'It was all factories but now a house is £500k'

Damon Wilkinson heads to New Cross, once 'the edgy part of the city'

- Damon Wilkinson

BRIDGET Doherty is remembering the days when sweatshops and packing firms lined Oldham Road. "It was all factories," she says. "You could get sacked from one job and walk right next door and get another straight away.

"It was the same with pubs - you came out of one, walked a couple steps and you were in another."

Now the inner-city district of Manchester traditionally known as New Cross has changed dramatically. Most of the pubs are long gone and the factories have been replaced by hotels and tower blocks.

And even the name New Cross has fallen out of use, having been swallowed up by the Northern Quarter and Ancoats in the headlong rush of regeneration that is modern-day Manchester. Roughly bordered by Swan Street - one of the oldest roads in Manchester still in use - Oldham Road and Rochdale Road, New Cross takes its name from a cross that used to stand outside the Crown and Kettle pub. Trams and stagecoaches stopped here on their way out of town, while its proximity to the old Smithfield markets meant it was an important meeting point for traders and travellers.

It was the home of some of Manchester's first printers, who produced the 'penny broadside ballads' versions of popular songs sung in pubs whose lyrics had been changed to reflect topical subjects. And its location, on the fringes of the city centre, meant it was also a hotbed of dissent, debauchery and unrest, such as the food riots of 1812 and the slaying of William Bradshaw and Joshua Whitworth in the aftermath of Peterloo.