The Bull's Head - Fairfield Street The Bull's Head sits
across London Road from Piccadilly Station and across
Fairfield street from the old Fire
Headquarters. As you can see from the sign,
this pub regards itself as "Your Local in the Heart of
the City". Today it is a Marston's pub but during
its life it has also been affiliated with both Wilson's
and Burtonwood.
  I have seen it suggested
that the pub dates from 1786 but surprisingly it doesn't
appear on the 1849 map of the area, shown below.
In those days the street layout was somewhat different
but I have marked the building at the corner of London
Road and Granby Row with a red spot. This is where
the Bull's Head should be. The Wheat Sheaf
Pub, 5 buildings to the left is marked but not the
Bull's Head. However, perhaps it is an oversight
because it is clearly bigger than the dwellings between
it and the Wheat Sheaf.
 By the time the Adshead
Map was published in 1851 (an excerpt is shown below
with the permission of Chetham's Library), The Bull's
Head is there on the corner of Granby Row, with the
Wheat Sheaf to its left.
 At some point in the
next 35 years the configuration of the streets
changed dramatically. Fairford Street was
born. It was pushed through diagonally from
London Road just to the left of the Bull's Head
cutting a swathe through the houses. In my
version of the 1886 map below, you can see that this
left the Bull's Head on the island site you see it
on today.
 You can see the new
layout in the aerial photograph below. The
Bull's Head is 1ndicated by the red arrow. The
Wheat Sheaf Pub was a victim of either the street
re-alignment or, more likely, it was swept away when
the fire station was built.
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