IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Richmond Street, MANCHESTER, M1 3NB

The mural on the gable end of The Molly House on Richmond Street honours Manchester's most famous gay people. Computing pioneer Alan Turing (bottom right), suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst (top left), writer Quentin Crisp (bottom left) and drag queens Foo Foo Lammar (top right) and Anna Phylactic (top) are all pictured. The design which incorporates artwork inspired by Anna Phylactic and dancing bears on a rainbow, was chosen after a public competition organised by gay community group Queerchester. It features winning artist Glenn Jones' creation along with designs by runner ups Lauren Jo Kelly, Adam Pryce and Mark Wallis. Professional street artists Hayley Garner (aka Aylo), from Rochdale, and Joy Gilleard (aka Cbloxx) from Leeds completed the work in September 2014. Image

Detail of the mural on the side of The Molly House Image featuring drag artist Anna Phylactic.

Sackville Street crosses the foreground.

The Molly House is a bar on Richmond Street at the centre of Manchester’s Village. In 18th century England, the term "molly" referred to an effeminate (usually homosexual) male http://rictornorton.co.uk/eighteen/molly2.htm . A molly house was a tavern or private room where gay and cross-dressing men could meet each other either for socializing or as possible sexual partners. Molly houses were one precursor to some types of gay bars. The enormous mural, which takes up the entire gable end of the building, was created in September 2014 to honour the city’s most famous gay people. It features five larger than life famous faces who are considered to be LGBT icons, two of which are very well known around Manchester’s gay scene; legendary drag queens Anna Phylactic (top) and Foo Foo Lammar (top right). The others are feminist Emmeline Pankhurst (top left), writer Quentin Crisp (bottom left) and computing pioneer Alan Turing (bottom right). The design, which also incorporates dancing bears on a rainbow, was chosen after a public competition organised by gay community group Queerchester. It features winning artist Glenn Jones' creation along with designs by runners up Lauren Jo Kelly, Adam Pryce and Mark Wallis (http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/pictured-artists-create-massive-mural-7827794 Manchester Evening News). The multi-coloured makeover to the side of the Victorian building took little more than a week to be completed. It was done using spray paint instead of brushes.

Aka Albert House. Built 1903 by Mills & Murgatroyd. Built of sandstone, brick and terracotta, all red. There is a nice sequence of arches on the first floor, and a nice wavy moulding above the end windows.

I have been experimenting both with the use of a prime lens and with night photography. These are very much the mark, it seems, of people who think themselves 'proper' photographers, or at least blog that they are. So I am having a go. Walk-to-zoom is fine, it's what we always used to do, but getting the exposure right at night is hard. I wasn't going to submit this one, but showed it to fellow geographists who assured me it was perfectly OK. I am not saying this is how the view looked to the naked eye, with the depth of field softened by an f2.8 lens. But it might well have looked exactly like this a few beers later.

The sign for The Goose Image

The Famous Paddys Goose is on Bloom Street, behind the Chorlton Street Bus Station. The pub dates back at least as far as the first half of the nineteenth century; it on the 1845 map of the area but at that time it was called "The Ram's Head" (http://manchesterhistory.net/manchester/pubs/paddysgoose.html Manchester History Net).