Former location of Crown Inn (left), Lord Street, Strangeways. (c) Google 2013. View Larger Map.
Pictured here on the left in 1965 looking towards Strangeways' ominous and infamous prison tower, the Crown Inn was at No.49 Lord Street. Described as a modernised Victorian pub, it looks like it has a whitewashed frontage and the sign may be a Red Rose Ales sign, but it was a Greenall's house ten years later. The games room was popular with younger locals, and although the lounge and vault were described as sparsely populated, the Crown's landlord was apparently a jovial sort. On offer was a dubious-sounding selection of electric-pumped Greenall's cask bitter, Grunhalle lager and Guinness [1]. The Crown has been pulled down, but the nearby Berwick Arms still operates as the nearest boozer to Strangeways Prison.
1. The Manchester Pub Guide, Manchester and Salford City Centres, Manchester Pub Surveys (1975).
The Crown in Lord Street was on the site where the curved building is . The building was a comet electrical store . The pub was pulled down to build it. My nana Marion Clark was the sole licensee throughout the sixties and 70s. She ran the pub on her own being a war widow with the missing presumed dead loss of my grandad who was in Burma on the wingate expedition. She ran the pub with my auntie Barbara behind the bar and uncle Bernard ,when he could, with my dad Barry popping in to mend things being a builder. My auntie Toni had a hairdressing salon on the upstairs landing and Alice made the sandwiches in the back room . The whitewashed building was a free house at that time. On entering the large front door there was a small bar un the long hall way to your right . To your left a lounge with a piano at the end and a pool table in the middle which was often covered in ply and a table cloth to offer a buffet for special occasion . Next to that on the left was a glass partition and another small room where Nama would sit with a Hunni. A ruby encrusted goblet at the end of a busy night. The gents were to the back of this room on the left and the ladies on the right which optimised the pub toilet to the letter. Big and cold tiled in black and white with. On overhead tank and chain . Horrible for me as a four year old . I always found them scary . . Just past the. Bar and facing the partition was the door to the vault. The largest room which went the full length with wooden upholstered benches and tables and stools. There was a dartboard on the right with doors on it and cribbage tins and dead matches which were used as the markers . There was a back room / kitchen for process use at the end of the corridor and off that another kitchen which housed a huge scary boiler tank and where the stairs up and the cellar stairs were to the right. Alice made the butties in here with the use of a butchers bacon slicer.. The mixture of clientele was a questionable blend of newly released prisoners who were savouring their first pint, their former prison guards who gad finished their shifts and off duty or even on duty coppers. There was a good smattering of hawkers with “ bent Gear” and local business owners who probably were the initial suppliers of the said items . My mother was very protective of us going into the public areas during opening hours but when we did a keen eye was kept as the old soaks would often want to give you half a crown or a thru penny bit.. as I get older I would play the pinball machine between the two lounges and choose the jukebox situated on the wall next to the entrance door. The place felt massive as a child but in reality was probably only very small like the rovers return in Corrie. Upstairs directly across the landing was the bathroom and the landing of course had the backwashes and the large egg shaped hairdryers for setting hair. There were two bedrooms to the right and a corridor to the left where nana had her room, the cash office and a large lounge . Nana would say get a shandy off the bottom shelf which was at eye level to me then and I used to reach up to the bottle opener on the lower bar to open it or ask a grown up relative. In the cellar which was a great adventure when the seat men came there was a large industrial chip range which had fanned mirrirs and everything . I never saw it in use though. . It was a sad tune when nana sold up and bought a grocery store in Blackpool to make way for conet but more adventures were to be made there . Nana died at the age of 95 in 2014 and was buried with full horses and regalia as she requested .
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