Moonraker Club, Hanging Ditch

Former location of Moonraker Club, Hanging Ditch, Corn Exchange. (c) Google 2013. View Larger Map.

This was a nightclub operated by 'George the Greek', the well-known Manchester landlord who most recently has had the Circus Tavern and now the Abercromby.  The Moonraker was opened in the Corn Exchange to try to take custom away from the press's established drinking dens around Thompson House.  These were the days when the 'Printworks' - previously Kemsley House, and later Maxwell House - lived up to its name.  These lost drinking dens included the Green Door Club, New Castle & Falcon Club and the New Green Door Club. 

Thomson House, Withy Grove, 1977. (c) David Dixon at geograph under Creative Commons.

Greek George's plan didn't appear to have worked so well, the unions were clamped down on in the 1980s and the drinking culture of the newspaper workers started to disappear, along with many of the old haunts, and it looks like the club folded in the mid-'80s.  An amusing tale from the Moonraker  is a drinker once being offered a typewriter by a fella who came back with one a few minutes later... complete with plug, socket and wall.  These days a Pizza Express has taken the place of the Moonraker Club, in between Zinc Bar & Grill (formerly Walcots and Rowntrees) and Tampopo.