Marble Arch
Public House - Rochdale Road The Marble Arch Public
House occupies the corner of Rochdale Road and Gould
Street. As the image below shows, a date plaque
indicates that it was built in 1888. The pub was
designed by Darbyshire and Smith. Pevsner says of
it that it has, "... an unusual jack-arch ceiling
with exposed cast iron-beams supported by tile-clad
brackets."
The Adshead map of 1851,
below, shows that a public house stood on this corner
but it was called the "Wellington Inn". The 1863
Slater's Directory of Manchester & Salford lists ten
Wellington pubs in the twin cities.
However the date plaque
on today's building says 1888, so if that is correct,
the present building must be a replacement for the
original Wellington Inn. However, the name seems
to have lived on because the link below shows the pub in
1971 when it was called the Wellington Vaults. At
that time it was a Wilsons house
Wellington Vaults 1971 Apparently it was bought
in 1984 by a member of CAMRA (The Campaign for Real Ale)
and turned into a free house. Since then ownership
has changed on a number of occasions and in more recent
times the building has been altered to accommodate a
micro-brewery. In 2011 the Marble Brewery occupies
a portion of the site. Apparently, the brewery
consists of a five barrel plant, designed and installed
by Brendan Dobbin, former proprietor of the West Coast
Brewing Company, Manchester.
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