ABC Wednesday: A is for Abel Heywood

  © Copyright Gerald England and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

Abel Heywood is a Hydes pub, restaurant and boutique hotel on the corner of Turner Street and Red Lion Street which opened in December 2014 after conversion from a semi-derelict building.

  © Copyright Gerald England and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

It is named after Abel Heywood (1810 – 1893) who set up a penny reading room in 1831 and had a bookselling business in Oldham Street. An active Chartist, his business published much of the reading material of the town's movement, including the Northern Star. In 1841, he was elected treasurer of the National Charter Association, as well as sitting on the executive committee. At the same time he campaigned actively for the incorporation of the city and, once this was achieved, was elected to the council in 1843. Heywood served as alderman in 1853 and in 1859 stood unsuccessfully as a Radical Liberal candidate for Manchester. His first term as Mayor was in 1862–1863, during the cotton famine. He became Mayor again in 1876–1877. A major achievement was his role in guiding Manchester Town Hall to its completion; the clock bell of the Town Hall, "Great Abel", is named after him.

  © Copyright David Dixon and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

His son, also named Abel continued the business after his death and the gable end of the building carries the words "Abel Heywood and Son".

  © Copyright David Dixon and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

According to Pubs of Manchester The Red Lion stood here from the early 19th century until the early to mid 20th century. It seems probable that the pub occupied only that part on the corner of Red Lion Street and Catlow Lane. The section to the right was once a gallery, where it exhibited sets from the BBC series, Cutting It. Catlow Lane was originally Church Lane.

A contribution to ABC Wednesday and signs, signs.

Llandudno sea view

This was our view is from the third floor side room where we stayed last month at the Esplanade Hotel.

Past the side of the Merrion Hotel is a section of South Parade set aside for the parking of motorcycles.

Beyond the promenade lies the beach and the pier. The pier originally started beyond the Grand Hotel before a landward extension was built around the side the Grand.

The top half of a landing slip for small boats can be seen. A further landing slip nearer the pier is fully submerged.

I took so many photographs that week that it will take me months to sort through them all. We've already booked a return visit for September.

A contribution to
Water World Wednesday;
Wednesday Waters;
signs, signs.

Cock Hotel, Haughton Green

The Cock Hotel on Two Trees Lane, Haughton Green, Denton, Manchester dates back to the mid/late 19th century. There is nothing more about it I can tell you.

A contribution to signs, signs and Skywatch Friday.

The historic Manchester Woolworth's site.

photograph © 2015, Gerald England.
The former Woolworths Manchester store on the corner of Piccadilly and Oldham Street was for a long time Noble's Amusements but is now a Travelodge with a Morrisons Local store, Nando's and Zizzi also occupying the ground floor. Buses for Ashton under Lyne leave from outside.

  © Copyright David Dixon and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

The Woolworth's department store at the corner of Oldham Street and Piccadilly in Manchester, photographed a few days after the disastrous fire of 8th May 1979 which killed 10 people and left a further 47 needing hospital treatment.

The store comprised six floors along with two basement levels and at the time was said to be the largest Woolworth store in Europe. Crucially, the store had no sprinkler system fitted. It is believed that the fire was started by a damaged electrical cable that had furniture stacked in front of it.

The disaster led to a major shake-up in UK fire laws after it was revealed that polyurethane foam fillings in furniture at the store made the situation much worse. The foam would burn rapidly, producing large amounts of thick dense smoke which would have soon obscured the exit signs. This would have led to confusion and, together with the irritants in the smoke affecting people’s vision and causing breathing difficulties, would have hindered any escape. The changes in legislation are believed to have saved thousands of lives since.

At the time, on 8 May 1979, the Woolworth store blaze was the city's worst fire disaster since World War II.

Read the Fire Service report on the fire and the BBC News report.

A contribution to Our World Tuesday.

ABC Wednesday:D is for Dragon

This dragon sits proudly above the weather vane on top of the former Washington Wine Bar on the corner of East Parade and Clarence Road in Llandudno which closed in May 2012.

The original Washington Hotel, built c1885, protruded onto the Parade; the building was re-built in 1925 to align with the road, and the rest of East Parade.

The building which is Grade II listed is currently being renovated and is expected to reopen as a restaurant in 2015.

A contribution to ABC Wednesday.

Old and new landmarks

Travelling into Manchester on the A56, crossing the river Medlock on the Bridgewater Viaduct (the road on the right) the original landmark was Castlefield Congregational Church. Now it is overshadowed by the Beetham Tower.

Castlefield Congregational Church originally opened as a Congregational chapel in 1858, and was designed by the local architect Edward Walters. It is Grade II listed.

For a time it was the offices of Artingstalls Auctioneers. The building was converted to a sound recording studio in the 1980s and owned by Pete Waterman. Rick Astley recorded "Never Gonna Give You Up" in the chapel. Waterman sold the building in 2006 to Bluetree Estates for conversion to offices. After a leasing deal fell through in 2010 the building was put up for sale again and remains unoccupied.

Beetham Tower is a 47-storey mixed-use skyscraper completed in 2006 and named after its developers, the Beetham Organisation. It was designed by Ian Simpson. At a height of 168 metres (551 ft), it is the tallest skyscraper in Manchester, the ninth tallest building in the United Kingdom and the tallest building outside London.

The Hilton Hotel occupies space up to level 22 and a four-metre cantilever marks level 23 where the Cloud 23 bar is located. Above this level are apartments from level 25 to the triplex penthouse apartment on level 47. The structure is one of the thinnest skyscrapers in the world and was designed to be a slender tower. A blade structure on the south side of the building acts as a façade overrun accentuating its slim form and doubles as a lightning rod.

In the foreground left is a footbridge over the river Medlock. Either side of the two landmarks are arches of the Castlefield Viaduct which carries the railway line west from Deansgate. The one on the left, over the Rochdale Canal, was featured in my post of February 1st 2014.

A coloured version of this photograph can be found on Geograph.

A contribution to The Weekend in Black and White;
Scenic Weekends,
Sunday Bridges at San Francisco Bay Daily Photo and
Inspired Sundays.

Hatters' Hostel Mural

(click on image to view full size)
After I'd photographed last week's featured mural Faunagraphic in Stevenson Square, I walked down the road to Newton Street where this splendid huge mural exists on the side of Hatters' Manchester Hostel on Newton Street. I'd photographed it before from the other side on Port Street and posted it here in July 2012. Three months before that it had been featured on Chrissy Brand's Mancunian Wave.

A contribution to Monday Murals.

ABC Wednesday: N is for the New Mayfair Hotel

We've just come back from a week at the New Mayfair Hotel on New South Promenade in Blackpool. It is a hotel that caters specifically for anyone with disabilities.

The food was good and the company friendly.

This was the view from our bedroom. A small lawn area frequented by dog walkers seperates the hotel from the busy road and tramlines below the promenade above the seawall.

The hotel's proximity to a tram stop was it's trump card. The new fleet of trams at Blackpool are fully wheelchair accessible and the carriages have spaces into which even electric wheelchair users can navigate. This photograph was taken at the Central Pier stop and shows Madame Tussaud's waxworks in the background.

We went to Fleetwood, Cleveleys and Central Blackpool on the tram and to Windermere and Lancaster using the hotel bus which also transported us from home to the hotel and back. I took some 300 photographs.

This was the view Monday morning before we came home. We've booked to go back again in June.

For ABC Wednesday.

ABC Wednesday M is for Maison des Landes

Last week we flew to Jersey where we stayed at the Maison des Landes Hotel.

Maison des Landes is a charitable trust set-up by the Lions Club of Jersey to provide holidays specifically for the disabled. The hotel is situated nine miles from St Helier on the gorse and heather covered headlands of Les Landes, with panoramic views of St Ouen's Bay and the Atlantic.

I took lots of photographs during the week which I'll be sorting out in due course. For now here are a few shots of our hotel room.

The weather was mostly unkind especially for the first part of the week but the camaraderie amongst the guests made up for that. We shared our breakfast table with Jack from Merseyside who has been coming every year since the late 70s and Margaret from Clydeside who was on her own this time but has been often before as a carer.

There was also a group of 10 people with varying disabilities from the Harrogate area looked after by five volunteer carers organised by Breakaway Holidays; a one-legged woman from West London; a lady with MS who'd brought her sister for a change and several other couples and individuals.

The wheelchair we had hired for the week kept losing power after only a short time, despite appearing fully-charged. The splendid hotel staff though did their best to mitigate the effects of the problem. We were taken out on day trips to different parts of the island, the routes and destinations tailored to account for the weather and the preferences of guests.

All in all we had a lovely time and I'll be sharing some of the highlights in subsequent posts.

For more M posts visit ABC Wednesday.

ABC Wednesday - Y is for Ye Old Nelson

Ye Olde Nelson on Chapel Street, Salford, an ornate building, one of the landmarks of the city, was built in 1899 on the site of a pub which had opened for business in 1805, the year Vice Admiral Lord Viscount Nelson died as his fleet defeated the French and Spanish. Buildings around it have already been demolished in what has become a development site.


A report in the Manchester Evening News on April 1st 2004 reported that "When it closed last year the pub still had many of its original fittings. Now business leaders and residents are heading a campaign to prevent it being bulldozed and turned into a block of flats."

A fire in 2004 gutted the inside of the building, but the outside survived. Reports in 2009 [dead link deleted] appear to confirm that it has been saved from demolition and will be incorporated into the redevelopment of the area.


These photographs were taken in September 2009 and from this angle Ye Old Nelson seems to tower above the Beetham Tower seen in the background.

For more Y posts visit ABC Wednesday.

ABC Wednesday - L is for Lord Street, Southport

Enter Southport on the A570 and at the end of the road is Lord Street. Facing you is the Scarisbrick Hotel.


Further along are three banks. The Old Bank looks very imposing. I don't know which bank once traded here, but it is now empty and available for lease. A rather non-descript modern building houses Barclays, followed by the elegant structure which is home to the Royal Bank of Scotland. Originally this would have been a branch of Williams & Glynns.


Lord Street is known for its shopping with designer clothes stores like Jaeger's.


Of course, it is also a place for people-watching,


animal watching,


or simply window-gazing.


Special events sometimes take place on Lord Street. This smooth operator was part of a European Food Festival.

A bonus photograph and links to some other Southport posts can be found at my entry on ABC Wednesday.

More L posts can be seen on the ABC Wednesday Anthology blog.

Others can be found via the ABC Wednesday with Mister Linky which carries a registry of participants.

ABC Wednesday - H is for Holiday

H is for Holiday and that's what I'm on.

We are presently staying at the Park Hotel in Paignton, Devon.

The photo is from hotel's website - I've not actually been given permission to use it here so I'll probably replace it later with one I take myself.

I'm posting this early (pre-dated) as, although I expect to be able to access the internet at the local library, I don't know just when, and even so, I might decide not to bother.

See you all next week.

one line haiku

The theme this week at One Deep Breath is one-line haiku.

Here is a selection of haiku written during our visit to Tenerife in February 2006.

1. lift music wafts down the corridor into our room



2. two palm trees a ladies old bicycle parked between



3. purple flowers opposite burnt-out remains of mini-golf



4. skateboard park iron bars at the entrance to the church



5. on the roof outside the nudist zone topless sunbathers



6. among dunes across the old crater snow and stones



7. hillside terraces hang uncultivated between land-slips



8. overcoats strewn on hotel lobby cases the weather back home



9. red sailboat at the side of the motorway by a bus stop

## 2 & 6 were published in Time Haiku (UK).

## 4, 5 & 9 and the above charcoal were published in The Sons of Camus Writers International (Canada).

Eria Resort

It hardly seems like to just a week since we came back from Crete.

We stayed at Eria Resort



Our room was on the ground floor so we had a view of part of the pool area.

The first floor rooms had this view towards the village.



My report on the hotel has just been published on Trip Advisor

I hope I haven't been too harsh with my criticism there.

(29th Oct: I've just had a strongly worded email from the hotel manager objecting to my report)

We had lovely weather, around 28 celsius in the day and 20 at night.

On our last morning we had a tremendous downpour but it cleared up soon after.

We've just heard now that there has been torrential rain and flooding in Crete with roads washed away and damage to crops &c.