The Kings Arms sits on Helmshore Walk on the delightfully named Skerry Close, well hidden between Upper Brook Street and Ardwick Green, just off the Mancunian Way. The pub survived slum clearance, as it was originally on Robert Street before the razing this part of Chorlton-on-Medlock and the building of grim flats and council houses. Although these days something of a forgotten old pub, the place holds a significance for modern day Manchester ale aficionados, as it was at the Kings Arms where Brendon Dobbin started the West Coast Brewery microbrewery in 1989, famed at the time for its stout and strong, hoppy Yakima Grande pale ale. Dobbin went on to set up the Marble Arch as a brew pub and he also helped design and install the brewery plant [1] - so is partly to thank for the revitalisation of the "Manchester Pale Ale" styles we're enjoying today then. The pub closed some years ago, and as a trading brew pub was apparently blighted by the scallies from the local estates. The story wasn't much different in the 1950s when Bill Carroll took over and "...bad characters had driven away most of the customers, so a firm hand was needed to get the pub back to a profitable footing" [2].
1. www.steelcitybrewing.co.uk/gen_midatlantic.htm
2. The Old Pubs of Hulme & Chorlton-on-Medlock, Bob Potts (1997).
