From the Archives

Ancient History

Well, it may as well be. First a little by way of explanation. I edit a local CAMRA magazine called Opening Times. No, that's not quite right. Let's try again.

I edit an award-winning local CAMRA magazine called Opening Times.  It was launched in June 1984 and has continued with only a couple of minor breaks (including the current one!) even since.  However this isn't its first incarnation. A previous Opening Times appeared from around Feb-March 1976 to June-July 1977 and that's where we are going today.

I have copies of the last few editions and, while they didn't include Staggers, it's clear the early ones did. All I have is a photocopy of page four from issue 7 which, tantalisingly, is Stagger No. 4 featuring Stockport. I wonder where else they covered back then?

This was written by Graham Cundall with photos by Graham Lister, about both of whom I know nothing. As you'll see this 12 pub marathon is in a slightly different format from later Staggers - here we go.....

In the South Manchester branch area there's no other place quite like Stockport. Even though its become surrounded by urban sprawl from Manchester, somehow it's kept its individuality and character as though it's a separate town. In particular this refers to the central part of Stockport which is a curious mixture of the old and new.

It's the old which houses a fine selection of brews in many excellent pubs: Robinsons (on their home ground), Boddingtons, Pollards, Bass, Higsons, Wilsons and Youngers are all represented on this crawl, a total of 14 brews (16 in winter).

Stockport is readily accessible from all points of the compass. Frequent train services run from Manchester Piccadilly to Stockport (every 15 mins) and also from Alderley Edge (every 30 mins), Crewe (hourly), Macclesfield (hourly) as well as the intermediate stations on these lines. Bus services are myriad. Most run at 20 min intervals.

Now we turn to the important matter - the pubs. No.1 is the Crown Inn (Boddingtons). A GBG listed pub and a proper little museum piece it is too. The vault is small and cosy and there's a fine mirror in the back lounge room. The beer is always phenomenally good. It's handpumped bitter (20½p) and mild (18½p). It's also the HQ for the Crown Divers Club for anyone interested in exploring the depths of fermentation vessels?

Turn left out of here towards Mersey Square past the spoilt Pineapple (Robinsons) - vault ripped out, now 'rustic beams and whitewash - to No.2 the George Hotel at the traffic lights on the corner. Another GBG listed pub and another absolute must. It feels like being on the Queen Mary sat in the lounge. The handpumped Higsons bitter (24p), mild (22p) and draught Bass are usually of the highest quality.

If you've had a pint of each brew so far you might be feeling a bit merry, so wipe the grin off your face as you toil up the hill over the river Mersey until you reach the first set of lights. Here on your left is No. 3 the Manchester Arms (Robinsons). It sells Best Bitter (25p) and Best Mild (23p) from handpumps. A rather basic house though the pies are notorious and there's a room that's frequented by juke-box fiends.

From here carry on plodding up the hill past the Unity (Robinsons) as far as Norbury Street. Turn left down here and straight ahead will be seen No. 4 the Grove (Wilsons), this is an average town pub, unspectacular but with well kept vault and quiet too. Handpumped bitter (24p) and mild are available. Retrace your steps back onto Wellington Road and carry on up the hill to the traffic lights. 

On the right will be seen Wilsons revamped Nelson's Ale House (No.5). Outside and in, it's been done up to look like a 1910  Edwardian pub even down to the Yates's style bare floorboards around the bar. Why didn't they go the whole hog and put sawdust and spittoons in? Despite the contrived atmosphere it serves very good bitter (25p) and mild (24p) from electric pillar taps.

Next go straight across and up Edward Street, at the first set of lights here on the right across Hillgate is No.6 the Black Lion (Boddingtons). It sells bitter (20½p) and mild (18½p) from handpumps. A basic house. Turn right out of here and on down Hillgate past the Red Bull (Robinsons) on the left. Hillgate once constituted a very famous crawl route. Many said it was impossible to finish before the demolition men moved in. So you can imagine how many pubs there were! Today it still has lots of character about it and provides three more pubs for our crawl.

Just past Comet warehouse is No.7 the Gladstone (Tetleys) selling bitter (24p) and mild (22p) from handpumps. It's a very quiet pub and it's a shame because the quality of the beer and the nature of the pub itself make it worthy of far more trade than it receives. 

Carry on down Hillgate to the brewery of Frederic Robinson and call in at No.8 the  Spread Eagle, i.e.the brewery tap. Best Bitter (25p) and Best Mild (23p) are dispensed from old wooden handled handpumps. From here keep following Hillgate along until you come to an archway spanning the street and there just on the left will be seen the very old bulging front window of Turner's Wine Vaults (No.9). Tetleys bitter (24p) and mild (22p) are sold from electric pumps. It's Stockport's  answer to Yates' this - so expect the characters. Note also the fine bank of taps on the bar once used to deliver the draught wines.

Anyway have yourselves a beer break now and have a test of your powers of navigation. Turn left out of Turners Vaults and down to the White Lion (don't go in) then turn right here and along the Great Underbank leading left until you meet a major arterial road - turn right along it before peeling off right down Corporation Street and following it round, becoming New Bridge Lane about 400 yards down on the left is No.10, the Midway. This is a recently modernised ex-Wilsons house, now a free house selling six brews, draught Bass (24p), Youngers XXPS (24p), and Wilsons bitter (24p) and mild (23p) are handpumped. Boddingtons and Pollards bitter (both 24p) are delivered by electric pumps. Thus a very fine range of beers can be had in a pub which would be more at home in Buckinghamshire than behind an iron foundry in Stockport! Go easy at this one for there's still two more to come.

Retrace your steps (is this still possible!) until you can cross the river by turning right over a footbridge; then down past a mill before turning left then quick right (Boddingtons Coach & Horses here for those tired of life) into Lancaster Street and down to the end where on the left corner is the Old King (No.11), Bass (26p), XXXX mild (22p) and Worthingtons BB (24p) are all served by free flow electric pumps. Beware of the Toby Light as it's keg. A spartan pub and only its beers merit a note. 

Out of here turn left and head back towards the town centre down Great Portwood Street. As this bends to the right to go round the Merseyway will be seen the terminis, No12, Buck & Dog (Boddingtons). A very basic house selling good bitter (21p) and mild (19p) from handpumps and Boddies Strong Ale in winter direct from the cask. This seems a good enought place to stop, near enough to bus and rail stations for the survivors to find their way home.

Stockport is a town rich in real beer and the route described above not necessarily the best, so there could be many other permutations and this is left to personal likes and dislikes.

What happened next

Phew! I like the reference to survivors finding their way home. With 12 pubs featured and three others mentioned in passing there's quite a bit to go on here.

The Crown has been opened up over the years but still retains much of its former layout - event the impressive mirror in the back room is still there. The Boddington Pub Co turned it into a multi-beer free house and it remains that today. It's won many awards over the intervening years but its star does seem to have dimmed a little in recent years. It's currently 'to let'. 

The Pineapple across the road did bed in eventually and under long-serving

licensee Eileen Lloyd the pub was a regular in the Good Beer Guide for several years. Inevitably Eileen retired and the pub drifted and it's been 'mothballed' by Robinsons. Apparently the intention is to reopen it when work on Stockport's new bus interchange has been finished. We'll see.

The George was indeed spectacular with lots of panelling and mirrored walls featuring George & the Dragon. A corner door gave entrance into a tiny and characterful vault. If it had been

intact today a Grade II listing would have been almost guaranteed. However... firstly Higsons knocked it about a bit and it had a brief spell as the keg-only Manhattan (and let me tell you, as good as cask Higsons beers undoubtedly were, their keg equivalents were equally horrible). Of course Higsons fell to Boddingtons and the real damage came courtesy of the Boddington Pub Co who completely ripped out anything of note. It was then bought as a free house by a man who had no money to spend on the pub and so it began to slowly fall apart around his ears. It also developed a rather 'lively' reputation. A couple of years or so ago it closed suddenly and the increasingly decrepit pub is now, rather optimistically, 'to let'.

The Manchester Arms was a wonderful pub and an early local CAMRA Pub of the Year. This was back in 1984 and a highlight of the presentation night was a 'rocket man' who ignited the large device strapped to his back in the middle of the main road outside the pub. This prompted a visit from the police who had received reports of an explosion in the area. Ian and Dot Brookes were legendary licensees and are still looked back on with great affection.  Ian and Dot moved on and eventually Robinsons turned the pub into Cobdens which shone briefly but is now yet another of their mothballed outlets.

The Unity closed in March 2012 and has now been converted into flats. The Grove was a very early closure in April 1984. It's now being used as offices (shown here). The Nelson has had several refurbishments and hasn't always sold cask beer but has been doing so recently with Theakson's Bitter and a guest beer.

The Black Lion had an excellent vault with a notable wood-paneled ceiling. The entrance also had glasswork and, astonishingly, a doormat, surviving

from its days as a Clarke's of Reddish pub (taken over and closed by Boddingtons in 1962). It closed in late 2005 and is now offices. The nearby Red Bull has been extended by Robinsons but although some disagree I still find it a pleasant and characterful pub. It's had too many licensees though and really needs someone to put down some roots and make their mark on the place.

The Gladstone back then was run by the formidable Jessie Holehouse, who was born there in the 1920s. I must say Jessie's looming presence never really added to the appeal of the pub and this was an rare occasion where the retirement of a long-serving licensee saw an uplift in the pub's fortunes. It eventually became a Burtonwood pub called the Bishop Blaize. Sadly the pub closed in April 2011 and is now offices.

I visited the Spread Eagle around this time and remember the old handpumps, plus a shabby pub with welcoming open fires. Sadly Robinsons decided to knock it around and made a right pig's ear of it. It should have been a showcase but really wasn't. The last people to run it were Noel and Val Jones who really did work hard to make it a proper local. However Robinsons decided they wanted to incorporate the pub into the brewery offices so Noel and Val moved to another pub and the Spread Eagle closed in September 2007. 

Turners Vaults is better known as the Queen's Head and was owned by the Turner family until they sold it to Sam Smiths in the early 1990s. Sam's spent a lot of money restoring the pub and its now recognised as having significant heritage features. You can read all about it here  You still get the characters.

Whitbread's White Lion had several themes over the years and closed around June 2009. The imposing building has recently been converted into flats. The Midway is still going strong. It is now owned by Ei Group and while selling a range of decently kept beers, majors on food.  It's very well run and seems to be doing very well.

The Coach & Horses (which will appear on next week's Stagger) was a decent enough pub. It closed in around July 1998 and was knocked down in January 2000.  The Old King was quite well regarded back in the day being a Good Beer Guide regular for a couple of years and was the first ever recipient of a (Stockport &) South Manchester Pub of the Month award back in April 1980. It was a very old pub that has been knocked around in the very early seventies - one feature was a huge period tiled fireplace that dominated the rear pool room. Oddly this disappeared soon after the Old King closed in February 2009. It's now been knocked down and the site redeveloped as a Nando's.

And finally, the Buck & Dog. The Boddington Pub Co (which crops up quite a bit in this story) planned to carry out a full restoration of this potentially very impressive Victorian edifice. You can see what it looked like here and also here. However Barclays Bank came along and made them an offer they couldn't refuse so the pub closed in August 1986. It was a right old dump in its final days. I called in with some friends - plaster was coming off the walls, one room was closed 'due to drug abuse' and we were shown a very soggy earwig on the bar counter which, we were told, had just come out of one of the handpumps. Truly the golden age of pub going....