The Northern Quarter is an area in the city centre of Manchester, UK, generally marked out between Piccadilly, Victoria and Ancoats, and centred around Oldham Street, just off Piccadilly Gardens. Manchester is a city in the North West of England. ... Manchester Piccadilly station is the principal railway station of Manchester, UK. It serves intercity routes to London Euston, Birmingham New Street and the south, Glasgow Central, and routes throughout the north of England. ... Manchester Victoria Manchester Victoria railway station is the second of Manchesters mainline railway stations, now being much less important than Manchester Piccadilly station. ... A former Rochdale Canal Warehouse at Dale Street Basin, now fully restored for alternative use, 14 July 2005 Brownsfield Mill on Great Ancoats Street by the Rochdale Canal, 14 July 2005. ... Centre of Manchesters Northern quarter, Oldham street is home to several of Manchesters alternative bars and shops, such as Vinyl Exchange, the citys largest second hand record store, Afflecks palace, Picadilly records, and several of Manchesters best small venues, such as Dry Bar and the... // History Manchesters Piccadilly Gardens was the original site of the Manchester Royal Infirmary, the Infirmary occupied the site at Piccadilly from 1752 to 1910 (when it was relocated to its current site on Oxford Road). ...

The area includes Shudehill, Tib Street, Newton Street, Lever Street, Dale Street, Hilton Street and Thomas Street.

History

Early history

Although the town of Manchester existed from medieval times (and had previously been the site of a Roman settlement), the area now designated as the Northern Quarter was not fully developed until the late 18th Century. Manchester is a city in the North West of England. ...

The area between Shudehill and Victoria Station was first built upon in the 14th century, as the village of Manchester expanded as a local centre for the wool trade. The expansion of the area was gradual up to the mid-18th century, when Manchester exploded in size and significance with the onset of the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution was the major technological, socioeconomic and cultural change in the late 18th and early 19th century resulting from the replacement of an economy based on manual labour to one dominated by industry and machine manufacture. ...

During the Industrial Revolution

In the early 18th century, Oldham Street was apparently "an ill-kept muddy lane, held in place on one of its sides by wild hedgerows" ^[1]. The first town directory of Manchester, published in 1772, lists a number of buildings on Tib Street and Oldham Street. By the time of a map by William Green in 1794, the whole of the Northern Quarter is shown as a developed urban district ^[2].

It might be supposed that Oldham Street is so named because it links to Oldham Road. However, this is not the case, since the naming of Oldham Street actually predates that of Oldham Road, which was named Newton Lane in the 1700s. Oldham Street is probably so named because one of its first buildings was the house of Adam Oldham, a wealthy feltmaker and associate of John Wesley, who owned the land along which the street ran, and probably paid to have it surfaced for the first time. For entries on other people named John Wesley, see John Wesley (disambiguation). ...

John Wesley opened two Methodist chapels in the Northern Quarter. In 1751, a chapel was opened on Church Street. This was upgraded to a larger chapel on Adam Oldham's land in 1781, on the site that is now Methodist Central Hall.

Manchester's first cotton mill was opened by Richard Arkwright in 1783, on Miller Street, near the junction with Shudehill. By 1816, there would be 86 mills in the central area of Manchester, and by 1853 there would be 108. Richard Arkwright Sir Richard Arkwright ( the last of 13 children December 23, 1732, August 3, 1792) was an Englishman credited with the spinning frame — later renamed the water frame following the transition to water power. ...

By the 1840s, the Northern Quarter found itself at the centre of one of the most significant economic changes in history, with the Industrial Revolution at full pace and Manchester taking its place at the world capital of the textile industry. In common with the city as a whole, the area became characterised by both wealth and poverty.

The area around Withy Grove and Shudehill is described at some length by Friedrich Engels in The Condition of the Working Class in England, as insanitary and down at heel, but markedly more ordered than the area around St Anne's Square, which is also described. Nevertheless, the houses are "dirty old and tumble-down, and the construction of the side-streets utterly horrible" ^[3]. Engels also talks of "pigs walking about in the alleys, rooting in offal heaps" ^[4]. Friedrich Engels Friedrich Engels (November 28, 1820–August 5, 1895) was a 19th-century German political philosopher. ...

The area around Oldham Street seems to have been more affluent, with warehouses and shops, many of whose merchants lived within their shop premises. This is described by Isabella Varley Banks (herself a resident of Oldham Street) in her book The Manchester Man.

One Oldham Street shopowner mentioned by a number of writers is Abel Heywood, who appears to have spearheaded the mass distribution of books, supplying the whole country not only with penny novels, but also with educational books and political pamphlets, according to an article in the Morning Chronicle in 1849. Heywood also produced a newspaper, on which he refused to pay duty - a radical gesture, since in those early days of the British Labour Movement, taxes were used to stifle free expression. Heywood went on to become Mayor of Manchester. Abel Heywood (February 25, 1810 _ August 19, 1893) was an English publisher, radical and sometime mayor of Manchester. ... The labour movement (or labor movement) is a broad term for the development of a collective organization of working people, to campaign in their own interest for better treatment from their employers and political governments. ...

The Victorian era and the Twentieth Century

Enterprise continued to be the focus of the area through the Victorian age. James Middleton notes that at this time "business was conducted on the old-fashioned lines by people who had been in the street for a long time" ^[5]. Middleton also describes Tib Street as "a perfectly adorable street, where natural history was taught by living examples...birds, dogs, rabbits, poultry displayed in the windows or outside the shops" ^[6], a tradition which continued for at least a hundered years, having only recently died out with the closing of the last suriving pet shops.

The development of Smithfield Market and the continued growth of the cotton industry helped to foster an economic vibrancy in the Northern Quarter into the 20th century. Middleton describes an area buzzing with hawkers and processions.

Youth culture was the next of features of the area that might be recognised today to be developed. A street dancing culture emerged in the early part of the 20th century, with "dozens of young people performing polkas, waltzes and schottisches to music provided by Italian organ-grinders" ^[7].

The cotton trade reached its peak in 1912, when 8 billion square yards of fabric were maufactured and sold from Manchester. Following the First World War, the high cost of British cotton, and the increase in production elsewhere in the world, led to a slow decline of the British cotton industry. In the 1960s and 1970s, mills were closing in Greater Manchester at a rate of almost one a week, and by the 1980s only specialised textile production remained, although clothing manufacture and wholesale continues to form a strong part of Manchester's economy. Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county in England established in 1974 which covers an area roughly encompassing the conurbation surrounding the City of Manchester. ...

Following the Second World War, attention focussed away from the Northern Quarter as Manchester began to build itself a modern city centre in the ruins left by German bombers. As a commercial area, Oldham Street became quieter, but over time certain types of business were attracted to the area, which offered low rents and an alternative feel to the typical British high street. This became the main strength of the Northern Quarter - today it is known for hip, independent stores, cafes and bars, and for offering a more distinctive alternative to the shopping experiences to be found elsewhere in Manchester city centre. German bomber over the Surrey Docks, London The Blitz, a popular English contraction of the German word Blitzkrieg, meaning Lightning War, was the sustained and intensive bombing of the United Kingdom by Nazi Germany during 1940–1941. ...

Present

The Northern Quarter is popular for its numerous bars and cafes as well as its mix of music and clothes shops. Amongst these is Affleck's Palace, a former department store which has been turned into a multi-storey bazaar for alternative clothing and nick-nacks. Afflecks Palace is a building located on the corner of Church Street and Tib Street in The Northern Quarter in Manchester, UK. Mainly people who listen to rock, punk, grunge and heavy metal shop in the building. ...

Meanwhile, the area is something of a mecca for DJs, with shops such as Piccadilly Records, Vinyl Exchange, Fat City Records (formerly run by Mark Rae), Beatin' Rhythm and Eastern Bloc (owned by Martin Price of 808 State) offering hours of pleasure browsing for that hard-to-find disk. The Northern Quarter as a whole is characterised by its offbeat, alternative atmosphere. Fat City Recordings is an independent record label. ... Mark Rae is the head of independent record label Grand Central Records and one half of DJ and production duo Rae & Christian. ... 808 State are a British electronic music outfit formed in 1988 in Manchester, taking their name from the Roland TR-808 drum machine. ...

During the daytime, trendy hangouts include Cafe Pop (a cafe and shop selling retro clothing and household goods) and the Basement (a vegan cafe and meeting place).

Nightlife in the Northern Quarter includes the Dry Bar (formerly owned by New Order), music venues Night and Day and the Roadhouse, the legendary cabaret bar Foo-Foo's Palace, "modern burlesque" club the Mint Lounge, Matt and Phred's jazz club, the Frog and Bucket comedy club, the North nightclub and numerous more traditional pubs. New Order is an English rock group formed in 1980 by the surviving members of Joy Division following the suicide of singer Ian Curtis. ... Burlesque was originally a form of art that mocked by imitation, referring to everything from comic sketches to dance routines and usually lampooning the social attitudes of upper classes. ...

The area is also known as a home to the creative industries, and in particular fashion design, with various designers and clothing wholesalers populating its back streets. There are also a number of commericial art galleries in the area.

Between World War II and the 1990s, the Northern Quarter was not considered to be a residential area, but in recent years, Manchester City Centre has become more and more fashionable as a place to live. Although no offical figures are kept (the Northern Quarter is not recognised for administrative purposes), it might be estimated that a little over 500 people now live in the area.

References

1. ^  James Middleton: The Old Road: A Book of Recollections, EJ Wildgoose, Oldham, 1920, p 15

2. ^  Available at http://www.spinningtheweb.org.uk

3. ^  Friedrich Engels: The Condition of the Working Class in England, Penguin, London, 1987, p 87

4. ^  Ibid., p 91

5. ^  James Middleton, op. cit., p 11

6. ^  Ibid.

7. ^  A Davies and S Fielding: Worker's Worlds: Cultures and Communities in Manchester and Salford 1880-1939, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1992, p.125