‘Eyesore’ historic shop to get new lease of life
AN eyesore former shop beneath Piccadilly railway station is being brought back to life.
In the 1950s, it was a bustling tobacconists and sweet shop – a must-stop destination for passengers about to board their trains.
And before that, in the 1890s, it was an antique store.
Today the shop, which is built into an archway below the Station Approach bridge to Piccadilly on London Road, is a shadow of its former self.
It was last used as a bookmakers. Graffiti now stains the rusting roller-shutter security doors.
However, Network Rail, who own the building, has announced a £50,000 project to restore the shop’s facade, mirroring the restoration in 2019 of the front of the former shipping and goods office further down London Road.
The shop’s tired masonry will be restored through a process of blasting and resealing.
Ornate timberwork will also be repaired and reinstated, with glazing also installed.
In the longer-term, it is hoped to secure funding to fix up the interior up – and try to find a new use or attract tenants into the unit.
Network Rail said the restoration work would see the building lose none of its charm.
Michael Cheadle, asset engineer for Network Rail, said: “This building has a colourful past from being an antique store in 1895 to a tobacco and sweet shop in the 1950s and then its most recent use as a betting shop.
“It’s now in a sorry state but this Network Rail investment will sympathetically restore the shop frontage turning it from an eyesore into something people in Manchester can enjoy for generations to come.”
The first permanent station in the area was Store Street Station, built by the Manchester and Birmingham Railway in 1842.
It was more or less on the site of the station’s present location.
Store Street was renamed Manchester London Road in 1847 and then, under nationalised control by British Railways in 1960, Manchester Piccadilly.
The first operator was the Manchester and Birmingham Railway and the first line only ran as far as Heaton Norris, Stockport.
Today its estimated more than 30 million passengers pass through the station a year.