The Lord Clyde was just one of 16 pubs that survived through to the 1980s following the slum clearances of Hulme which took place from the 1930s through to the '60s. This was Manchester City Council's systematic destruction of streets, houses, communities and the very places in which these communities spent so much time - their pubs. The above photo shows such a community - the drinkers from the Lord Clyde before their trip in the bus to New Brighton for a picnic (and a piss up). Replacing the back-to-backs and terraces were grim, supposedly modern, high rise flats and "communities in the sky", but these turned out to be a catastrophic failure.
Former site of Lord Clyde, Chester Road. (c) googlemaps.
Although the Lord Clyde survived slum clearance and the Mancunian Way ring road, it didn't survive the development of modern Manchester city centre which began, contrary to popular belief, a while before the 1996 IRA bomb. It was demolished in 1990 and used to be on the right in the below shot, on the corner of Chester Road and Blantyre Street, where the Chester Road-Mancunian Way roundabout is nowadays. Opposite was the Bridgewater Arms, which didn't survive as long and was a casualty of the ring road.
Thanks to Alan at manmates for permission to use the above 1950s photo.
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