A Little Tour of Manchester's Northern Quarter

Happy Monday, everyone! Let's start off the week with a little tour around Manchester's Northern Quarter, which is still my favourite area in Manchester City Centre. A few years back, it was a little-known post-industrial area, with scaffolding hiding most of the beautiful buildings, and tiny hidden bars (I remember the days when my husband and I could be the only people enjoying a cocktail in Socio Rehab on a Friday evening!) - but now bar after bar, boutique after boutique, and restaurant after restaurant have sprung up, and the area is rammed every weekend with people spilling beer on each other. Ah, Manchester. How I love you.

This photo shows the top end of the High Street which includes, in a row - Sweet Mandarin restaurant (Chinese), followed by my favourite restaurant in Manchester (The Northern Quarter Restaurant), Socio Rehab (once awesome cocktail-bar, famous for its Roasted Pepper Margaritas and Gingerbread Martinis, now past its best), and what used to be my favourite bar in Manchester, the teeny tiny 'oh-it's-like-being-in-your-trendy-friend's-living-room-drinking-margaritas' Rodeo, which sadly became a tiki bar (apparently the bar staff were tired of making one margarita after another) and lost its charm somewhat:

You see the white building on the left? That's the Design House, an apartment building. You see the window on bottom right hand of the Design House, on the ground floor? Andre and I used to live in that flat - we moved in before anyone had really heard of the Northern Quarter, and moved out again once everyone else heard of it, and we got tired of being woken up at 4am on a Tuesday by people vomiting outside the front door. Yes, classy:

Here's my favourite building in the Northern Quarter - the Pink House. Gotta love a bright pink building:

Here's the legendary Manchester Craft Centre - I have a little tour of the Craft Centre coming up soon, so watch this space :-)

Classic Manchester - brand new contemporary glass building (actually a car park), Victorian brick building in the background, a tattoo parlour, and for your convenience, should a surfeit of Gingerbread Martinis in Socio have compelled you to acquire some ink announcing your love for a mysterious gentleman called Bob, a tattoo removal parlour. Oh, and the street is called Salmon Street, which is not as funny as Whipmawhopmagate in York, but still makes me giggle when I see it (can you imagine a Seabass Street? or a Prawn street?):

Here's the wonderful Urbis (which is sadly closing shortly), alongside the old Corn Exchange, which has been transformed into the Triangle, a nice little shopping centre:

And here's Exchange Square, which houses Selfridges, Harvey Nicks, the Manchester Wheel, Urbis, the Triangle, some attractive metal sculptural thingies, a legendary oyster bar, the biggest Next in Europe (yeah, I was gutted when I realised that's what they were building), and plenty of birch and eucalyptus trees:

And that's the end of the tour - I hope you enjoyed it :-)

Back tomorrow with some more splendid Nestage! Stay tuned...

Psst! If you liked this, you may also like...

Local: A Sunday morning tour of my neighbourhood (West Didsbury)

Shopping: Lovely finds from the Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair

Art & Interiors: Room design based on Van Gogh's 'Room At Arles'

Christmas Gift Round-Up - Etsy Manchester Sellers

So far I've featured two Etsy Christmas round-ups - one for Christmas cards, and another for stylish gifts for the dog-lover in your life. Check them out here and here. I'm back with a third round-up - this time I'm looking at sellers who are local to Manchester, my home town:

Source and source

I love how Manchester is one perpetual contrast between vintage and contemporary. Sometimes it feels as if the entire city is made from either Victorian red brick, or 21st century green glass. I like it a lot.

First of all, let's take a look at these quirky box canvases by Art Angel, which are created using collaged papers, acrylic paints, ribbon, lace, buttons:

I recognised these immediately from the window of Novus, a cool contemporary gallery in West Didsbury - you can check out a photo of Novus here from my recent West Didsbury Sunday morning tour.

I love these slouchy, boho, organic bags by Edward de Lacey:

Each one is made by hand by Edward and is completely unique. If you like carrying things that no one else has got, then these are the handbags for you.

These fabric book bags by Lilly Blossom are very clever - simply slot the front and back covers of a book inside, and behold, you have a cute little bag to carry your book around in:

How beautiful are those wooden bowls by Serlewood? I love woodwork which shows off the natural grain, textures and flaws of the wood:

These printed tea-towels, mugs and fabric bags from Mr. PS are cute:

The designer, Megan Price, has been featured in British Vogue and French Elle, and is inspired by vintage signage, eating and drinking, and the great British seaside. Me likey.

Aisling Law is a textile designer who specialises in screen printed wall art. She sells beautiful screen printed canvases and cards - many of which are inspired by the Manchester landscape:

When I look closely at her canvases I can see the windows of famous Manchester streets like Newton Street. I remember learning to screen print in art class at school - it's something I'd love to take up again one day.

Finally, I adore the work of Elizabeth Prince (I featured one of her bowls in a room design based on Van Gogh's Room at Arles a few weeks ago):

Elizabeth's ceramics are just stunning. I have seen them up close, and the contrast between the delicacy of the shapes and the rough texture of the finish is quite startling.

Don't we have a lot of talented Etsy designers in Manchester? I hope you feel a little bit inspired by this selection. I know I would be very happy to find a gift or two from this round-up under the Christmas tree.

As I've been writing this, I've realised that yet again I've featured a predominantly scarlet and blue selection. What can I say, I just love that colour combination. You can check out our scarlet and blue kitchen here, here and here.

Back tomorrow with more festive Nestery!