The Three Crowns stood on King Street on the corner with Queen Street, opposite the Black Friar in old Salford. The pub dates back to 1798 but it was in the 1860s that it took its place in Trade Union history. The first meeting of the Manchester and Salford Trades Council, forerunner of the Trades Union Council, took place at the Three Crowns in 1866 [1].
The Three Crowns was a Whitbread pub in the 1970s, now with a Garden Lane address due to street realignment (for full details, see Neil Richardson's book [2]). The pub had apparently seen better days, with its former green, brown and cream interior tiling sprayed over in battleship grey. The games room had pinball and table football with players decked out in City and United colours [2].
Buskers, Garden Lane / King Street. (c) deltrems at flickr.
In 1984 Whitbread made the dubious decision to turn the Three Crowns into a Chesters Brewery theme pub called Buskers. What an odd theme, but the pub was actually decked out inside as a street scene with lamp posts and pillar boxes, so maybe they had busking musicians playing too?
Three Crowns, Garden Lane, 1994. By Stanley Horrocks, with kind permission and (c) Rose Horrocks.
The pub was pulled down a year later in 1995 [1], and is now the site of a small car park for business premises.
1. Salford Pubs - Part One: The Old Town, including Chapel Street, Greengate and the Adelphi, Neil Richardson (2003).
Three Crowns, Garden Lane. (c) Neil Richardson [1].
Three Crowns, Garden Lane, 1989. By Stanley Horrocks, with kind permission and (c) Rose Horrocks.
A bonus of this theme pub conversion was that at least the previously hidden exterior colour scheme was uncovered, and the pub looked quite smart. Sadly by 1994 Buskers had suffered a fire, as shown below in Stanley Horrocks' photo, and it never reopened.
2. The Manchester Pub Guide, Manchester & Salford City Centres (1975).
