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’.
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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
It might seem mad today, but most of the area surrounding Crusader Mill on Chapeltown Street was slum housing and back-to-back terraces.
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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.
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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
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.
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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.
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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.
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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
A look at Embassy Village as construction on Manchester’s homeless housing project begins
Danny Jones
Work has officially begun on Manchester’s long-rumoured Embassy Village, a new living quarters designed specifically to house the local homeless community.
Set to be the largest purpose-built village of its kind in the UK, the hope is to provide short to medium-term housing for up to 40 rough sleepers in the Greater Manchester area.
Planning permission for the £4 million project proposed by the Embassy Charity was handed down back in 2021 and enabling works have been gradually taking place, with the land now fully prepped for construction to begin.
Officially breaking ground on Tuesday, 19 November, developers and regeneration specialists Peel Waters shared the first images from the site as well as concept artwork for what the district will look like once completed.
Construction begins to build the UK’s largest purpose-built village for rough sleepers @EmbassyVillage 🏗️🏡 Over 50 organisations are working together to transform our site below 22 railway arches into high-quality homes for 40 homeless men Full story herehttps://t.co/xoXfURTLGkpic.twitter.com/fn8GixYsxR
The 4.5-acre brownfield site sits beneath 22 railway arches just off the Egerton Street Bridge near Castlefield and the bustling Regent Road which heads towards Salford. Although it was initially said rooms would be made from shipping containers, the units will now be proper purpose-built structures.
Designed to house homeless and vulnerable people living in and around Manchester within individual units, Embassy Village is a joint non-profit venture by both Peel Waters and well-known property company Capital&Centric.
Contractor Vermont Group will be taking on the construction for free, with around 50 organisations offering their services pro bono, including AEW Architects, Planit and Jon Matthews Architects, who helped design the living quarters and wider communal space from the ground up.
Aiming to create a genuinely beneficial community environment, with those staying there able to access green spaces, mini-allotment plots, sports facilities; counselling services, laundry rooms, computer spaces and tonnes more, they’ve come a long way from offering tour bus beds to the homeless.
Residents will also start off on the right path towards getting back on their feet and those staying there will be required to carry out six hours of training per week in things like shopping, cooking, budgeting and other key life skills.
Substance abuse was only mentioned as a contributing cause by 22% of respondents, highlighting the reality that homelessness trauma exacerbates addiction for many. In fact, homelessness is a major contributing factor to substance abuse. pic.twitter.com/DeEB7VhAiC
Speaking on the first day of proper construction, Peel Waters‘ director James Whittaker said: “Today’s launch event is an important milestone, marking years of hard work and collaboration to deliver the UK’s first purpose-built community village…”
He went on to thank all of those who have backed the plans so far, including Greater Manchester’s Mayor Andy Burnham, who has already applauded it as a “fantastic idea.”
With several local organisations either offering their help for free or contribute by donating to the project, the speed at which work can now move is increasing and it is expected that the 24 homes, as well as the central ‘village hall’ space, will be finished within the next 10 months.
The aim is for Embassy Village to be completed in its entirety by the end of 2025 and with more and more businesses being invited to help with the development along the way, the amount of resources and manpower is only looking like it will increase with approximately £1m still needed to fully bring it to life.
Cooperating with the Greater Manchester Mayor’s Charity, which specialises in helping the homeless through its ‘A Bed Every Night’ scheme, Embassy are now working on finding long-term funding for the village’s operational costs once it is up and running.
Another key benefactor is The Moulding Foundation, an organisation dedicated to alleviating social inequalities, who donated £3.5m to support the village’s construction.
Co-founder, Jodie Moulding, told Prolific North: “For most people, access to housing, healthcare, and education is a given – but for others, it is a privilege…
“It has taken an unbelievable amount of time, effort, and energy to get to this point, so finally breaking ground is a huge milestone for everyone involved in bringing Embassy Village to life.”
As for Embassy themselves the charity’s director, Sid Williams, added: “Special thanks go to Matt and Jodie Moulding for their financial backing and the teams at Peel Waters, Capital&Centric, the Mayor’s Charity and Manchester City Council for making this happen.”
This Manchester suburb has just been named one of the UK’s ‘happiest’ places to live in 2024
Thomas Melia
An annual poll has named the Manchester suburb of Didsbury spot among 70 locations said to be the ‘happiest’ places to live in the UK.
Greater Manchester has got lots to say for itself, especially with its diverse and unique cultural landscapes, as well as various vibrant communities, so it comes as no surprise that one of our beautiful suburbs has been voted in a list of the UK’s happiest places to live for this year.
The survey included submissions from 5,000 people and there’s a lot of love being shown to the neighbouring areas of Yorkshire like Doncaster, Bingley, and Harrogate – the lattermost placed in second in the entire country.
But, ranking 62nd out of a possible 70 places, the distinct and vibrant area of Didsbury has been noticed by Furniturebox as one of the ‘happiest’ places to live in the UK.
Credit: The Manc Group
The results took into consideration good state schools, affordable housing, as well as accessibility to pubs, bars, restaurants, independent shops, retailers and more.
With multiple parks, walking destinations, and top-notch travel links with Bee Network trams and buses easily taking you back into the city centre and out to other boroughs, East, West and Didsbury Village all remain some of the most sought-after areas in the region.
There’s a whole host of indie retailers to enjoy, especially on the likes of the main high street and Burton Road, which effectively serves as its own cultural district, home to vintage clothing shops like Steranko, tailored styling opticians Fox Brothers and much more.
Burton Rd also boasts countless fantastic food and drink spots like The Great Kathmandu, SANTÉ, Volta and Proove Pizza, just to name a few; we’ve spent plenty of time just on this stretch of Didsbury alone.
If you’ve spent even a little time in Dids, you’ll know there’s plenty going on and it’s certainly one our happiest places in all of Greater Manchester and therefore the UK.
You can also enjoy the famous ‘Didsbury Dozen’ right on your doorstep.
Elsewhere, and somewhat unsurprisingly, Shakespeare’s ever-romanticised hometown of Stratford-Upon-Avon once again reigned supreme at the top of this list.
That being said, it’s refreshing to see that these locations weren’t entirely related to wealth and similar factors, the survey took affordability into careful consideration.
Cheshire was destined for success with its cracking views and grand properties, as the North West county made waves for the region managing to place in fifth position, holding up against Falmouth in Cornwall which placed in sixth.
Although not nabbing that all-important top spot, Didsbury is carrying the flag for 0161 and showing what all know to be true: Northerners do it best.