Cotton Tree, Great Ancoats Street. (c) Manchester Local Image Collection. Click here to view full image.
The Cotton Tree, seen here in 1967, opened in 1803 and was demolished in recent years to make way for the first buildings of old Ancoats' regeneration, the MM2 apartments and retail development, completed in 2003. Mick Burke: "The Cotton Tree was a hawkers' pub. There used to be a big family of gypsies who lived in caravans and they used the Cotton Tree, the Chesters house [1]." In the '60s the Cotton Tree was famous for its darts team, which did well in the News of the World competitions, spawning the professional Bill Lennard.
Towards its end the Cotton Tree was a Whitbread pub offering Chesters Mild and Whitbread Bitter when it was photographed by Alan Winfield for Pubs Galore [2]. This was one of 7 pubs on the short stretch of Great Ancoats Street between Oldham Road and Union Street - only the Crown & Kettle remains, though the Land 'O'Cakes is now the popular Bem Brasil restaurant. Another was the Kings Arms a few doors down.
1. The Old Pubs of Ancoats, Neil Richardson (1987).
2. www.pubsgalore.co.uk/pubs/75019.
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