Railway Inn / Railway & Quay Tavern, Liverpool Road

Where the Indian restaurant Akbar's and the Japanese noodle bar Saporo Teppanyaki is on Liverpool Road, just along from the Oxnoble (Ox), is a modern set of red brick flats. In 1800s this stretch had four short side streets off it - Wharton's Place, Wood's Place, Ball Street and Castle Street - and straddling the latter two was the Railway Inn [1]. It was of course named after the Liverpool Road Station, the world's first inter-city passenger railway station. Although passenger services only ran from 1830 to 1844, the pub was still open in 1848 and in the late 1800s it was kept by Alice Raby as the Railway & Quay Tavern, suggesting it also very much catered for the canal workers from the nearby wharves on the Duke of Bridgewater and Rochdale Canals.

Former site of the Railway Tavern, Liverpool Road. (c) googlemaps.

1. Castlefield 1848, Alan Godfrey Maps (2008).