The Underground Market

(Photo not mine, obviously)

In 1972, a big underground market opened in Manchester. It's been described as a gem of small independent stores, highly popular to those who frequented it, sort of like Affleck's but downwards. If you're scratching your head thinking "Why haven't I heard of this awesome place? I must check it out on my next Manc shopping bonanza" then I'm sorry to disappoint. It closed in 1989, when the Arndale Shopping Centre became more popular. Its entrances were paved over, putting a featureless road where the downward steps once were, and the underground parts were largely destroyed by newer construction work. It's now just a fond memory for those who used to come here.

The entrance to the underground market does still exist though, albeit under the street. On my last trip to Manchester I decided it was finally time to lift a manhole cover and check it out. But first I decided that if I was going to go around a city opening manhole covers in the middle of very public streets, then I should at least be drunk first so that if the police showed up I could just lie and say I was just being impulsive. This manhole key? I found it over there, and none of this was planned, I swear!

I ended up getting sloshed in a pretty cool rock pub near Oxford Road Station. There was an open mic night so I stayed longer than intended. Once I eventually got off my ass and went to the underground market, some homeless people clocked me, knowing exactly what I was up to because they'd seen dozens of people do it before. Luckily they were friendly and decided to help. But being drunk and dyspraxic (a hilarious combo) I accidentally dropped the manhole lid down the shaft, where it landed with a loud CLANG, followed by a series of additional clangs getting progressively smaller.

 CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG. 

 

Shit, it's landed on stairs! I'm in the right place! And now I had the perfect excuse if the police showed up, because someone has to get that lid back before some random member of the public falls down the hole, and since I'm responsible, it's only right that it should be me, right? The homeless people grabbed a wheelie bin to park over the hole after I dropped down. And just like that I was on the old stairs to the underground market.

Isn't this amazing??? Think how many people have walked down these steps back in the day.

The broom looks comically modern, but the tiles on the walls are original 1970s features that would be familiar to anyone who came down here back in the day.

 

The remains of the handrails are still here, and some graffiti on the wall says "We found it," scrawled by others who have made the trip down into Manchester's history.

 

But what's actually down here now? Well... not a lot. The majority of the market has been blocked off and destroyed. But back in the 1970s there was about a hundred stores, and a few remnants of them still exist. 

 

A sign on the wall advertises "Factory prices."

And over here is an old store. The remnants of the title sign are still there.

Barely readable on the black horizontal strip are the words "Suede & Leather Bar," but it looks like another store had this space afterwards, because the "Ste" sign seems to be placed over it.

 

As well as the Suede & Leather Bar,  the underground market had "Stolen From Ivor," which was the first place in the north of England to stock Levis, a clothes shop named Zoeys, across from a cafe called Freddy's, and of course there was the alternative/punk store, Roxy's. 

Do all of these businesses have human names? I don't know if these were the official names, or if the owners were just so well known that people referred to the shops by their owners names. Unfortunately I only have one interior image from back then, and it's of Roxy's.

 

(Photo not mine, obviously)

 

It's blurry, and has absolutely no features that resemble what I'm photographing. I just have to take someone else's word for it that this store was down here.

 

The market was said to be a goldmine for people looking to buy records too, and also the only place in Manchester that sold skinny jeans. There were shops for jewelry, shoes, toys and also a store that printed custom T-shirts. Whatever anyone wanted, it seems the market could provide.

 

What's left of the market is pretty small, but I did notice that some of the breeze blocks at the back have been suspiciously removed. Clearly the interior of the market curved here, and more stores could potentially be found through this hole.

Scrambling through the hole, I found that the wall tiles continued, confirming that all of this had once been more of the market. Someone has tried to block it off. 

Check it out! An old fire hose reel! 

But beyond that, there's another wall of blocks. Some of these have been removed too, but it didn't seem to lead anywhere yet. But this does seem to be someones project, to slowly excavate the remains of the old market, so I'll just leave them to it and check back at a later date. 

It is weird to think that this fire hose, a remnant of the underground market, has been lost for decades behind a breeze block wall. The stairs and the remnants of Suede & Leather Bar are cool enough, but hidden only by a manhole cover. Whereas the fire hose took someone bashing a wall down to get to. It does make me wonder what else could be hidden down here.

And that's it for the underground market. It's only a small space underneath the streets of Manchester, but I just love that little glimpses into the cities history are still here to be found. I'm fairly certain most cities and towns will have things like this, just waiting for an imbecile with a manhole key to come along. I guess we never know what's beneath our feet.

As I exited the underground market, I passed the manhole lid up to the homeless people, and once I scrambled out, we put it back in place, sealing off the underground market once again. Had I not been drunk, I probably wouldn't have been quite so generous, but because they'd helped me I gave them £20 each.

They better not have spent it on crack.

 

My next blog will be a rather large, photogenic nightclub, and then after that I'll be heading back to my local blog to check out a little chapel. In the meantime, if you liked this post, want to see more, and would like semi-regular updates then the most efficient way to get them would be to follow my blogs social media. I'm on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter for some reason, and Reddit. The algorithms are shite, so I can't promise you'll see anything, but give it a go!

Thanks for reading!