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Grampian House, 144
Deansgate
 This building, at 144 Deansgate, is
Grampian House, home to The Lost Dene pub and four
floors of offices. I have been unable to find
the exact date when it was built but I suspect the
1930s. A review of the Manchester Local History
Image Collection came up with two images of the
building.
The first image is dated January
16, 1940.
Grampian House 1940 It shows the building occupied
by a store of some kind with the letter "W"
displayed on the awning. There is also a
large vertical sign displaying the store's name
but unfortunately it is facing away from the
camera. After consulting the Slaters
Directory for Manchester and Salford for 1938 I
discovered that the occupant was Jas Woodhouse
& Son, House Furnishers. Woodhouse &
Son had branches in a number of cities and were
part of the British and Colonial Furniture
Company.
The store front is altered in this photograph.
The awning has gone but this time the name of the
store is clear to see. "SMARTS" were also a
furniture store.
 Smarts also had branches across
Britain and, as indicated on the advert above, at
some point they had a shop on Victoria Street in
Manchester. Whether that was before or after
this one I don't know but Slaters Directory shows
them at 144 Deansgate in 1959.
I haven't discovered when Smarts
left the building but at some point the ground floor
was converted into a pub. Before it was the Lost
Dene, it was called The Hog's Head.
    In the 1800s the site of Grampian
House was occupied by two buildings, the King's Head
Hotel and a workshop for Henshaw's Institute for the
Blind, as you can see on the map segment below, dated
1886.
 If you click on the link below, you
can see the site circa 1900 when both of those
buildings were still there.
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