If there's one street in Manchester that can lay claim to having the wildest back-story, surely Tib Street would be in the running.
Named after the River Tib, the tiny Northern Quarter street has a huge history. Tib Street – or to be precise – upper Tib Street, is now known for its independent bars and cafes.
However, it was once a hotspot for both pet shops and sex shops, with both seemingly disparate businesses happily co-existing. Early references to Tib Street by James Middleton in the Victorian age reference the former connection, describing it as "a perfectly adorable street, where natural history was taught by living examples...birds, dogs, rabbits, poultry displayed in the windows or outside the shops".
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Tib Street has its origins in the 1780s and was previously the central trading district of Victorian Manchester as well as the city's main shopping district in the post-war years. It was always associated with animals and livestock but its trade became geared more towards domestic pets as the area developed in the early 1900s.
A journalist in The Clarion newspaper in 1908 described the street's colourful trade, saying: "There are all sorts of animals in Tib Street. You can buy snakes and young crocodiles, parrots, hedgehogs, tortoises, and song birds. There are people in Tib Street who will sell you a dog – in more senses than one, if you are not careful."
In 1923, the Manchester Evening News reported Tib Street traders selling "little birds in little cages, puppy dogs, satanic parrots and screeching parakeets." One of the longest serving pet shops on the street was run by a man named Walter Smith.
Smith inherited the family pet shop from his parents and had been trading for years even before it was taken over by another family in 1972. When Kenneth Brown took over the business in the early '70s, he opted to keep the original shop's name as it was synonymous with the street which was still a buzzing pet shop paradise.
However, the closure of Smithfield Market in 1972 and arrival of Manchester Arndale in 1975 thinned the footfall on the street signalling the end of the pet shops. Walter Smith's pet store was one of the few remaining to stay open. It was the last remaining pet shop from its famous era when it finally closed its doors in 2004.
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But as the pet shops closed their doors in the '70s, a new type of business began to appear. On the out-of-sight and narrow Tib Street, sex shops started to emerge.
The early 1970s saw a boom in sex shops in Britain, reportedly influenced by a change in social attitudes and the proliferation of sex shops opening throughout Europe the time.
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Speaking to the MEN in 2017, Claire Turner, who co-owns the street's jazz bar Matt and Phred's, said: "I actually remember all the birds and fish shops. I remember Tib Street from when we used to get the bus into town and it was the pet shops and the sex shops all in the same place."
But while the pet shops began to close their doors, the sex shops continued to trade for years after. That was until 2021, when the last sex shop on Tib Street closed for good, bringing the era to an end.
Just as the closing of Smithfield Market and the opening of Manchester Arndale in the '70s ended the pet shop trade on Tib Street, the internet and the continued gentrification of the Northern Quarter no doubt brought an end to Manchester's own little Soho.
Does this story awaken any memories for you? Let us know in the comments section below.
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