Manchester’s Northern Quarter is generally marked out between Piccadilly, Victoria and Ancoats, and centred on Oldham Street, just off Piccadilly Gardens. It was an invention of the 1990s, defined and named as part of the regeneration and gentrification of Manchester.

A centre of alternative and bohemian culture, the area is usually considered to be contained within Newton Street (borders with Piccadilly Basin), Great Ancoats Street (borders with Ancoats), Back Piccadilly (borders with Piccadilly Gardens) and Swan Street/High Street (borders with Shudehill/Arndale). Popular streets include Oldham Street, Tib Street, Newton Street, Lever Street, Dale Street, Hilton Street and Thomas Street.

The “Northern Quarter” as such did not exist as a distinct area until the mid-1990s when a number of interested parties got together and defined a boundary, came up with the name and branded the area as such. This has proved extremely successful.

The Northern Quarter is popular today for its numerous bars and cafes, as well as its mix of music and clothes shops. Amongst these is Affleck’s Palace, a former department store which has been turned into a multi-storey bazaar for alternative clothing and knick-knacks.

Meanwhile, the area is something of a mecca for DJs, with shops such as Piccadilly Records, Vinyl Exchange, Vox Pop Records, Beatin’ Rhythm, Vinyl Resting Place, Eastern Bloc Records (formerly owned by Martin Price of 808 State, then by Pete Waterman) and, until 2009, Fat City Records (formerly run by Mark Rae). Nightlife in the Northern Quarter includes music venues. The area is also famous for its bar scene.

The area is also known as a home to the creative industries, and in particular fashion design, with various designers, agencies, and clothing wholesalers populating its back streets. There are also a number of commercial art galleries in the area and street art is on prominent display. In Stevenson Square, the street level remains of a former public convenience are used by the OuthouseMCR organisation for regularly changing examples of street and graffiti art. OuthouseMCR also manages the urban art which decorates an electrical sub-station on Tib Street. On one wall of the sub-station, protected by Perspex, is said to be a painting by the artist Banksy. The Northern Quarter also hosts the Big Horn sculpture.

Additionally, due to the area’s architecture, the Northern Quarter has been used various times as filming locations. The 2004 film Alfie used the area to double for Manhattan, as did the 2011 Hollywood superhero film Captain America: The First Avenger, which used Dale Street as its location for 1940s New York. Additionally, various parts of Manchester, many in the Northern Quarter, were used in filming Guy Ritchie’s 2009 film Sherlock Holmes.

Manchester City Council have recognised the unique nature of the Northern Quarter. A 2003 planning document stated: The Northern Quarter (N4) is strategically placed between the main Manchester retail and commercial core, Piccadilly Gateway, Ancoats and Shudehill. It represents a key piece in the city centre jigsaw, an area different in character and function to any other part of the city centre and of great strategic importance to Manchester as a city of distinctive quarters.

In November 2010 the area was awarded the Great Neighbourhood of the Year Award 2011 for Britain and Ireland at the Academy of Urbanism Awards in London.

The photographs were taken on a walkabout in and around Manchester’s Northern Quarter, starting at Shudehill Interchange Bus & Coach Station and ending in Piccadilly Square.