Piccadilly East is on the way to becoming one of Manchester’s coolest new neighbourhoods, but the once little-known corner of the city has a fascinating hidden history.
Like Castlefield, the Northern Quarter and Ancoats before it, the district – set between Piccadilly Station and Great Ancoats Street – is making waves as one of the up-and-coming places to live for people wanting to get ahead of the property curve.
The team behind Ramona and The Firehouse recently revealed plans to transform Piccadilly East’s Diecast building into a massive beer hall and night market, alongside creative workspaces and gardens.
This spring will also see the opening of the striking Leonardo Hotel – the brand’s first spot in the city, with bar, restaurant and wellness spaces.
Add to that plans for more homes, pocket parks and community events and a proper buzz is building, with Piccadilly East being named by The Times as one of the ‘next great places to live’.
ADVERTISEMENT
But those calling it home will be the latest in a rich and colourful history. From rival gangs and gritty industrial slums, to a former life as a red light district, the streets echo with the stories of the past.
The Commune
Piccadilly East has been named as one of the ‘next great places to live’.
It might seem mad today, but most of the area surrounding Crusader Mill on Chapeltown Street was slum housing and back-to-back terraces.
ADVERTISEMENT
Sometimes nicknamed The Dardanelles or, more locally, The Commune, the communities housed workers from Crusader and the surrounding mills.
The tiny houses were often home to around nine people living in poverty, including local workers, their kids and lodgers.
It’s where machinists, carters, and railway labourers rested their head after their shifts, alongside cotton spinners and reelers, tailors, packers, stay (corset) makers, and paviers who were working on the rapidly expanding city’s infrastructure.
ADVERTISEMENT
The success of the neighbourhood played out in the local pubs, mostly lost to slum clearance. Whilst their daily life and celebration likely played out in these boozers, sadly it’s the stories of strife and sorrow that are usually logged in the history books.
Gangs and scuttling
Crusader Mill
The area was once rife with crime, with young boys making up the gangs of Manchester. The Scuttlers and The Quality Street Gang (the inspiration for the Thin Lizzy song ‘The Boys Are Back In Town’) ran the streets around Piccadilly East and Ancoats.
Like George Moran, described in records as ‘a rough’, who lived there in the 1890s and was part of the gang that served as the influence for TV smash series Peaky Blinders. By the time George was in trouble for scuttling it was their peak time in history, with more young people in Strangeways prison for scuttling than anything else.
Scuttling – involving groups of young men fighting – all but vanished when the slums in the area were cleared in the following decades.
Colourful characters
Ferrous
The Leonardo Hotel
Developments transforming Piccadilly East
Loads of colourful characters make up the very human history of the neighbourhood.
ADVERTISEMENT
Tales like that of Elizabeth White, who lived on Travis Street. She met a man – George Craven – that summer in Blackpool, and he began lodging with her. It turned out Craven was a wanted burglar who had cut a hole in the ceiling of a jewellers so he could wriggle in and raid the joint.
Police tracked him down to Elizabeth’s home in 1872, where he shot a Detective Rowbottom, who survived a bullet that passed straight through his wrist.
Or the likes of the McGlynns, two local performers believed to have been part of Hengler’s Grand Cirque, a circus that stood for only four years before it was demolished to make way for the Hippodrome.
Performances included an early incarceration of the living statues now common on Market Street, and ‘Siberia’, which saw soldiers and horses plunged in water ten feet deep.
The McGlynn family vanished from the records around the time the circus was demolished – some believed they went to Paris to join the era of the Moulin Rouge.
ADVERTISEMENT
Or the people who kept the community going, like knocker upper Rueben Holland, lamplighter Thomas Kennedy, fireman Thomas Taylor, Alice Baths the umbrella maker, and a pickle packer named Elizabeth Grice.
A new chapter
Crusader Mill
Crusader Mill
Phoenix
Phoenix
New Capital & Centric developments in Piccadilly East.
Social impact developer Capital&Centric are leading the re-birth of the neighbourhood, with projects including the restoration of the historic 200-year-old Crusader Mill into homes and the neighbouring new-build Phoenix, industrial loft apartments. Their new-build community Ferrous, featuring ground floor cafes, bars and outside event space has also just been given the go ahead.
Crusader dates back to the 1840s, when it was the home of manufacturing company Parr, Curtis and Madeley and a key cog in Manchester’s Cottonopolis past.
A huge fire destroyed much of the mill, then known as Phoenix Works, in 1861, with the weight of the machinery and the damage brought by the flames causing the floors to collapse.
It was rebuilt, and by the 1920s was known as Crusader Mill, occupied by creative industries like the arts and publishing.
ADVERTISEMENT
Thankfully, the days of slums and Scuttlers are long gone. A new chapter for the building and neighbourhood has already begun, with residents living where hundreds of people once worked.
But whilst the next era of Piccadilly East will be one buzzing with community life, the Mancunian stories that have shaped its past will always be a part of its heritage.
Visit the Crusader and Phoenix websites to find out more or call 0161 222 0204 to arrange a viewing.
Property
Five reasons to live at New Maker Yards, Salford’s stunning canalside neighbourhood
Daisy Jackson
With new apartment blocks springing up all over Greater Manchester, it’s rare to find one with community spirit built-in – but we’ve found just the place.
Just across the river from Manchester city centre, this canalside neighbourhood offers more than just its beautifully designed apartments and generous green spaces. New Maker Yards creates a community that values lifestyle, wellbeing and connection as much as the living spaces themselves.
That means free events for residents, plenty of communal spaces, a gorgeous setting, and so much more.
Here, you’ll find one-, two-, and three-bedroom homes available for rent, with pet-friendly pads, an on-site cafe, parking, and green spaces all available. It’s in a pretty enviable location, too.
Here are five reasons to make New Maker Yards your next home.
Community
At New Maker Yards, you’re not just renting an apartment, you’re joining a neighbourhood with real community spirit.
Large-scale free community events bring residents and locals together, like this summer’s Middlewood Locks Fest, which featured live music, food, rowing boats and a market right on the canals.
The recent Sofar Sounds event saw the community curl up on beanbags to enjoy a completely free gig from up-and-coming local artists.
Come winter, there’ll be a Christmas party, and all year round you’ll find monthly quiz nights, workshops, a book club, yoga, football, a run club, and pop-up events like sushi making and plant pot painting.
Location
Aviva Studios is a short walk from New Maker YardsNew Maker Yards is just outside Manchester city centre
Technically in Salford, but a stone’s throw away from Manchester city centre, New Maker Yards blends convenience with character. You can even see Aviva Studios from here.
Built around canals and just beside the River Irwell, it’s a gorgeous part of the city centre.
From your door, it’s just a four minute walk to the Regent Retail Park (hello, big Sainsburys and JD Gyms); seven-minutes to all the restaurants and cafes on Chapel Street; and less than 10 minutes from St John’s and onwards to Spinningfields.
You can also get your green space fix with a 15 minute walk to Castlefield, with Peel Park a little further on.
And with each apartment block designed around its own communal gardens, you’ll feel tucked away from the city centre, while still being amongst the action.
Communal spaces
Co-working hub at New Maker YardsCo-working hub at New Maker YardsA resident lounge
You’ll never get cabin fever at New Maker Yards, which has loads of communal spaces to enjoy.
Residents have access to The Lock, a co-working hub with window seats, booths and a huge co-working desk.
Residents can also access the Club Room, where you’ll find a mini library, a kitchen for hosting events, a huge TV and more.
Outside, landscaped gardens include flower beds, loungey garden furniture, ping pong tables and more for residents to enjoy.
Add in a 92 Degrees coffee shop and an on-site Co-op shop, and you have everything you need right on your doorstep.
Interiors
Inside a New Maker Yards apartmentA living space opening onto an outdoor terraceModern, fully equipped kitchensStylish living spaces
Apartments at New Maker Yards come with top-spec, state-of-the-art interiors, designed for modern living.
Each home has huge windows that flood with natural light, integrated kitchen appliances including a fridge, microwave and dishwasher, and loads of storage space.
Furniture packages mean you can move straight into a home kitted out with dressers, drawers, beds, sofas, mirrors, and more.
Many of the apartments also feature private outdoor space – balconies for the upper floors, and terraces opening onto the communal gardens for the ground floors.
They’re also pet friendly, so you can bring your four-legged friend with you.
Services and amenities
The Club RoomNew Maker Yards
You’ll have proper peace of mind at New Maker Yards, both for your own personal safety and the safety of your ASOS parcels.
There’s 24-hour on-site security, an on-site maintenance team, a parcel room and a friendly resident team in the welcome office, ready to help with whatever you need.
Storage pods, car parking and bike storage are all available too.
To find out more about New Makers Yard, head HERE.
The incredible plans to build floating walkways over Manchester’s waterways
Daisy Jackson
A major project that will deliver a 100-mile-plus network connecting Manchester’s parks, squares and waterways has been unveiled – and it includes impressive floating walkways.
The first steps for the CyanLines mega project have been unveiled today, including the first four routes which will link the likes of Mayfield Park, New Islington Marina, Castlefield Viaduct and Kampus.
The ambitious plans will also link lesser-known pocket parks, canal tow paths, and pedestrianised walkways, and will incorporate new planned outdoor spaces such as the Science Museum courtyard and the former Central Retail Park.
One particularly eye-catching proposal will be a new floating walkway across the middle of the River Irwell, complete with a canoe dock and storage area.
The plans will adapt to Manchester’s ever-expanding cityscape and will link up new and existing developments, providing green walking and cycling routes around town.
Manchester and Salford City Councils have already worked together and secured funding from the National Trust, Natural England, and the National Lottery Heritage Fund’s Nature Towns and Cities programme.
There are four CyanLines pilot routes – the first being a 5km ‘Irk Valley Explorer’ that will link Chethams Library and the Glade of Light memorial, Angel Meadows, the under-development City River Park, and the Barney’s Steps made famous by LS Lowry, ending with a view of the city skyline.
Then there’s the Mayfield, New Islington and Ancoats Loop, which will connect together Mayfield Park, the Ashton Canal, the Central Retail Park which is being transformed into a campus for the UK Government, New Islington Marina, Ancoats Green, and all the way down to leafy Kampus.
How the River Irwell could look with the CyanLines routes in placeHow the River Irwell looks currently
CL3, otherwise known as the ‘Walking the knowledge corridor’, incorporates significant landmarks like the Emmeline Pankhurst statue, our historic canal network, the Palace Theatre, Symphony Gardens, the universities, Manchester Museum, and Whitworth Art Gallery.
And the final of the four pilot routes is the CL4, focused around the almighty Castlefield Viaduct but also joining the Bridgewater Canal into Salford and the Irwell River Park, as well as the gardens around Chapel Street, Greengate Park, and the River Irwell itself.
Councillor Bev Craig, leader of Manchester City Council, said: “Manchester is on a mission to make our city greener, investing in new parks and green spaces including the likes of Mayfield, Ancoats Green and the Castlefield Viaduct, in addition to our work to celebrate and open up our rivers and canals. We are a city with exciting, and transformational plans for the future. .
“But there’s more that we can do together. CyanLines is a bold new initiative over the next decade to imagine and create over 100 miles of connected parks, green spaces and waterfronts.
“This is just the start of CyanLines and I urge residents, business owners, community groups and leaders to join us on this very exciting journey to truly transform our city.”
Tom Bloxham MBE CBE, CyanLines project co-founder and chair, Urban Splash and founding Chair Manchester International Festival (MIF) and Factory International said that the same ambition that grew MIF will be applied to CyanLines.
More before-and-after images of the CyanLines pilot plans
He said: “We want to bring the whole city along with us, to help us plan, fund and deliver CyanLines. No idea is too big, too ambitious, too audacious or too small or too straightforward.
“Everyone wants more green space. Everyone wants to be able to walk to the end of Castlefield Viaduct. Everyone wants to be healthier and happier.
“Imagine more species and drifts of plants and wildflowers and allotments in the city centre and being able to walk one or 100 miles of continuous paths linking all our amazing spaces. Together we can make it happen!”
Pete Swift, CyanLines project co-founder and CEO of Planit said: “The first four CyanLines provide so much more than walkable and wheelable connections linking the existing and planned excellent green and blue spaces across the city, to bring us all closer to nature and nature closer to us.
“The routes will be the starting point, or spring board, for a whole plethora of CyanLines projects which will bring new opportunities for nature to thrive and to be enjoyed.
“The ambition for CyanLines does not stop at Manchester and Salford city centres. It will ultimately link up all Greater Manchester’s boroughs to bring our citizens and communities closer to nature and help drive a greener, healthier, and inclusive future. From Dunham Massey in the south, to Northern Roots in Oldham; from Leigh via RHS Bridgewater, Media City on to the foot of the Pennines.”
Mike Innerdale, regional director North of England, National Trust said: “National Trust are firm supporters of CyanLines, not least because its core aim mirrors our own of ensuring more people have access to nature particularly in our towns and cities, and to bring nature to people’s doorsteps wherever they live.
“We recently announced we have secured the majority of the £3 million of funding for the Castlefield Viaduct which will allow us to bring Phase 2 of this iconic sky park project to life, enabling us to create a through route at the heart of the city. We look forward to working with the CyanLines team and other partners as both our projects advance, connecting Castlefield viaduct with the other wonderful spaces in Manchester and Salford city centres.”