Sunday, 14 August 2011

Crown, Epping Walk / Renshaw Street

Crown, Epping Walk, Hulme. (c) Alan Winfield at pubsgalore.

The Crown ended its days on Epping Walk at a Tetley's tied house [1] in the regeneration disaster that was Hulme Mark II.  These days the formerly pedestrianised thoroughfare is Epping Street, but before all that this was the route of Renshaw Street.  The Crown was a distinctive-looking Hardy's house seen here in 1964 on Renshaw Street, and this from 1964 shows that the Crown was the brewery tap for the Hardy's Crown Brewery.

Crown, Epping Walk, Hulme. (c) Manchester Image Archive / iRich at skyscrapercity.

Following the first Hulme regeneration, the brewery had gone but the Crown survived and even had a facelift.  Decades of soot and grime were removed and a brick and whitewashed frontage plus side extension greeted the Hulme estate's returning (or, more likely, new) inhabitants.  The Crown was described as "modernised Victorian... but don't go in the vault [2]."  This photo from 1973, shows how different this part of Hulme was compared to the modern day view, though the council houses on the left of the road have survived.

Former location of the Crown, Epping Walk (Street), Hulme. (c) googlemaps.
2. A History of the University of Manchester, www.oapen.org/download.

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