GHOSTLY TOM'S TRAVEL BLOG…..

I’d always thought that Affleck and Brown’s was originally in the building in this post. It’s across Church Street from the real former Affleck & Browns store, still facing onto Oldham Street. I thought this for ages as it houses a Manchester institution, Afflecks Palace.

If the N4 has a beating heart, it will be this building. I’m not sure what was in it originally but the aforementioned ancient relative said he used to buy his 26in flare bottomed trousers, penny round collared shirts and 4 inch platform shoes from a store called Guys & Dolls that was here in the late 60s and early 70s. He was a fan of David Bowie in his Ziggy Stardust years apparently. Must have made quite a sight in Manchester in those days. He says he remembers running for a train in Victoria Station when the 26in flares got tangled with the 4 inch platform shoes and he went a**e over t*t.

Well fashions change and Guys and Dolls closed down. In 1981 James and Elaine Walsh opened the building as Affleck’s Palace. The idea was that independent entrepreneurs could start up a business in the building with affordable rents paid on a weekly basis. It was a phenomenal success and even a couple of fires didn’t close it down. They were involved with it until 2008 when it looked as if it might, finally, close down. It was regarded with such affection in the city and so important to the N4 and the city generally that the city council got involved, brokering a deal between the Walsh’s and the new owners Bruntwood. Bruntwood are a property firm based in Manchester and own a number of buildings across the city. There were rumours that it would close down and be converted for office or apartments but Bruntwood have been ad good as their word and Affleck’s has remained an eclectic mix of businesses all under one roof.

They have also invested in the building, improving facilities inside and giving the exterior a facelift, repainting the stucco plaster walls and installing new art works. These included the mosaics on the Tib Street side which went as they were the personal property of the Walshs. They tracked down the original artist and commissioned him to do some new ones. They have also installed the silver tree on the Tib Street wall. So the businesses in here are safe for the foreseeable future.

The growth and development of the N4 can be said to have begun with the establishment of Affleck’s Palace. As the businesses outgrew their Afflecks’ base they began to look for larger premises and began to fan out into what is now the N4, and that attracted other businesses to the area as well. The area got another unforeseen boost when the little businesses in the Corn Exchange had to seek new premises when the IRA bomb wrecked that building in 1996. Other cities look enviously at Manchester’s N4 and have tried to emulate it. But it can’t be done, It has to grow organically and do declaration by the city fathers of Birmingham, Leeds or Liverpool can call it into being.

Afflecks is actually 2 or possibly 3 buildings that are connected inside. It’s a bit of a rabbit warren in there. It looks much more of a unit since the repainting of the exterior but look at the pictures and you can see the different architectural styles.

One of the great draws of Oldham Street in its heyday was the Affleck and Browns Department Store just off Piccadilly Gardens. It occupied an impressive building and an entire city block between Tib Street and Oldham Street and Church Street and Hilton Street. It began in the 1860s, about 1865/66 I think. It provided high class clothing and was a drapers and furnishers to Manchester’s aspirational classes. Here it is in 1910 when the street was at its height It’s in the distance on the left, the immediate buildings on the left now from part of Affleck’s Palace. I like the awnings sheltering the shop windows from the sun and the shoppers from the rain.

This looks like a calling card for the store showing the impressive façade as it faces the corner of Oldham Street and Church Street, showing off its best face to potential customers as they made their way from Piccadilly Gardens. It’s advertising the latest in communication technology, 12 separate telephone lines and the telegram address, the email of its day.

King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra visited Manchester in 1905 to open something in the city. As the world witnessed last year, we are still very happy to have the Queen as head of state and it seems it was the same in 1905 when Afflecks & Browns announced that they had opened a special department so people could buy merchandise to decorate their homes and businesses to celebrate the visit. I’m pretty sure there wouldn’t have been miles of plastic bunting.

Announcing their 71st Annual Sale in 1937, Afflecks & Browns were probably at their height now. Sadly the city was about to enter a bad period in its history that would devastate huge areas of the city centre. Afflecks & Browns escaped the worst that WWII threw at us but the land freed up on the other side of the city centre encouraged new build shops there that caused Oldham Street to go into decline.

I’m not sure when this advertisement is from. I don’t know my fashion styles well enough. Could be 1930s or 1950s. I may be wrong. It’s interesting that it’s selling a fur coat. Fur coats were the height of cool and style for a while and the fact that Afflecks & Browns sold them proves how exclusive a store it was. It’s on sale for 75 guineas. Guineas were used when you bought something exclusive. A guinea was worth £1.05 in our money, that would make this coat on sale at (reaches for calculator) £78.75. Doesn’t sound a lot by 2013 standards, less than one of my Nicole Fahri shirts from Harvey Nichols, but back in the 50s or the 30s that was a lot of money, 1000s of £ to us now.

Of course you can’t buy fur easily in the UK anymore. It has virtually disappeared from sale. Kendal’s on Deansgate used to have a fur department as did Debenham’s when it was Paulden’s and there were designated furriers on King Street. They have all closed as our appetite for real fur and the cruelty involved has diminished. It hasn’t lost its appeal in Europe and you can go to Paris or Milan to buy it. You would probably have to wear it there as well, as wearing it on a street in a UK city might attract unwanted attention. One store, Mulberry on New Cathedral Street, does seem to be using fur in its clothes and is picketed by anti-fur activists pretty regularly as a result. Personally I wouldn’t wear it, there are reasonable artificial facsimiles and I really couldn’t wear a garment for which an animal had died so it could be made.

After WWII the fortunes of Oldham Street and with it, Afflecks & Browns, went into a slow decline. The store was bought by Debenhams who also bought Paulden’s department store at All Saints. After the original Paulden’s burned down in a disastrous fire in 1957, Paulden’s moved to the  art deco Ryland’s Building on Market Street where it stared Lewis’s right in the face across the street. Both stores were destinations stores for decades. At some point in the late 60s/early 70s Debenhams rebranded Paulden’s as a Debenhams store and, having seen the writing on the wall about Oldham Street, closed Affleck and Brown’s down. I’m not sure of the date but a relative of mine remembers being taken there when he was a little boy. So that would put the closure at some point in the Cretaceous Period when dinosaurs frolicked in the city’s parks like the squirrels do today.

I’m not sure if anything was done with the building for a long time but in the 90s it was in a pretty dilapidated state. Enter Tom Bloxham and his Urban Splash company that specialises in restoring old buildings and finding new uses for them. He gutted the building and rejuvated it as one of the first buildings in the N4 and Manchester to be converted into NYC style loft apaertments. They sold like hot cakes and it’s a very popular address. There is some office space and the street level is still given over to retail with a mixture of trendy labelled stores like BENCH and little one off stores. It’s a mixture of the original building and the modern alterations which could be a disaster but works rather well.

This is what it looks like now, beautifully restored and in full use…

As I’ve said posted before, Oldham Street is the main street running through the N4. It’s a busy street, now lined with independent stores, that brings and takes a lot of the bus traffic from the northern suburbs of the city into the city centre. It used to be a very smart shopping street but the building of the Arndale Centre and the moving of the centre of axis for Manchester retail from Piccadilly Gardens to the area where M&S is now all but killed it off. The national chains moved out and the department stores closed and the smaller shops died as the big guys got out.

Of course it’s had a revival as the N4 has prospered and developed and the bottom end of the street has blossomed as the centre of alternative shopping in the city. All the stores there are now full and new businesses are having to look further afield in the N4 to find a place to set up business. Tib Street, Common Street and Thomas Street are pretty full as well. Stevenson Square and the top end of Oldham Street where it reaches Great Ancoats Street, seem to be the new areas where people are looking. New stores are opening and some of the older stores are getting a makeover. The UK economy is still in the doldrums with flat growth (economist’s speak for nothing much happening). But some places are still doing well. London of course is doing well and Manchester seems to be weathering the storm. Lots of new building projects starting up, more restaurants and bars than we had before the banking crisis, house prices up in the sought after suburbs like  Chorlton and Didsbury. But if the economy is flat and places like London and Manchester are growing that means there must be places around the country that are still in recession and are seeing a decline in their economy. I can’t see it improving though until Europe sorts out its mess. They are the biggest market for our goods and services and until they are growing our economy will still be flat.

I am rambling, what I was saying is that the N4 is one of the bright spots in the Mancunian economy. With a 100,000+ students in the city and Manchester being a great place for people to spend a few days with money in their pockets and out for a good time, the N4 is doing well. Hence the new developments.

It’s all come a bit too late for the poor Dobbin’s store though which has now completely disappeared. Very sad to see it go. I wonder what will be put up here and when it will happen?

This little building looked shabby a few weeks ago. It’s had a lick of paint above and they have used a striking blue colour at street level, a cool font for its name and you have RETRO REHAB, one of Oldham Street’s many emporiums for vintage (second hand but washed) clothes….

I was told to look up in a city to find the best architecture. Often the ground floors have been messed about with in an ill-conceived attempt to modernise them. I think this has happened here. The ‘carpet doesn’t match the drapes’ as they say or were they talking about something else? I’m not sure. The ground floor is getting a makeover prior to another business moving in. The top two floors aren’t the greatest of architecture but I like the pleasing symmetry and it adds interest to the street.

Another building where ‘the carpet doesn’t match the drapes.’ I really dislike the ground floor where some one has given it a modern, very bland makeover. But the top floors are wonderful with 1930s classical pilasters. I have no idea what this building did in the 30s. It wasn’t one of the biggest stores on Oldham Street but I imagine it was quite a grand store in its day. It’s a pity they haven’t given it a more sympathetic makeover. It’s roughly the same age as threatened Century House on St. Peter’s Square. We don’t seem to be looking after our heritage from that period.

This building houses an organisation called Addiction Dependency Solutions. The ground floor has had a more sympathetic makeover than the building above but it could have been better. But look above again and there is a very pretty façade with curved windows and little balconies in pale blue and yellow. I wonder who HENRY JACOB was and what he did in this building? All I can find is that he was a tailor. He must have had a good business to be able to operate out of this building and have his name across the top. I imagine him making beautiful suits for wealthy Manchester businessmen. Do you dress to the right or the left sir?

Just to the left of the Henry Jacob building, you can just see the back entrance (the main entrance is on the other side of the building in Tib Street) of Matt & Phred’s, Manchester’s premier Jazz club and an iconic business in the N4.

I wandered across to where they are just beginning to build a new apartment block, 2 minutes from Thomas Street. The building is officially called One Smithfield Square, named after the fruit and vegetable market that used to operate in this area. But it’s become known as the ‘Puzzle Box’ as it’s, with the bits sticking out, like one of those wooden puzzles where you have to open it in a particular way to get inside.

They have been busy excavating the ground underneath for the basement area and the foundations which they seem to be putting in at the moment. Next to it they are also working on the Mackie Mayor Market building which was good to see. It would have been bad to have lost this building due to neglect.

In the original pictures all the balconies of the apartments and some of the walls were rainbow coloured. They seem to have given up on that idea. On the pictures of the finished block they are all yellow. It contrasts well with the dark walls but I’m disappointed that they are using the rainbow scheme.