Afflecks -
Tib Street This building on Tib Street, in
Manchester's Northern Quarter, is occupied by Afflecks
and was once home to Affleck's Palace, an iconic,
trendy, fashion marketplace popular with Manchester's
youth. Today the building is adorned with a
dramatic galvanized steel tree created by the Manchester
blacksmith, David Hyde. In an article in the
Manchester Evening News on the 25th of June 2011, the
building's manager Tony Martin was quoted as saying
that, “We felt that the root of the tree would
represent Afflecks being first established in 1982
and the tree growing represents how the business has
evolved over the years.” He added
that, “I relished in the idea of being able to
create something that was slightly surreal and it
was great to be given the opportunity to bring
something rural in to the urban.”
The front of the building faces on to Oldham Street. The image below, taken in March of 2014, shows the façade that has been recently refurbished.  In 2012 a series of mosaics were added to the window spaces along Tib Street depicting aspects of Manchester's cultural, economic and sporting history. They were created by the mural artist Mark Kennedy.        The
building became Afflecks Palace in the
1980s and it traded under that name for
more than a decade until March of
2008.
 It reopened a month later, under new management by Bruntwood, the property developer, as Afflecks. The new "Afflecks" describes its offering as follows: "Afflecks is an emporium of eclecticism, a totem of indie commerce in Manchester’s Northern Quarter and above all else a fantastic place to shop for anything from Top hats to tattoos."    *************************** The
building, which runs from Tib Street to
Oldham Street along Dale Street, was once
owned by R. Lomas, a manufacturer and
retailer of mantles. This included a
wide variety of garments worn loosely over
other clothing. The most obvious
being cloaks.
Below you
can see a sketch map based on the 1888
map of this area showing the building in
question.
 In the
image below, taken from one of my old
postcards, you can see Lomas's on the left
as you look down Oldham Street.
 The image
below is even older and it gives you a
closer view of the building.
 When you blow up the image you can see Robert Lomas's name on the front.  At a
later date Lomas's gave way to
C&A. If you click on the
link below you can see the building
when C&A were in residence.
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