kath who lives opposite, she had been a barmaid in the vault at Billy Greens.

Boarded up and then demolished.

We recalled pubs long gone and the loss of trade:

The folks that drank in there have all passed on, The Vine is still open but nobody goes in there. We have to go into Town but it’s dearer there, I like the Millstone and the Wheatsheaf.

Thanks for taking time to chat, at a distance – in these troubled times.

All pubs for the moment are a thing of the past.

Here’s a snapshot or two of a long gone pub:

Booth Street West – Boundary Lane Hulme Manchester M15 6GE

Manchester Local Image Collection

1964 the old Hulme, the old Hulme of tight dense dark terraces, shops, industry and hubbub.

Swept away by the waves of progress that washed over the area in the 1970s – a system built concrete haven, for a brave new world.

Thus heralding the birth of the Gamecock in 1974 as a Wilson’s house – very much in the Estate Pub manner.

The pub survived the demolition of the brave new Hulme from 1993 to 1995.

As fresher waves of progress heralded the expansion of Higher Education.

Seen here as a Belhaven house in 1993 – The Gamecock ever in the shadow of one of the few remaining housing blocks.

Photograph Alan Winfield.

Nobody knows precisely when it ceased to be a pub, suffice to say that at some point, it sadly ceased to be a pub.

It now stands abandoned, slowly reclaimed by nature – as bramble and dock scramble over its sharp interlocking volumes of brick and once bright white cladding.