A Walk Along the Cornbrook Part 2: The Old Abbey Taphouse
Original content by Dr John Piprani. Edited by Grant Collier.
The Cornbrook flows past the Old Abbey Taphouse, a pub that was built between 1884 and 1891 and was named after Chorlton Abbey. It was here that Len Johnson took a historic stand against the pub’s racist ‘colour bar’ policy. Situated in Hulme, an area of Manchester with strong Afro-Caribbean and Irish heritage, the Taphouse provides an important community space for people in the local area today.
In 1953 the pub was visited by Len Johnson, a black middleweight boxer from Clayton, north Manchester. He was refused service at the pub due to the ‘colour bar’, a racist policy of segregation that prevented black and Asian people from entering pubs, bars and restaurants. In the following weeks, campaigning by Johnson, his friends and members of the local community led to the colour bar being removed at the Old Abbey Taphouse, although the policy remained in other establishments across Manchester and the rest of the country. Today, the pub runs a number of successful community-focussed projects such as providing free meals and paid work experience.
Discussion points:
- Think about the Old Abbey Taphouse and its local area. How has this changed since the eighteenth, nineteenth, twentieth centuries?
- What relevance does the history of the Old Abbey Taphouse have today?
