Burnage Manchester – Oasis Country and Suburban South Manchester

Noel and Liam Gallagher grew up on Cranbourne Avenue in Burnage, in a semi-detached house that looks exactly like every other semi-detached house on every other street in this part of south Manchester. The ordinariness is the point. The particular chip on shoulder that made Oasis what they were – the sense of being from somewhere that didn’t matter, of reaching for something bigger while carrying the weight of where you came from – comes directly from this kind of neighbourhood.

Sifters Records on Fog Lane is a Manchester institution and one of the places Noel Gallagher has cited as formative. It’s a proper independent record shop – knowledgeable staff, stock that goes beyond the obvious, the kind of place where you come in for one thing and leave an hour later having spent more than you planned. Still operating, still independent, still one of the better record shops in the city.

Burnage is a reasonable place to live in south Manchester – more affordable than Didsbury, better connected than it looks (the Metrolink runs through), and with the solid infrastructure of a working suburban neighbourhood. The high street along Kingsway and the local shops serve the community. The pubs are old-fashioned Manchester boozers rather than craft beer bars. The parks are functional.

Burnage edges into East Didsbury, and the border is visible in the housing stock – the Didsbury side gets progressively more expensive, the gardens bigger, the cars newer. Burnage proper has none of that self-consciousness. It’s a place people live rather than a place people perform living in. In Manchester terms that’s worth something.

• Longsight Manchester Guide
• Category/neighbourhoods