153 years ago this week, central Manchester’s high-security prison opened its doors for the first time.
HM Prison Manchester – which is commonly referred to as Strangeways by all that know it, which was its former official name derived from the area it’s located, until it was rebuilt following the major riots in 1990 – was declared open on 25 June 1868.
Built to replace the New Bailey Prison in Salford which closed in 1868, Strangeways was famously designed by architect Alfred Waterhouse.
With construction said to cost in the region of £170,000, the eye-catching Grade II listed building has the capacity to hold 1,000 inmates and is instantly recognisable to Mancunians primarily thanks to its 234 feet (71 m) ventilation tower – which is often mistaken for a watchtower, and has become a local landmark.
The prison’s walls are rumoured to be 16 feet thick, and are said to be impenetrable from both the inside and the out.
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Because of this, Strangeways has been home to some pretty notorious inmates over the years.
From some of the UK’s most-prolific serial killers, to television personalities, Premier League footballers and more, here’s a handful of famous faces who’ve spent time behind bars at Strangeways during its 153 year history.
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Harold Shipman
Harold Shipman was held at Strangeways in 1998 / Credit: Biography
Harold Shipman remains to this day one of Britain’s most prolific serial killers.
Serving as a GP at a medical centre in Hyde, Shipman often targeted the elderly by injecting them with lethal doses of diamorphine, resulting in a victim number thought to be between 215 and 260 people over a 23 year killing spree – which is one of the worst ever documented.
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Shipman was eventually arrested on 7 September 1998, and was held in Strangeways.
His trial took place at Preston Crown Court in 1999, where it took four months to find him guilty of just 15 cases of murder, and he was sentenced to 15 life sentences.
Ian Brady
Ian Brady served a three month stint at Strangeways prior to the Moors Murders / Credit: Biography
Ian Brady is most-known as one half of Britain’s infamous killing pair, The Moors Murderers.
Many will know that Brady and Myra Hindley devastatingly murdered five innocent children between 12 July 1963 and 6 October 1965 and buried their bodies in the vast landscape of the Saddleworth Moors, which eventually led to Brady being found guilty of three murders and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Prior to all of this though, within a year of moving to Manchester, Brady was caught with a sack full of lead seals that he had stolen and was trying to smuggle out of the market.
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He was subsequently sent to Strangeways for three months.
Joey Barton
Joey Barton served 74 days of a six month sentence / Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Former Manchester City midfielder Joey Barton’s prolific football career and life have been marked by numerous controversial incidents and disciplinary problems over the years, as well as two convictions for violent crimes.
On 20 May 2008, Barton was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment after pleading guilty for common assault and affray during an incident in Liverpool city centre.
Barton served 74 days of this prison term at Strangeways, being released on 28 July 2008.
Ian Brown
Stone Roses frontman Ian Brown was sentenced to four months imprisonment in 1998 / Credit: YouTube
One of the more well-known names to serve a stint behind bars at Strangeways is Stone Roses’ frontman, Ian Brown.
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Brown was charged for threatening behaviour towards a British Airways flight attendant and captain, and was sentenced to four months in the summer of 1998.
He served only two months of his sentence at Strangeways, and admitted that while locked up, he wrote three songs – including ‘Free My Way’.
David Dickinson
Credit: ITV
Another one of the more surprising Strangeways residents comes in the form of Cheadle Heath-born antiques expert and television personality, David Dickinson – who you’ll probably recognise as the host of Bargain Hunt and Dickinson’s Real Deal.
Believe it or not, at the tender age of just 19 years old, Dickinson served three years of a four-year prison sentence for mail-order fraud, with the majority of that sentence being spent at Strangeways.
Dickinson has since described this time as “horrendous”, and that he’s learned to “take it on the chin and accept it was his own fault”.
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Dale Cregan
Dale Cregan is one of Manchester’s most notorious killers / Credit: Greater Manchester Police
Undeniably one of Manchester’s most notorious killers of this century is one-eyed murderer Dale Cregan.
He began his life of crime from an early age dealing drugs, but then notably turned to gun crime by first shooting Mark Short in the Cotton Tree Pub in Droylsden and attempting to kill three other men, before violently murdering Short’s father a few months later.
He then made national headlines when he tricked two female police officers to a property in Mottram in Longendale by reporting a burglary, before ambushing them with gunfire and a grenade which murdered them both.
Greater Manchester’s chief constable Peter Fahy called the attack “cold-blooded murder”, and then Prime minister David Cameron said it was a “despicable act of pure evil”.
Cregan handed himself in and was sentenced to life imprisonment, with a whole life order on June 13 2013.
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Emily Davison
Suffragette Emily Davison was detained at Strangeways twice / Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Suffragette Emily Davison was detained at Strangeways twice as a result of her efforts for the women’s rights movements during the early twentieth century.
Her first stint was for disrupting a meeting with Chancellor David Lloyd George and throwing rocks at the windows, and during this imprisonment, she famously went on a significant hunger strike, which resulted in her losing 21 pounds.
She was released just five and a half days later.
Her second Strangeways stint came just two months after, again for throwing stones, and lasted two and a half days.
Paul Taylor
Paul Taylor was the ringleader of the infamous 1990 Strangeways Prison riots / Credit: Merseyside Police
Unlike the other people on this list, it was Paul Taylor’s actions during his time inside Strangeways rather than prior that have ensured his name is written in the prison’s history books.
It all started when a visiting Church of England preacher had just delivered the sermon, and the prison chaplain stood to thank him before Taylor took the microphone and addressed the congregation.
Over the course of 25-days, the riots – which are still the longest in British prison riot history, with one prisoner killed, and 147 prison officers and 47 prisoners injured – spread throughout much of the prison, and Taylor famously ended up on the roof.
Much of the prison was damaged or destroyed, with the cost of repairs coming to £55 million.
Featured Image – Wikimedia Commons / Biography
Feature
In celebration of Momo Shop: a Chorlton favourite that has flourished since its rebrand
Danny Jones
It’s not often we go out of our way to hammer home just how staggering we found a restaurant, but after now losing track of the number of times that a member of our team has eaten at Momo Shop in Chorlton and come back near speechless, it deserves more than a review.
We regularly hold ourselves back and resist the urge to talk in superlatives wherever possible, especially because we worry we might be falling into the recency bias trap, but in this instance, we’re going to go out on a limb and fall on our hospitality sword. Well, this particular writer is…
It’s official: Momo Shop Nepali Street Food – for our money, anyway – is up there with one of THE best restaurants in Manchester right now.
And there are plenty of reasons why, not least of all because of the years of practice they have feeding increasingly discerning Manc diners under a different moniker.
Simple but charming – all the focus is on the foodAnd the food speaks for itselfSome of the most flavourful fillings you’ll find in ManchesterBusy any given night of the weekNo review (Credit: The Manc Eats/Momo Shop via Instagram)
If you don’t live in/frequent Chorlton, you’ll be forgiven for thinking that this gaff was a somewhat new addition to Chorlton, but in actual fact it’s been gradually growing a loyal and passionate following for more than seven years.
This is because before the miniamlist rebrand that saw the walls stripped back, the exterior painted blue and cutesy little bits of artwork hung amidst that familiar and atmospheric festoon lighting, Momo Shop was once The Little Yeti.
Its former iteration boasted hundreds of glowing reviews in its own right, which already plated up plenty of stunning Nepalese food, but since switching primarily towards serving a menu primarily made up of momos (Tibetan-style fried dumplings hand-folded into various shapes) they’ve well and truly shone.
Now approaching a full 12 months under the new name, the Nepali street food spot isn’t just one of a relatviely small handful considering how much great South Asian food there is across Greater Manchester, we’d wager it could be the very best representing that Alpine-Himalayan belt in our region.
Our latest visit was genuinely just as good as our first, second, third and so on – take your pick.
From the simply incredible deep fried pork dumplings and the deeply moorish butter sauce that goes with literally any momo filling, to the super traditional buffalo ones that are not only authentic but, come on, where else can you find such a unique meat in these parts? It’s some of the best food we’ve eaten.
And we don’t just mean of late; Momo Shop might genuinely among of the nicest scran we’ve had in ages and it’s no exagerration to say that the first taste we enjoyed from many of these flavours have formed some of the strongest culinary memories we’ve created in quite a while.
It’s also worth nothing that it isn’t just one main snack-sized dish. The chow mein, keema noodles and cheesy chops are showstoppers themselves, and we’ve already booked in again for a 30th birthday celebration purely so we can try those lambs ribs and their take on a shashlick.
Nevertheless, we love the idea of the numerous configurations and concotions by pairing different dumplings and owner Niti Karki gave us some pro-tips of the best duos and even let us in on the trade secret of her go-to combo when she’s hungover. Legend.
Once again, at the risk of sounding too hyperbolic, odd moments have felt like core foodie memories on a par with our favourite all-time meals.
Personally, I’m glad to report that this isn’t just a review: consider this a declaration that Momo Shop has quickly become my favourite restaurant not just in Chorlton but in all of central Manchester, something I haven’t had since the heartbreaking closure of Cocktail Beer Ramen + Bun in 2023.
Plenty of varietyDamn straightNiti = absolute iconWe’ll keep your condiment secret forever, Niti…
There might be an element of the almost HakkaPo-esque style drawings, the colour palette and the carefully curated pop-punk, old school emo and post-hardcore playlist that’s over half a decade in the making that makes particualrly partial to this place
But before we wrap up this glorified love letter parading as a ‘review’, we also want to give a special nod to the charming staff and Niti’s mum, specficially, who was too modest to even let us share her picture, but whose wealth of wisdom, influence and experience has clearly inspired Momo Shop’s success.
Don’t be shy, Sue – the only thing more stylish than the food was you, girl. Pop off.
Put simply, we’ll be going back here as regularly as possible until we try every different momo + sauce variation there is, and there’s nothing you can do to stop us.
If you are in the mood for more dumpling excellence, by the way, you might want to check out the unassuming Northern Quarter gem that is Chef Diao.
Lady Gaga is a tour-de-force of talent at the Co-op Live Manchester
Clementine Hall
Lady Gaga proves she’s a truly world-class act after two sold-out nights at the Co-op Live Manchester, as if we needed any reminding.
The city of Manchester has been flooded with harness-wearing, mesh-sporting little monsters over the past two days.
And that’s because the absolute icon that is Lady Gaga brought her ‘Mayhem Ball’ to the Co-op Live for two nights.
I don’t think you’ll find anyone who doesn’t know who this fabulous woman is. Over the past decade, she’s won an Oscar, headlined the Super Bowl, performed in blockbusters alongside Al Pacino, no less, and her songs are literally ingrained into our minds.
It’s been a whole 11 years (yes, really) since she performed in Manchester, and it’s safe to say she was back with a bang.
The performance was split up into five distinct acts, and each one was as exhausting and exhilarating as the next.
She begins the show by bopping out of a comically huge red dress, but this staging was only the start of what madness was about to ensue.
Luckily, we’d been prepared by the other half of the Audio North team, who had the equal privilege of seeing her on night one and were left similarly speechless.
Throughout the 30-song epic, we had crutches, sand pits, cages, skeletons, enough wigs to produce an amateur production of Annie, and we didn’t question any of it. Why would we? It’s Lady Gaga.
Kicking things off with ‘Bloody Mary’, the two and a half hour marathon didn’t leave any stones unturned.
We had all the bangers, from ‘Just Dance’ and ‘Paparazzi’ to ‘Bad Romance’ and ‘Applause’, it had us wondering why any other superstar even bothers putting a song out these days.
Pop is in a good place at the moment with the likes of Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan, Dua Lipa, Billie Eilish and so on, but you can make a strong case for Gaga having helped pave the way for every lady in the business ever since.
Gaga truly had us in the palm of her hands (or claws at one point), even more so when she left the stage to de-robe and show her more vulnerable side for the last two songs – beanie firmly on.
It wasn’t just a concert: this was a fully-fledged tour de force of talent that Manchester won’t forget any time soon.
Sometimes there’s no point in intellectualising why someone has that ‘X-factor’; sometimes you just have to take a step back and say WOW.
Emily Sergeant -
21st June 2021 
