Looking for a pint and a film on Wilmslow Road, a lost pub and a vanished cinema

What was the White Lion, today in May 2014

Now when Andy posted his most recent set of pictures he warned me I would be upset.

They are of Withington and in particular the old White Lion where I spent many happy hours in the early 1970s.

Back then I was less interested in this fine old building with its period features, and more with the dark slightly claustrophobic dive bar which was just the old beer cellar.

In a desperate attempt to sell more Watneys’ Red Barrel someone in advertising at the brewery had come up with a campaign based on revolutionary leaders and some catchy phrase based on red and revolution.

But it didn’t quite work for while there was Fidel Castro or it might have been Che Guevara there was also Khrushchev a figure who most people would not link with turning the world upside down even if you are a keen follower of the 20th Party Congress.

But enough of this and back to Andy’s comment which was more to do with the hole in the ground next to the pub.

When there was beer and films on the corner, 1930

This as many will know was once the Scala Cinema, which was one of our oldest surviving cinemas having been opened in 1912.

Here you could see the films you had missed in the city centre and at a fraction of the cost with the bonus that you didn’t have far to go to get a drink afterwards.

Sadly I cannot remember the interior at all or anything that I saw there and now it has gone.

There were grand ideas about keeping it open and for what would replace it.

None of these came to pass and yes Andy is right I am a tad upset mainly because like many of my generation I grew up with the cinema.

It started with Saturday Morning Pictures ran on with the big film you went to with your parents and then bit by bit it included the mucky films with your mates and the all to special trips with a girl friend.

The Scala cinema site, 2014

And it was value for money, two films, a newsreel along with some pretty dodgy adverts for Sid’s Second hand car business and the Shining Pearl Chinese Restaurant.

At which point someone will mutter “oh get with the times” and I suppose I am in danger of slipping into nostalgic tosh, so I shall leave you with these images and a promise of some iconic Withington pubs with long histories, all taken by Andy Robertson.

Pictures; Wilmlow Road, 1930, m41845, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and the rest by Andy Robertson