Crown & Cushion, Corporation Street, 2010. (c) Pubs of Manchester.
A great, traditional Holts house, a little off the beaten track at the top end of Corporation Street, over Miller Street into Angel Meadow. We nipped in for a couple of pints and like seemingly all Holts houses these days, the bitter was a terrific pint and as always a bargain at £1.90. For a midweek night there were a fair few in, and it's always a mixed crowd of older local gents, a few 'characters' and the odd couple enjoying a quiet drink. There's a pool table and some fantastic boxing pictures hung, plus a bit of United memorabilia (George Best pics behind the bar). It's not far from Victoria Station and the MEN Arena, and a better bet for a pint than the nearby Ducie Bridge (no ale). The Crown & Cushion is also part of a nice little crawl around this end of town, taking in some (or all) from the Dutton, C&C, Angel, Marble Arch, Shamrock, Crown & Kettle, Fringe, Burton Arms, Smithfield...
The current Crown & Cushion was built in the early 20th century, but the Old Crown which stood on this site can be traced back to the pre-industrial age, around 1741 [1]. This makes the Crown & Cushion one of the very oldest pubs in Manchester. As shown in this photo from the 1971, the building to the left of the Crown & Cushion on the corner of Aspin Lane was Ashton House "Municipal Women's Hostel", later apparently a battered wives hostel. It was designed by Henry Price, more famous for his Victoria Baths which won a BBC restoration competition. These days Ashton House has been converted into student flats, catering for 54 students (compared to the 222 women the hostel could take when it contained dormitories and communal cooking areas).
The Crown & Cushion is known to locals around here as "the Muckman's" for reasons unbeknown even to those that have told us this! The Crown & Cushion is a hot topic of conversation in Manchester amongst pub lovers, as Manchester's oldest licensed premises us due to close for good in January 2011. Our coverage of this story has hit BBC Radio Manchester - with us appearing on Alan Beswick's Breakfast Show -, in the Manchester Evening News and Opening Times, the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) newspaper:
8/1/2011 - Crown & Cushion 1741-2011
19/12/2010 - Co-Op development update
25/10/2010 - 10 oldest pubs of Manchester
7/10/2010 - The Price of Progress (update)
2/9/2010 - Save the historic pubs
1/9/2010 - Manchester Pub Historian
26/8/2010 - The Price of Progress?
Apparently Holts have sold the Crown and Cushion to the CIS, and sadly the pub's days may be numbered.
ReplyDeleteTerrible news, the C&C is a cracking boozer. Made a new post on this - http://pubs-of-manchester.blogspot.com/2010/08/price-of-progess.html
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