Levenshulme

Levenshulme is a small suburb in Manchester. It has about 15k inhabitants and can be found just outside of the city centre.

Interestingly, nobody knows about the early history of Levenshulme. There is nothing written down. We know it existed, but what happened there is anybody’s guess. The rest of the areas have a history, but not Levenshulme. Any history is just a guess.

In fact, the main ‘claim to fame’ that Levenshulme has is rooted in legend. Dick Turpin, he existed. No doubt about that. However, it is claimed that Dick Turpin spent some time in Levenshulme. At the Blue Bell Inn found on Barlow Road. The original inn he would have stayed in was destroyed during a German Bombing Raid in World War II, but it has since been rebuilt.

Do you love your biscuits? Well, a good chance that some of them were made in Levenshulme. It is the home to the McVitie & Price biscuit factory, so all the fan favourites are all within the area limits.

Levenshulme is mostly an ‘old’ area. Despite some parts of Levenshulme being the target of bombing raids throughout the War, most of the old buildings still remain. You have terraced housing built in the late 1800s. It is your standard ‘two up-two down’ building.

Weirdly enough, despite being quite an old area, Levenshulme does follow a grid pattern in its construction, at least the houses. It was an old by-law in the area to allow horse and carts to travel around the back of houses. Although, nowadays a lot of these old alleys are closed off by Manchester City Council as they are believed to be a threat to home security. Many of the roofs in this area have been replaced many times over the years. Some have had their slate roof replaced with tiles and in some you can ever see slate and the front and tiles at the back where the owners have tried to keep the costs down but still keep the housing looking great from the street. Other parts of the suburb like the streets of the Stockport Road are full of tiled terraces houses. Good job we are used to dealing with neighbours when the scaffold needs to go up.

Levenshulme is one of a few suburbs which never actually wanted to be part of Manchester. However, it was becoming incredibly difficult for Levenshulme to provide everything that its residents needed, particularly when it came to water, electric and gas, which meant that eventually Levenshulme needed to put itself under the leadership of Manchester City Council.

Being part of Manchester proper did bring some benefit to Levenshulme, though. It was able to get a tramway into the area, which was built at the start of the First World War, which really did contribute to the growth of the town. It also meant that people could now live here and have an easier commute into the centre of Manchester.