Plymouth Grove Public House...

I thought I knew most of the interesting buildings in Manchester but it still can surprise me. I was in the University district. Oxford Road is the main axis, always busy and lined with impressive buildings. Most people don't venture far from that area but I had reason to and found myself on Plymouth Grove which leads fro the university towards Longsight. The university and the hospitals are spreading that way and the old working people areas (I hate the term working class, it sounds like a 'keep in you place' sort of term) behind the campuses is disappearing.

But not all. I found this beautiful, Victorian pub called the Plymouth Grove. It must have been quite a landmark in the suburb it served. It stopped being a pub a while ago. A quick google told me that a lot of the interior features disappeared a while back and it has been used as a cannabis farm. You need a lot of heat and damp to grow cannabis (so I'm told, I may have won an award for garden design but I've never, knowingly, grown anything illegal) and the building was damaged by that.

It looks like it's being spruced up. More googling and I found out that a Mancunian Chinese businessman is opening it as a Chinese restaurant with apartments above. Being close to the universities and the hospitals it will do well hopefully.

The part I really liked was the beautiful clock tower over the entrance. A gem of a building that's worth going to look out. You're very close to Mrs Gaskell's rather splendid villa which does a lovely pot of tea and and bun when it's open.