Why the marvellous Marble Arch mustn’t be squeezed out by this high rise hell

We first met in 1983. It was love at first sight. Those tiles revealed, that mosaic floor unearthed. After your makeover you were intoxicatingly beautiful, Marble Arch. Not an opinion particularly shared by some decidedly unromantic fellow drinkers. 

It had taken me a huge effort to persuade a posse of hardened Daily Mirror sports hacks to trek through the urban wasteland that was Rochdale Road, Manchester. Just to see a pub brought back from the dead. Ten minutes each way from the Printworks when it was a print works, then called Maxwell House after Ghislaine’s ogre of a dad.

First time, last time. This had been valuable drinking time lost. All too soon our break would be over, as would the evening’s matches, copy phoned in, ready via hot metal to be turned into tomorrow’s newspaper (and later chip paper). Mirror circulation was over 3m, its sport section at its heart. Liverpool were Champions and European Cup-winners that season. 

Meanwhile, the Manchester-based national journos drank for England. Around Shudehill there was a phalanx of pubs to abet them. Really only the Hare and Hounds left today. And a lovely heritage interior it has, but not a patch on The Marble Arch, to which I have been a persistent pilgrim over these past four decades of irrevocable change. So imagine my horror when I heard that high rise urban transformation was threatening finally to engulf the Grade II listed building.

It’s not all ‘going to plan’ as the cranes gather

This world class hostelry, with beers from its own acclaimed brewery, is not facing demolition. Just being potentially spoilt by crass developers intent on cramming an extra 17-storey apartment block as close as possible. Let’s call it maximising development potential. Or greed. There isn’t even the usual ‘social housing’ proviso wheeled out.

The plan for ‘Downtown Victoria North Phase 2’ hadn’t originally been so threatening, but out of the blue in September Marble owner Jan Rogers discovered that the proposed Gateway Square breathing space, part of the original 2019 plans, is now going to be jettisoned. So much for the “sensitive approach” to the pub and its neighbours, with new buildings capped at six storeys to “respect and celebrate the character” of the site.

Thom Bamford has covered all this in detail in an excellent article for I Love Manchester. Please read and contribute to the public consultation. My contribution here is make the case for the pub I feel so close to. 

It’s not about NIMBY nostalgia. The Marble Arch is a major hospitality asset for Manchester. For personal reasons I’m less emotional about similar plans affecting the trad multi-room gem that is The Britons Protection (these are currently on hold, I believe). Even if it survives being closely cuddled by the 27-storey Apex Tower apartment block, in six years’ time it will sit in the immense shadow of what will be the city’s largest skyscraper at 860ft high. Extra huge welcome to Nobu Tower, just across the tramlines.

The game’s already up for the Lower Turk’s Head in the shadow of its 16 storey glass neighbour, Salboy’s ‘Shudehill Shard’; after protests the Sir Ralph Abercromby escaped demolition in the £400m St Michael’s re-development but that just feels like tokenism; the Jolly Angler, a basic boozer I felt more affection for remains an abandoned shell among the cranes around Piccadilly Station. 

So what makes the Marble Arch so special?

A very brief history first… The pub’s spectacular tile and mosaic interior dates back to 1888 when it was a showcase for McKenna’s Harpurhey Brewery. It was one of the first buildings in Manchester to have electric lighting.

At some point during the 20th century it passed into the stewardship of Wilson’s Brewery and was known as the Wellington Vaults. Eventually the locals’ nickname for it, the Marble Arch, stuck. In 1954, on an iconoclastic whim, that whole barrel vaulted ceiling and the amber frieze were covered over with chipboard and paint. 

A 1975 Manchester Pub Guide summed it up as a place “where the interest almost ceases on entry”. Apparently it was “very good if you want to watch TV.” A far cry from the entry  in Matthew Curtis’s 2023 Manchester Beer Pubs and Bars”: “While developers have sought to modernise the surrounding area the Arch has remained true to its heritage… this compact red brick building with its faux marble facade (it’s actually Shap granite) and pillars that bestraddle the entrance way feels as though it’s stood here for an eternity.”

Well, since 1983 when CAMRA stalwart, John Worthington, bought it, rescued its features and I made my own contribution to eternity. The key date for its current epic reputation is surely 1997. Recession was hitting hard, but Jan rejected plans by her colleagues Mark and Vance to focus on karaoke for salvation and instead launched Marble Brewery. Inspired. This was then well ahead of the craft beer game. 

A world class brewery that has led the way

Marble’s kit, in the pub cellar, was installed by the legendary Brendan Dobbin, one of the first brewers to use American and New Zealand hops in the UK at his West Coast Brewery in a less than gentrified Moss Side.

Original head brewer Dade left to set up Boggart Hole Clough Brewery in 2000 and was replaced by James Campbell. From then until he left in 2013 he created a famous roster of Marble ales – Manchester Bitter, Lagonda, Dobber, Pint, Ginger, Earl Grey IPA and more. 

I remember clambering down into the cramped brewery beneath the pub with James and his core team Dom Driscoll and Colin Stronge, both of whom, along with Rob ‘Blackjack’ Hamilton, to go on to illustrious brewing careers. Further high profile helming of Cloudwater and Sureshot earned Campbell himself the ‘Outstanding Achievement’ gong at the Manchester 2023 Manchester Food and Drink Awards

All the Marble beers are vegetarian to this day. Jan’s son Joe Ince brews in a custom-built facility in Salford with the beers hugely popular across the free trade.

Still it remains that pub interior that draws aficionados from across the world. Remarkably the exterior was pictured in the Oxford Companion to Beer (2012), edited by Brooklyn Beer’s resident guru Garrett Oliver. Blame the UK editors. Not his fault that the colour plate montage of ‘London Pubs’ featured Rochdale Road’s finest. Alongside the likes of The Cheshire Cheese. Some confusion with the metropolis’s monumental clogged traffic island?

Our own Arch feels very much part of Manchester. Welcoming to old regulars, hardcore ale tourists and a curious new generation checking it out. Over time, of course, it has gently morphed. The bric and brac of four decades has accumulated. It all feels beautifully lived in and shared. They’ve never attempted to rectify the slightly sloping mosaic floor, though the original bar on the side was switched to the back, where the nine hand pulls and eight keg taps live; behind this was added a kitchen and small refectory. The outside beer area thrives spite of the constant construction hubbub.

Not just any pie and pint

The food is consistently excellent. On my visit to discuss the planning rumpus with Jan I couldn’t resist The Pie (or Heaven In a Crust), featuring “Marble stout marinated feather blade steak with drunken onion and boozy gravy”. There’s a choice of mash or thick-cut chips; mushy peas or buttered greens. It’s never going to lift the place into the Estrella Damm Top 50 Gastropubs. But then few of those Farrow-and-Balled ‘rural idylls’ could ever match the beer offering here. Or the wit of the clientele.

With the pie I had a pint of Earl Grey IPA. Dangerously drinkable at 6.8 per cent, it’s just one delicious example of the international reach of this new wave Manchester brewing pioneer (Jan is a big fan of one of its successors, Track). 

‘Earl Grey’ was created initially as a collaboration with Dutch breweries de Molen and Kees. As the name suggests, the process involves the addition of that tea scented with bergamot. A far cry from the 19th century Harpurhey small beer brewing culture.

As I head out in the late afternoon it is filling up nicely with folk whose love of ale-fuelled camaraderie has made them brave the roadwork chaos outside (pavements shut off, buses prevented from stopping). In such fractured times more than ever we can’t afford to lose our Marbles.