A maze of backstreet venues and dingy alleyways, the streets were bulldozed to make way for the giant shopping centre
A warren of characterful Victorian streets and alleyways was sacrificed for the building of Manchester's Arndale Centre.
The clubs included Manchester Cavern on Cromford Court, where American blues stars - like Little Walter and Sister Rosetta Tharpe played, alongside The Rolling Stones, The Kinks and Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders. It would be almost another 20-years before the Arndale would be built, transforming the city centre when it became Europe's largest shopping centre when it opened in 1976 at a cost of £100m. Although this district of the city has now gone, thankfully, the fantastic record archives at Manchester Libraries have images of the lost streets, shops and venues.
The walls along the street were lined with the much-derided 'bile yellow' ceramic tiles that covered the rest of the mall. And the road was also home to main entrance to the Arndale's underground bus station. Apart from the beat clubs and coffee clubs, many of which were swept away by the new law, there were more traditional venues at Cromford Court. Like the Fatted Calf, where it is reputed that Manchester Evening News and Manchester Guardian journalists founded the National Union of Journalists - a ginnel alongside it called ‘Pie Entry’.The Fatted Calf featured in the 1960, Hammer film noir Hell Is A City, which was filmed entirely in Manchester.
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