There’s a breadcrumb of new information in the ongoing wait for Soho House to arrive in Manchester – and it’s one to get excited about.
The renowned members’ club brand is currently transforming the old Granada Studios building into a luxury destination.
As well as a hotel occupying the top three floors, there’ll be a bar and terrace, workspace, and a rooftop swimming pool.
Until now, we’ve all got an understanding of what’s to come with Soho House based on their other sites across the globe, from the signature striped towels to the opulent interiors.
But now a new artist impression has been sent to members, giving us a bit more of an idea of what our own branch of Soho House will look like.
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The image shows a rooftop pool tiled in a rich jade green, with a terrazzo-style floor on the rest of the terrace space.
Soho House Manchester. Credit: Soho House
There’s also set to be rows of terracotta-hued day beds, with canvas canopies overhead, and a restaurant space with floor-to-ceiling windows beside it.
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The email to members also revealed some much sadder news – Nick Jones, founder of Soho House, has decided to step down from his CEO position after a short battle with prostate cancer.
The cancer was caught quickly and treated successfully, but Nick says it’s left him with a ‘changed perspective and focus’.
He wrote: “First some bad news, and some very good news: in early summer I was diagnosed with prostate cancer. It was caught early and my treatment has been 100% successful – and I’m not only healthy again, but also cancer-free.
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“Inevitably, this experience has changed my perspective and focus. As a result, from today I’m transitioning from CEO to my original role as Founder and will focus on the creative and membership aspects of Soho House.
“I want to do more of what I love, which is making sure you have a good time in well-designed, welcoming spaces and focusing on our House Foundations programmes, which help people flourish in the creative industries.
“Taking over the day-to-day running of the business will be Andrew Carnie, who’s worked alongside me for the past four years. I know him well and Soho House will be in safe hands with him as our new CEO.”
Nick added: “Following in 2023, we have new Houses opening in Bangkok, Mexico City and Manchester in the UK, which I’m pleased to share some preview pictures of below.
“I’ve been working closely with our teams on the plans for these sites and I know they will be spaces that both our long-standing and newer members will really enjoy.”
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There are now Soho House sites across England, as well as in Mykonos, Barcelona, Paris, Rome, New York, Mumbai, and many more.
Its foray into Manchester will be the first time the brand has ventured into the northern half of the UK – and the city is pretty hyped about it.
Featured image: Soho House
What's On
Busted and Rag ‘n’ Bone Man added to huge music series line-up in Delamere Forest
Thomas Melia
Pop-punk band Busted and pop/soul singer Rag ‘N’ Bone Man are the latest acts announced to headline a music-filled forest a short drive from Greater Manchester.
The new names have been added to the huge Forest Live 2025 gig series, which takes place at Delamere Forest as well as four other unique outdoor locations across the country.
In a setting that’s mostly greenery and acres of trees, one voice is guaranteed to travel through the dense landscape of the forest, and that’s Rag ‘N’ Bone Man.
Joining the bill with the impressive soloist is boyband and still-to-this-day heartthrobs Busted who are visiting AO Arena this year as well, for those who aren’t such big fans of the festival scene.
Busted have had worldwide and national acclaim soundtracking the early noughties by transporting people a thousand years into the future with ‘Year 3000’ and educating us on ‘What I Go To School For’.
Rag ‘N’ Bone Man has his fair share of chart topping too with notable songs like the hard-hitting drum-heavy ‘Human’ to the Calvin Harris link-up ‘Giant’ which is a flurry of flamboyant horns and EDM beats.
You could be like these lucky gig-goers, front row in Delamere Forest.Raise a glass to your favourite band at Forest Live 2025.Bringing music and green spaces together, Delamere Forest, Cheshire.Credit: Supplied
Stockport five-piece Blossoms will also be headlining and they might be bringing their latest member Gary, the infamous eight foot gorilla, on stage with them too.
There’s another Gary on the bill too, with Gary Barlow set to play in June.
Dundee legends Snow Patrol are another of the acts who are set to play at Forest Live this summer.
Situated in Cheshire, Delamere Forest has been hosting events and shows as part of ‘Forest Live’ in partnership with lots of other unique green spaces like Sherwood Forest and Cannock Chase Forest too.
This initiative is set to drive more people into these natural environments that they maybe wouldn’t visit if it wasn’t for the music and make them realise how brilliant these grounds truly are.
Rag ‘N’ Bone Man is headlining on Sunday 15 June while Busted are set to headline on Thursday 19 June, both events are taking place at Delamere Forest as part of Forest Live 2025, with tickets HERE.
Forest Live 2025 at Delamere Forest line-up
13 June – Snow Patrol
14 June – Gary Barlow
15 June – Rag n Bone Man
19 June – Busted (with Twin Atlantic and SOAP)
21 June – Blossoms (with Seb Lowe and The Guest List)
Manchester’s historic connections to slavery will be at the heart of a major new exhibition
Emily Sergeant
Manchester’s historic connections to slavery are to be explored during a major new exhibition coming soon to the city.
The Science and Industry Museum, in the heart of our city centre, is already known and loved for telling the story of the ideas and innovations that transformed Manchester into the world’s first industrial city.
But now, a new free exhibition is set to “enhance public understanding” of how transatlantic slavery actually shaped the city’s growth.
Produced by the Science and Industry Museum, in partnership with The Scott Trust Legacies of Enslavement programme, and developed with African descendent and diaspora communities through local and global collaborations, this landmark project will put Manchester’s historic connections to enslavement at the heart of a major exhibition at the museum for the first time.
Featuring new research, it will also explore how the legacies of these histories continue to impact Manchester, the world, and lives today.
Set to open in early 2027, the exhibition will run for a year in the museum’s Special Exhibitions Gallery.
Alongside that hub at the Science and Industry Museum itself, the project is also set to have a collaborative city-wide events programme, and a lasting legacy – with a new permanent schools programme, and permanent displays in the future too.
As mentioned, the new exhibition is part of The Scott Trust Legacies of Enslavement programme, which is a 10-year restorative justice project launched in 2023.
Manchester’s historic connections to slavery will be at the heart of a major new exhibition / Credit: Science Museum Group Collection
Through partnerships and community programmes, the project aims to improve public understanding of the impact of transatlantic slavery on the UK’s economic development, and its ongoing legacies for Black communities – with a strong focus on Manchester, the city in which The Guardian was founded back in 1821.
The museum’s existing gallery content and ongoing work around sharing the inextricable links between Manchester’s growth into an industrial powerhouse and a textile industry reliant on colonialism and enslavement will be developed through the project.
Through a “collaborative re-examination of the past”, the exhibition will also share a more inclusive history of a city that prides itself on being at the forefront of ideas that change the world.
It’s opening at the Science and Industry Museum in early 2027 / Credit: Science and Industry Museum
Speaking ahead of the exhibition’s arrival in early 2027, Sally MacDonald, who is the Director of the Science and Industry Museum, says: “This will be an exhibition about important aspects of our past that are profoundly relevant to the world we live in today.
“Revealed from the perspectives of those who experienced enslavement and whose lives have been shaped by its legacies, we will foreground stories of resistance, agency, and skill.
“The exhibition will explore themes of resilience, identity and creativity alongside exploitation and inequality, and will feature a specific focus on the ways that scientific and technological developments both drove and were driven by transatlantic slavery.”
Further details on the project will be announced in due course, so stay tuned.
Daisy Jackson -
16th November 2022 
