Victoria, Crown Square. Copyright (c) Manchester Local Image Collection..
The Victoria was at the other end of Crown Square to the Stanneylands Vth, part of an office block, possibly a barristers chambers. This Tetley's pub had a ground floor entrance and you went up some stairs to the bar on the first floor. Mike Coatman remembers the Victoria having a unique atmosphere: "It was frequented by defendants from the Magistrates and Crown
Courts, together with the
solicitors and barristers who were prosecuting or defending them."
The photo of the Victoria shown above was taken by H. Milligan in the 1970s and is Copyright Manchester Local Image Collection. Displaying the image adheres to their policy of allowing not-for-profit sites to display a limited number of images in low resolution. Please click here for information on the photo, and here for a larger, higher resolution image. The Archive Collection is a fantastic resource - just type in a street name or location and up pops some fantastic old pictures.
I worked at the Vic from about 87 - 89 by which time it was owned and run by a company called Dorbiere ( that also ran Brahms and Liszt and a few others in and around Manchester. ) When I was there the pub consisted of the ground floor ( in through that entrance and turn left ) which was quite large and curved around the bar into a back room with a TV and two pool tables. This was popular with MEN printers who used to come in for quick pints on their breaks and used to get special prices. The main downstairs room was full of people using the courts in the day as well as tech staff from Granada ( Grips, cameramen etc) At night it was mostly backstage staff from the Opera House - they would come in before and after the show, and often in between as well depending on their workloads, and of course, printers would be around all the time - the presses were run 24 hours a day and they had their own way in through one of our fire exits - we were in teh same building.
ReplyDeleteUpstairs was open at lunchtimes but very quiet with mostly some legal types and journalists from MEN ( Printers downstairs, journos up ) but at weekends it was open for functions in the evenings. Wer used to do a night for gay women on the first Saturday of every month and this didn't sit well with the boss who was a devout catholic lady in her sixties, so she used to make sure the curtains were drawn in case someone saw the sinful goings on.
The beer cellar was under the ground floor and it was a bloody long run on a saturday night when the Fosters ran out.