St Michael's Tavern, Blakeley (Dantzic) Street

Former location of St Michaels Tavern, Dantzic (Blakeley) Street. (c) googlemaps.

This corner of the top end of Dantzic Street and the bottom of Angel Street is known as St Michael's Square on modern maps, named after the church that used to stand near here.  The St Michael's Tavern took the name of the church, on the corner of what was then Blakeley Street.  The CIS Tower can be seen in the background, as can the flats on Angel Street on the left; the Angel / Beer House is just out of shot.  In the coming years this corner may see much more traffic than it does today, as the plan is divert some of the inner ring road away from Miller Street and up Corporation Street and Angel Street as part of the Co-Op Complex masterplan which has already seen off the Crown & Cushion.  

St. Michael's Flags, some time in the 1970s or '80s. (c) TBC.

The church also gave its name to the St Michael's Flags, the mass burial grounds that were the resting place of so many of the city's poor in the burgeoning days of the Industrial Revolution.  The council have grassed over St Michael's Flags in recent years and now Angel Meadow Park is a popular inner city park.  I suppose many of the dog walkers and picnicking youngsters that frequent the park are unaware that beneath their feet lie the remains of thousands (which, it's rumoured, used to sometimes poke up from between the flags .

1. Manchester New Cross 1949, Alan Godfrey Maps (2009).