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Spear Street, MANCHESTER, M1 1DF

Dereliction very near to the city centre.

One of the small snugs in Image Note the call buttons on the wall above the settles, that can still be used to call for service

Looking down Spear Street from Great Ancoats Street.

Traditional city-centre pub on Oldham Street; listed in 2012 Good Beer Guide. Internally, small bar at front, with fine tile- and stucco work; corridor leading to two further rooms at the back, and a tiny patio. Cask ales on offer at my visit: Robinson Dark Hatter, Dizzy Blonde, Old Stockport, Young Tom. For some customer comments, see http://www.beerintheevening.com/pubs/s/26/26521/Castle_Hotel/Manchester

A small, but highly visitable traditional pub in the Northern Quarter.

"The Castle Hotel was built in 1789. Records show that it was a pub by 1816 but the present interior likely dates back to 1897." http://manchesterhistory.net/manchester/tours/tour4/area4page49.html (Manchester History). "An 1849 map shows it used to be the Crown & Anchor. ... It opened in around 1778 as the Crown & Sceptre. Following years as the Crown & Anchor, the pub was known as the Clock Face until the 1920s. The place was only named the Castle when Robinson's Brewery bought it from Kays Atlas Brewery in 1936. The same landlady was here for many years in the latter part of the 20th century until her death and legend has it that her ashes were plastered into the wall so that she could remain here for ever." http://pubs-of-manchester.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Castle%20-%20Oldham%20Street (Pubs of Manchester) "The Castle Hotel started life in 1776, although records show that there has been a dwelling on the site since the 1400s. Over the course of a century the pub changed name several times, trading first as The Crown and Sceptre, then The Crown and Anchor and later The Clock Face. In the late nineteenth century the pub was acquired by Kay’s Atlas Brewery and started a new chapter as The Castle Hotel; which is probably when the current tiled façade and bar were added. In the early 1930s Frederic Robinson took over Kay's Atlas Brewery and, consequently, The Castle Hotel. ... Sadly, The Castle fell on hard times and closed its doors in 2008. This cherished public house was not to remain closed for long though, and in 2009 friends Jonny Booth and Rupert Hill took over The Castle Hotel and set about bringing the decrepit building back to life. After a period of restoration which saw the infamous leaky roof replaced and the pub's entire interior sympathetically brought back in line with its rich heritage, the renovation was completed in October 2010." https://thecastlehotel.info/ (Castle Hotel's own web site). It is Grade II listed https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1246280 Image Bob Harvey recently went Image

Preparation for erection of a five storey apartment building.

Taken in 1987 - the bus liveries have changed since then, but the pub hasn't.

Sign for the Castle Image