Soho Tavern, Great Ancoats Street

The Soho Tavern was first listed in 1815 under the stewardship of Jonathan Pollard, and was probably on the southern side of the Ashton Canal, facing what was then the Soho Foundry and Pollard's cotton mill on the other side of the canal.  An 1835 robbery at the pub by an opportunist drinker, who slipped upstairs and nicked £48 from desk drawers, was described in the Manchester Guardian, which pithily added, "It really is surprising, after the various robberies of this kind which have recently been committed, that a publican should have so little prudence as to place his money upstairs where it can so easily be stolen".  The Soho Tavern closed around 1870 [1].  It was probably not far from where the tram tracks are currently being laid as the Eastlands- and Droylsden-bound Ashton line passes under Great Ancoats Street.

Former location of Soho Tavern, Great Ancoats Street. (c) Google 2010. View Larger Map.

1. The Old Pubs of Ancoats, Neil Richardson (1987).