Manchester Directory

Young people’s theatre championing new writing, diverse voices and experimental work from emerging artists. Recently renovated space on Oxford Road.

Vintage-styled two-floor venue on Grosvenor Street with live music upstairs and a bar and club space below.

Restored Victorian home where Elizabeth Gaskell wrote North and South and other major novels. Period rooms, gardens and literary events on Plymouth Grove.

Over 100 cocktails at student-friendly prices. Oxford Road’s long-standing favourite for cheap, fun drinking.

Three-venue music complex at University of Manchester – a live music institution.

A 50-metre Olympic-standard pool on Oxford Road, built for the 2002 Commonwealth Games and open to the public every day. One of the best pools in the country.

A 1,000-capacity venue in the university student union. Cheap gigs, emerging bands, club nights. Where students see their first proper shows.

Recently renovated free museum on Oxford Road. Stan the T-Rex, live vivarium, world cultures galleries and hands-on exhibits for families.

Emmeline Pankhurst’s former home where the suffragette movement began. Free museum on Nelson Street – a small building with world-changing history.

The Royal Northern College of Music on Oxford Road. Student performances, professional concerts, many of them free. Proper concert hall acoustics.

A spectacular Edwardian hotel lobby bar – Manchester’s grandest social space.

Internationally acclaimed gallery in parkland on Oxford Road. Always free.

Free gallery with textiles, contemporary art and a glass extension that blurs the line between gallery and park. Oxford Road.

Free art gallery and community hub on Oxford Road, set in Whitworth Park with collections and education programmes.

Four-floor venue – basement club, pink rooftop bar, record shop and cafe.

Pakistani and Indian cooking near Oxford Road – charcoal grill downstairs, proper chai room upstairs.