Old-fashioned little pub around the back of Piccadilly Gardens with a fiercely loyal set of customers, Mother Mac's is another pub that most people don't even know exists. It's probably named after the old landlady, Mrs Mac, and may have had a time as the Back Piccadilly. It was originally the Wellington, a Chesters as these 1967 and 1970s pictures show. The Wellington was owned and ran by James Grindrod in the mid-eighteenth century. Grindrod and his wife Elizabeth had a son Edmund who went on to manage two well known Mancunian boozers, the Bowling Green on Grafton Street in Rusholme and further afield, the Griffin in Cheadle. Another of their sons, James Newton, ran the Palace Inn in Market Street [1].
Mother Mac's is mainly frequented by oldies and characters, and is still a sound place for a quick pint, and the pub's specialities, mince and spuds or chip barms if you're lucky. The decor is as old fashioned as the pub and the walls are stained yellow from the previous days of smokers, which in itself adds to the character of the place. Some terrific old pictures of town are hung, plus there's rumours of a macabre event several decades ago where the landlord of Mother Macs murdered his wife and child by hiding their bodies in the dumb waiter and torching the place! Real ale is provided by way of Hydes bitter, which was a decent enough pint. Worth a look in for the novelty value alone of this throwback of a boozer.
1. J P Grindrod at manchester-forum.
